Top 10 U2 Videos
U2 have been making videos as long as MTV has been around. From the very start of the '80s, the band had a great relationship with the nascent video music network. 'I Will Follow,' the first single from their debut album 'Boy,' was a staple during MTV's early days. So was the live concert clip for 'Sunday Bloody Sunday,' which helped pave the way for 1987's mainstream breakthrough with 'The Joshua Tree.' Here are the Top 10 U2 Videos from the past 30 years.
'Beautiful Day'
After a couple of '90s genre detours, U2 got back to being in U2 in 2000. Their great comeback album 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' was their biggest in years, and the terrific 'Beautiful Day' charges like a new-millennium anthem. The video is almost as monumental as the song.
'I Will Follow'
Bono with big hair! Adam Clayton with blonde hair! The Edge with hair! Dude has hair! Look at that! U2's earliest video is a time-capsule clip that just screams early '80s. Still, it's a glorious glimpse at the legends' formative years.
'New Year's Day'
The breakthrough video from U2's third album, 'War,' features a snowy landscape, grand gestures and a shimmering guitar riff that rings throughout the entire song. It also features some pretty frigid members of U2 rocking out in the freezing cold.
'One'
U2's most moving song gets an appropriately moving (and moody) video featuring the band at its most restrained. 'One' has taken on many implications since its release 20-plus years ago. Thankfully, the video holds back on any defining imagery.
'Pride (In the Name of Love)'
U2's tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. gets a sepia-toned video that perfectly fits into the artsy moodiness of 1984's 'The Unforgettable Fire.' Also check out Bono's fabulous mid-'80s mullet in all its business-in-front-party-in-back glory.
'Sunday Bloody Sunday'
This is the video that put U2 on everyone's radar. And it's not even a real video. The clip is taken from a 1983 concert that spotlights the band's dynamic live performances. No surprise they'd become world-dominating stars in just a few years.
'Vertigo'
The lead single from 2004's 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' is all skittering guitar lines, electronic rattles and hums and messed-up Spanish (Bono doesn't count to four -- that's "14" he shouts in the intro). The song gets an appropriately windswept video.
'Where the Streets Have No Name'
The video for 'The Joshua Tree''s opening song nods to the Beatles' famous rooftop concert, in which the Fab Four played an impromptu midday live show that was quickly shut down by the police. U2 pull a similar stunt here.
'With or Without You'
'With or Without You' is the moment where U2 went from being the best band in the world to the biggest band in the world. Their fourth album, 'The Joshua Tree,' remains one of the most important works of the past 30 years. This video helped spread the word.