Edge-style guitar playing before U2?

Borland is a good call - on the early Sound and Outsiders records he has quite a sustainy sound, although without the big delay. I doubt that he was on The Edge's radar screen though. Clive Timperley in the Passions used the echoplex nicely, but without the overdrive/distortion that The Edge uses. I'd say that The Edge listened to Stuart Adamson in the Skids and possibly John McGeoch to get ideas for using guitar as thick sustainy texture, even though the actual sound he used wasn't much like either. Maybe Joy Division too.

OTM

"It made me laugh to hear the guy from U2 talk about his guitar influences being old bluesmen. I thought, 'Hey, you dipshit, what about Andy Gill?'"

Some of Tom Verlaine's playing was a *lot* like that, but yeah, that probably wasn't until the 80s.

AaronK OTM about earl nash being OTM!

To date, Brook has made two other copies of his infinite guitar system: one is owned by U2's guitarist The Edge, the other by producer/musician Daniel Lanois.

Probable influence that hasn't been mentioned: Police / Summers.

The fact that U2 used to be really cool shouldn't be too much of a revelation! I mean, the first few albums -- Boy, October, War -- those are all great, and the fact that they're kinda populist anthemic accessible post-punk is a great twist; if they hadn't gone mega-popular, those would probably be considered really wonderful hip-pop obscurities, and everyone would be saying Interpol sounded like them, or something. The thing that's really admirable about Edge's guitar playing is that from the very beginning he was terrific at making something wonderful out of so very little. A really simple, easy one-note guitar line and a couple well-chosen effects; he'd consistently manage to turn something that basic into a sound that was interesting, dynamic, powerful, whatever. Will Sergeant often had that same ability, doing a lot with a little, but Edge is almost easy to admire for it because you get the sense that in the beginning he really, really couldn't play very well -- he just knew how to do something more important than "playing well."

This is essentially Simon Reynolds's argument at the end of Rip It Up. I'm sympathetic but also viciously condemnatory of this attempt at rehabilitation, for reasons that are considerably more emotional than logical. For all that I'm totally aware of this, giving U2 *any* credit feels almost like surrender to an outrageous simplifying of the musical world. It's like saying Robert Hilburn was right -- and nothing chokes in my craw more. They have all the fucking hosannas and success they could want, I'm unwilling to concede any more to them.

I mean, rehabilitation: was there ever a point where people went around saying that, say, October was BAD? There's been like a decade of nobody mentioning those records at all, apart from VH1 showings of "New Year's Day" live at Red Rocks (which is like oops, they're in Colorado, it's happening, NOOOO!) ... I don't think this is revisionist history, at least not for how I grew up. I mean, Ned, it seems to me that you should / would have / probably DID like these albums earlier in their lifespans, right? Setting aside the later collapse of U2, something like Boy seems right up your alley.

Nope.

That's a long time to spend in high school. (Also 100% correct - I live in a world where they mysteriously disappeared after releasing - but not touring on - Zooropa, never to be heard from again, and I'm better off for it though I sometimes wonder what might have been).

You're like the King Friday of ILX!

listening to the first U2 album and then the first echo and the bunnymen album the similarity in guitar sounds is easy to hear.

"Uncharitable" strikes me as a rather loaded term.

LUDICROUS:

1981 heralded the release of the second Comsat Angels album, Sleep No More - a much darker release. The band toured with Siouxsie & The Banshees and, at the end of the year, they took part in a co-headlining tour with U2. Much has been said about Steve Fellows guitar style influencing U2's The Edge - one is now a multi-millionaire and one isn't. Ain't that always the way.

Considering that was around the same time War and Unforgettable Fire were out and some of the most popular albums going, I'd bet a few people may have thought it was The Edge playing with Pete.

White City is a pretty good album that I think is a bit under the radar, especially considering it is by Townshend. The band for that record also had Tony Levin and Mark Brzezicki of Big Country.