7 U2 7identity with its grandiose sound; a merger of the Edge’s
minimal, reverb-drenched guitar; and Bono’s quasi-operatic
vocals. The band members were attending a Dublin second-
ary school when they began rehearsing, undeterred by
their lack of technical expertise. The band’s early records
were characterized by an intense spirituality, and they
commented on social and political issues, such as the civil
strife in Northern Ireland, with compassion and tender-
ness. The group became renowned for its inspirational live
performances and was a word-of-mouth sensation long
before it made much of an impact on the pop charts. But,
with the multimillion-selling success of The Joshua Tree
album (1987) and the number one hits “With or Without
You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,”
U2 became pop stars. On Rattle and Hum (1988), a double
album and documentary movie, the band explored
American roots music—blues, country, gospel, and folk—
with typical earnestness but were pilloried by some critics
who found the project pompous.
U2 reinvented itself for the new decade, reemerging in
1991 with the album Achtung Baby and a sound heavily
influenced by European experimental, electronic, and
disco music. With this came a stage show that trafficked
in irony and self-deprecating humour, qualities virtually
absent from the band’s music in the previous decade; the
1992 Zoo TV tour was one of the most technically ambi-
tious and artistically accomplished large-scale rock
spectacles ever staged. But, despite the flashier exterior,
the band’s lyrics remained obsessed with matters of the
soul. The dehumanizing aspects of media and technology
were a recurring theme on subsequent records, even as the
band immersed itself in techno textures.
In 1997 the band rush-released the Pop album to fulfill
obligations for a stadium tour and was greeted with its
worst reviews since Rattle and Hum. Another reinvention