Calling your first album Boy – and theming said album around youth and inexperience – does give itself a kind of artistic safety net. Has your band not yet found its voice? Well, that adds to the idea of finding that voice through age. May your lyrics run the risk of being simple or immature? Well, it’s from the point of view of inexperience, not from Marcel Proust. Are you looking through our catalogue of works as a retrospective? Well, isn’t it interesting to look at U2, a band who would go on to conquer the world, in its infancy stages?

With that last statement, I will concede that yes it is. It’s always fascinating to look at an act whose sound would dominate the media landscape, at a time when they had not yet fully developed that sound. I’m not a fan of calling things dated – mainly because it is used as pejorative, and rarely can art separate itself from the context that birthed it – but I would use the phrase “of its time.” Because Boy, more than every U2 release except maybe Achtung Baby, shows the influence of the music world around it (something which Bono would hate people reading into). The Peel-safe culture of dark post-punk shows itself throughout the eleven tracks, and so, bizarrely, does new wave.  But Boy was to post-punk what Pablo Honey was to grunge, in that the most interesting elements of the album are the band you know is trying to get out.

The lens of influence becomes more apparent when you learn that Joy Division producer Martin Hannett was scheduled to produce Boy, but that those plans changed in light of Ian Curtis’ tragic death. Those duties went instead to Steve Lillywhite, coming off his work on Peter Gabriel (not that one…not that one…yeah that one) and the first single from Siouxsie and the Banshees, which had a xylophone sound that a young Paul Hewson – with the nickname Bono Vox – decided he wanted for his band’s first single and album opener. That song was “I Will Follow,” a song with anthemic lyrics that reflect both religion and youth, as well as reflecting the passing of Bono’s mum at a young, formative age (which many of U2’s first songs tended to explore). Although a great opener, it would be more accurate to call it a great career opener, as it is closer to that than many of the songs on the record. Much of that of course is down to the guitar skills of David Evans, aka The Edge, whose guitar tone was probably too bright for the post-punk scene, but in the process was charting new territory in terms of rock that focused greatly on tone. The production on this song does lend to that as well, including the aforementioned xylophone sound and by the end smashing sounds that call to mind those from Kate Bush’s “Babooshka” of the same year.

Having said all this, bar vocal mixing I prefer the spaced and fuller sounds from the unused version included on the deluxe edition. In fact, despite my general liking of Lillywhite, on Boy it is so thin as to create a scraping quality on the guitars that can occasionally grate. One can hear this on the introduction to the next song “Twilight.” Though this song does have things going for it, such as the images of eyes and “in the shadows boy meets man” which show the album’s conceptuality (as well as some of the album’s most caustic lyrics: A teacher told me why/ I laugh when old men cry) but mainly some of the best work coming from bassist Adam Clayton. On many occasion in this period Clayton was dismissed as serviceable, but here he provides as much colour as The Edge. “An Cat Dubh” meanwhile, whilst feeling its length, showcases the more atmospheric qualities from the band, not just from Edge’s sparse playing, but Larry Mullen Jr.’s drumming, particularly at the introduction with the light sounds coming from the cymbals.

This intent becomes more apparent as the song segues with intent to “Into the Heart”, one of Boy’s more experimental track, where the drums stop a consistent rhythm to focus on tone and the moody feeling of the cymbals, before the song itself breaks into traditional U2 sound for the second half. Bono’s lyrics here are as simple and sparse as the Edge’s guitar sounds were in the first half, and instead intend to serve the rest of the music, even if it is one of the examples of us not yet experiencing prime Bono bellowing. Though next comes one of the other highlights of the album, the fast and pulsating Out of Control. Although lyrics point out some fascinating tidbits like children going to school and girls have children, there are also vivid images like blood on the garden gate of fate. But again, the spaced-out echo of Bono’s voice provides interesting counterpoint to the galloping drums and guitars riffs. “Stories for Boys,” follows a similar vein and becomes another favourite as a result. Particularly the rhythm section, with the descending bass lines that mirror the Edge’s introductory guitar work, and the drums with their fast cymbals and echoing toms.

The next two songs though, are emblematic of what I mean when I say Boy shows the trends of the times. First is “The Ocean,” another experimental track with bubbling, creaking sounds and a dark underlining bass wherein the guitars and vocals can find themselves lost in. With references to Irish writer Oscar Wilde – which compared to their next two records is one of the only indicators of the band’s heritage – “The Ocean” is very much a product of the morose post-punk and even prog rock, and it mirrors fellow moody track “An Cat Dubh” for being too short where that was too long.  The second song “A Day Without Me,” the first track Lillywhite worked on, really doesn’t sound like anything else off the album. It is much more influenced by new wave and dance, with phasered guitars and what would sound like synths if I didn’t know better. Still though, those who said that Achtung Baby was the first U2 record you could really dance to would be , as I think this has quite the groove to it, even it doesn’t really fit into the album. Some people would certainly make something of the line “I started a landslide in my ego,” though.

Unfortunately, the last quarter of the album is the weakest section of the album, with the tuneage becoming less clear and lending to the prog tendencies that, to be fair, “The Ocean” was foreshadowing”. There’s certainly a focus on nature again with images of the sun and the clouds, but it gets a little lost in too bass-y verses and a lack of variation and energy between them and the chorus. The Electric Co. does have another nice galloping riff and drums, but the mix weirdly quiets down and gives nowhere for that hard rocking sound to go. By the end it becomes strange that a song about electric convulsion therapy should feel so light weight (which I feel a little guilty for saying seeing as this was based on a real person). Finally there is “Shadows and Tall Trees,” which to be fair is probably the best the whole album has been lyrically (helped by inspiration from Lord of the Flies). But the production doesn’t allow the multi-part end to feel like the epic the album wants it to, though if the song felt as strong as it did during the second minutes throughout the whole song we could have gotten something great.

Despite the limp towards the end, Boy as whole contains some immediate song writing in the first half that stands out as great even amidst areas of inexperience. Bono’s voice might sound limited on occasion, but he would go on to prove that as untrue, and even at the age of twenty (*grumble grumble*) he was demonstrating conceptual ideas that he would go on to flex. And whilst Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton really do serve the rhythm and atmosphere of the album, it is the Edge and his sonic textures that make the record as a whole stand out amongst the rest of culture of the time. Still, even here you can sense the band’s aspirations as breaking from the somewhat restricting environment of the British punk scene. Maybe the second record could do that?

What did you think, though?

U2 Album Rankings

1. Boy