U2

U2's earliest recordings -- their debut EP U2 Three, several non-LP singles and B-sides -- haven't exactly been buried, but they have been orphaned, never seeing an official reissue until they popped up double-disc deluxe reissues of 1980's Boy, 1981's October, and 1983's War in 2008. Prior to this, these stray tracks did leak out on the iTunes exclusive release The Complete U2 (tied into the 2004 release of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, discontinued by the time these reissues showed up), but apart from "Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl" -- which surfaced on the B-sides compilation that was added as a second disc to deluxe editions of 1998's The Best of 1980-1990 -- they never appeared on CD. So, this group of reissues is a major archival release, as it unveils the rarest released recordings from one of the world's biggest bands, music that should be available for historical reasons even if it's not very good -- which often it is not, at least not on the bonus disc of Boy. On these 14 tracks, U2 sound impossibly green, working out their fetish for Factory bands while occasionally taking a stab at the barbed punk of the Undertones or Buzzcocks, as on the coiled "Boy/Girl." Rhythms are leaden, the Edge has yet to learn how to paint with his effects, Bono yelps far too often, and they not only lack the majesty that is such a key part of their mystique, they sound slack even on the live tracks from a September 1980 show at the Marquee in London (including the previously unreleased "Cartoon World"). These live tracks are admittedly the closest this music gets to kinetic, but that's not for lack of trying. U2 did attempt to really rock, as on the flatly bizarre unreleased "Saturday Night," which plays like un-ironic arena rock and shows that this is a band that's always been better with big ideas than with small ones. Here, they were surely striving for something huge, but they had little idea of how to execute their ideas. Based on these rarities -- which include all of their first EP, U2 Three, distinguished by different early versions of "Out of Control" and "Stories for Boys"; the B-side "Twilight" (different from the LP version); and both sides of the "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" single, including the flip "Touch" -- it's hard to believe that this quartet could ever conquer the world, but that's exactly why they're worth hearing: these 14 tracks provide a useful lesson that sometimes early recordings aren't harbingers of what's to come. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide