Over the three months of voting, U2.com asked a handful of guest contributors to offer their list of 22 songs they’d like to see make the cut. Our very own M2 was asked to share his thoughts. After seeing the list, I was curious to see whose list was the closest to what the fans’ final 22 songs were. Drum roll please…

PAUL MCGUINNESS! Yes, that’s right. He got 16 out of 22 correct. Tied for second place were Joe O’Herlihy, Claudia Espanosa (Bajagirl), and M2 with 15 out of 22. Willie Williams tied with John Noble (Bigwave) for third with 12 out of 22, and in fourth place was Caroline van Oosten de Boer (VonB) with 8 out of 22.

There were two songs that everyone agreed upon: “Bad” and “Ultraviolet.” Six out of the seven guest contributors agreed on “City Of Blinding Lights,” “One Tree Hill” and “Zooropa.” Only Joe O’Herlihy included “Elevation,” while only Paul McGuinness included “Mysterious Ways.”

Even though not all the songs I chose made the list, I’m happy with the mix of old and new. My favorite song did make the list (“The Fly”), but it still would have been nice to see some of the more rare tracks make the cut. The biggest surprise was seeing the only song that was in every U2 360 show, “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight (remix),” not make it. For a recording that’s representative of the tour, it seems out of place not to have it included.

@U2 readers are sharing their thoughts in our Forum – check out the discussion and add your spin on U22.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Paul McGuinness and U22 Final Tally

I’ll shutup now and let you enjoy them both.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

VIDEOS: Bono does “So Cruel,” Edge does “Love Is Blindness”

In the era of 99 cent downloads, U2 continues to conceive of albums as long-form journeys, with individual songs—like chapters in a novel, scenes in a film, or members of a band—contributing to a greater whole. They’ve always thrived on both consistency and change, applying a surprisingly strict formula to their albums while challenging one another to evolve, adapt, and reinvent their sound. And rather than choose between art and commerce, they’ve almost naively struck a course between the two. Especially today, with music acts either serving the marketplace or accepting their niche, U2 has no peer. I listened to every album, B-side, and soundtrack song, watched every music video, movie, live clip, and costume change. If you’re a fan, let’s compare notes. It you’re not, I’ll tell you what you’ve missed.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

The U2 Paradox

You can read more about the original design of Achtung Baby in the (Ăhk-tŏŏng Bāy-bi) Covered article in Issue 15 from Propaganda.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Unveiling Achtung Baby’s Über Deluxe box

This year will be a very special one. We will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of U2′s October album. We will be acknowledging this event on our main page, but I would also like to invite readers to join the celebration on our forum. When I joined a few years back, I met a few members who adored this album as much as I did. I was overjoyed to share this passion for it with them as there are not a lot of U2 fans who care for it as much as I do. At that time,  an “October Worship Thread” was started in the music section of the forum. It is there that we shared all of our thoughts on what we considered to be an extremely important album in the timeline of U2′s career. We spoke about such things as interpretations of the songs, what they meant to us personally, and what the band was going through behind the scenes at the time of the making of the album. We even laughed about the cover photo of the band and the lads jumping around in the “Gloria” video on the docks of Dublin all those years ago! Since then, others have joined in our conversations. We even invited younger fans to give it a closer listen and tell us their thoughts. The thread has produced some of the finest music conversations we’ve ever had there. Though October comes in at the bottom of most fans  favorite albums list, this thread remains one of the longest running on any U2 album including Achtung Baby. What we may lack in numbers, we make up for in our passion and love for this album we like to call a quiet gem.

So as the 30th anniversary of the release of this album draws near and “the trees are stripped bare of all they wear”, we would like to invite our readers to come visit the forum and join in our conversations in the “October Worship Thread”. If you have some thoughts on anything about this album please let us know. Is there a song with special meaning to you? Do you have your own interpretation of a song? We’d love to hear from you. You must be a member of the forum in order to take part in the conversations, so join. It is fun and it is free! We plan on having a special “topic of the day” for the entire month of October. We even have a special October era quiz to take. That will start October 1st and the answers will be revealed on October 12 -the album’s anniversary date. You can find our thread right here. Stop by and rejoice in the beauty of this album! They’ll be plenty of time to celebrate that other U2 album in November.

Now to get this party started……….here is the song that Gibson Guitars named as one of the top 10 guitar sounds of all time. It was the first U2 video to receive heavy rotation back when MTV truly was Music Television. This brings back a lot of wonderful memories for me. Enjoy!

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Happy 30th Anniversary to U2′s October

One of the things you can do with Spotify is create song playlists and share them with friends, with the public, etc. And then those other folks can “subscribe” to your playlist so they can listen to it whenever they want. It turns Spotify into something like a global jukebox.

I’d love your feedback on the first playlist I created, U2 Non-Hits for Non-U2 Fans. You probably won’t be able to see that link unless you have a Spotify account, so here’s a screenshot of the songs in order.

I tried to pull songs from all eras of U2′s career — songs that a non-U2 fan might enjoy. If you get a chance, make that same playlist in your own iTunes or whatever you use, have a listen to it in order, and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Feedback from non-U2 fans has been really good so far, so I hope fans like it, too!

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

U2 Spotify Playlist: Non-Hit Songs for Non-U2 Fans

A free download of Derek Webb’s version of “One” is here. (I’m not sure how long this link will be available.)

“One” is this month’s selection for Webb’s Democracy recording projects, where his fans vote on a song each month for him to record. At the end of a year, he releases the twelve tracks as a CD.

His approaches are fresh and all his own, and the same holds true for “One” as it did for “Where the Streets Have No Name” last year. (You can read our blog about “Streets” at that link, but unfortunately the song link isn’t available anymore.)

Check out the Derek Webb store for more information about Democracy vols. 1& 2.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Derek Webb’s ONE from Nashville

With 12 studio albums and over 150 million albums sold worldwide, there are so many songs that could have made the cut. Take a look at their list here.

What songs would make your list?

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

U2′s Top 10 Best Tunes

The Top 10 are as follows:

1. U2, The Joshua Tree
2. Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction
3. Michael Jackson, Thriller
4. Bruce Springsteen, Born In The U.S.A.
5. Prince, Purple Rain
6. AC/DC, Back In Black
7. The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead
8. The Clash, London Calling
9. The Cure, Disintegration
10. Metallica, Master of Puppets

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Rolling Stone Readers Pick U2 Album as 80s Best

“Wake Up and Dream” … sounds kinda U2-ey, doesn’t it?

That’s one of the photos on display at the Julian Lennon photo exhibit in New York. Lennon shot some photos when U2 was using his studio this summer before the 360 Tour resumed. Twitter user @hula_doll shot a bunch of photos of the photos and put them on yFrog.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

I Assume This is the Name of a New U2 Song