A Viewpoint

Whether you like U2 as a band or not, there’s no denying the sheer musical richness that is the Edge’s guitar playing. If Bono’s soaring vocals are the main drivers of their songs, then it’s the Edge’s lyrical playing that serves as the sonic vehicle. It’s not an overstatement to say that his translucent and tasteful guitar playing over Bono’s vocals is what makes up the musical nucleus of their songs. The live versions of their songs are always testaments to this fact, take any live version of ‘Beautiful Day’ for example, where the guitar parts stand out as the melodic elixir of the song. And just like this, most of U2’s songs simply can’t be imagined without the Edge’s sublime guitar playing, be it ‘The Fly’, ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘Walk On’, ‘Where the Streets have no name’—the symbiotic connection between Bono’s soaring vocals and the Edge’s exotically tasteful guitar lines make up the musical nectar for all of these masterpie...

I first heard U2 in their How to dismantle an Atomic Bomb album which was a turning point in my life cause that album and it's phenomenal guitar work opened the door for me to the entire genre of Electric Guitar music and many great musicians that I’ve heard since then. It’s not any way an understatement when I say that hearing HTDAAB was a huge turning point in my Life. And after that, I had heard many other U2 albums, live concert DVDs, and eventually became a huge fan of the band. For me, their music represented aspects such as--hopeful and poetic lyrics, a distinct and fresh, wavy rock-n-roll sound and of course, the Edge’s slick-cut-anthemic guitar soundscape. These are what made me love U2’s sound in the first place and from HTDATB to their early albums, their guitar driven yet distinctly characteristic sound had always shined through. In all those years, in my eyes, U2 has been that band that made consistently fresh music while also managing to cater to a...