Dez's 5 Star Albums: U-V

Sometimes an intangible greatness springs from collaborating/struggling between certain people. Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Chilton/Bell, The Davies brothers…I would add Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy of Uncle Tupelo to that list. Uncle Tupelo was shortlived (four studio records), and both men moved on to bigger success, Farrar with his solo work and Son Volt, and Tweedy, of course, with Wilco. But I think their synergy made Uncle Tupelo something really special. All of the pairs listed above were better together than separate.

U2 – War (1983): The culmination of their early period, U2’s heart-on-their-sleeve martial music was finally stadium ready; listen to this record today and you can still feel a rush of excitement and sincerity before Bono discovered irony.

U2 – The Unforgettable Fire (1984): I think the key to U2’s staying power is that they usually know when they have reached the end of a particular musical road, and they are willing to take chances and change course; this moody and beautiful record was their first collaboration with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois and an experimental break from the sound that they had finally perfected on the previous record.

U2 – The Joshua Tree (1987): I’ve written about TJT at length, recall when I did my favorite albums countdown list, TJT came it at #1 and it would remain there today; perfectly written, perfectly produced, perfectly performed, perfectly paced, it is an album that evokes so much and is unabashedly ambitious. (NOTE: The deluxe edition with the bonus disc full of b-sides and outtakes is worth getting, listening to that you realize that TJT would have been a killer double album too).

U2 - Achtung Baby (1991): This is the most successful reinvention in all of rock history; Joshua Tree was perfection, but Rattle and Hum had made them a parody of themselves, so U2 went to Berlin to capture that Bowie/Eno vibe (didn’t really find it, the real magic happened later in Dublin), put aside their American fixations and rediscovered that they were Europeans.

U2 – Zooropa (1993): I know that Achtung Baby is a better record, but I enjoy listening to Zooropa more, which is where they harness the Euro vibe and whimsy better than ever before or since.

Uncle Tupelo – No Depression (1990): Tupelo was a short lived band, but they left an impressive legacy and helped spark a new movement that borrowed equally from country/folk roots and punk; their debut is the purest distillation of that sound and ethos.

Uncle Tupelo – March 16-20, 1992 (1992): This is where Jeff Tweedy comes into his own as an equal partner with Jay Farrar, it is a modern folk masterpiece where perfect covers stand alongside some stunning originals; it was also the beginning of the end, since Farrar and Tweedy could not co-exist in the same band that started off as Farrar’s band but with the emergence of Tweedy’s talent needed to evolve into a more equal partnership.

Van Halen – Van Halen (1978): Eddie Van Halen is a d*ck, but you cannot deny the seismic shift VH’s debut caused in the guitar/hard rock/metal communities; David Lee Roth was the perfect tongue-in-cheek foil for VH’s bombast.

Van Halen – 1984 (1984): Van Halen using synthesizers? Hell yeah, and Eddie makes the synths sound heavy too on the most fun rock record of the 80’s.

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble – Texas Flood (1983): Rarely does one album alter the entire music industry, but SRV’s debut resurrected a genre (blues) from the dustbin of history and infused it with new life and vitality, sparking a resurgence that is still going strong.

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble – Couldn’t Stand the Weather (1984): Bringing some rock to his blues party, the title track is SRV’s greatest rock/blues fusion, and “Cold Shot” flashes some humor in a song that rocks and swings equally hard.

Eddie Vedder - ‘Into the Wild’ original motion picture soundtrack (2007): Vedder’s hopeful songs/fragments for this ultimately harrowing film are more vital than anything Pearl Jam has done in years, it might be time for Vedder to permanently move on from his band.

Velvet Underground (and Nico) – Velvet Underground & Nico (1967): A record that can shock and astound as much today as when it came out, Lou Reed and his Velvets couldn’t have been further from the period’s flower power ethos, instead swimming in urban gutters with “Heroin” and “I’m Waiting For the Man” or looking straight in the face of kinky sex with “Venus in Furs,” shifting from lilting pop (“Sunday Morning”) to avant noise (“European Son”).

The Verve – A Storm in Heaven (1993): Urban Hymns and Northern Soul have better individual songs, but I love the cohesive psychedelic influenced wall of sound from one of the best British bands of the 1990’s.

ABOVE: We may argue over the great American band, but there is no question that U2 is the great Irish band. In fact, they are arguably the most important band from anywhere of the last 30 years. If you have followed their career, you will notice several key points where they reached the culmination of a certain sound they worked on for several records, but instead of stagnating or repeating, they bravely veered in a new direction and reinvented themselves. That is the key to their long term vitality.