Boy, U2's 1980 debut album, is a hit. It received rave reviews in the British and American press and was immediately voted the best album of the year in the Irish charts. In the lyrics Bono sings about the loss of his youth, the faith and the death of his mother. All the musical elements of their later records are actually already present on Boy. Every song sounds great, thanks to the swirling echoes
… of Edge's guitar, the passionate voice of Bono, Adam Clayton's driving bass lines and the stadium rock rhythms of Larry Mullen Jr. As an outgrowth of post-punk (an experimental variation of punk rock), U2 and producer Steve Lillywhite create a fairly alternative album, on which they do not shy away from musical experimentation. In I Will Follow, for example, in addition to Edge's characteristic guitar textures, an unusual chime, breaking bottles and a bicycle wheel transformed into a rasp can be heard. (JWvR)more
