CSPC: U2 Popularity Analysis

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Original Album Sales – Comments

1980 Boy – 3,700,000
1981 October – 3,600,000
1983 War – 10,900,000
1984 The Unforgettable Fire – 8,100,000
1987 The Joshua Tree – 26,800,000
1988 Rattle And Hum – 13,800,000
1991 Achtung Baby – 17,500,000
1993 Zooropa – 8,000,000
1997 Pop – 6,700,000
2000 All That You Can’t Leave Behind – 12,300,000
2004 How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb – 10,200,000
2009 No Line On The Horizon – 4,400,000
2014 Songs Of Innocence – 1,100,000

We don’t need to comment very much given the numbers. They actually speak for themselves. The Joshua Tree, not surprisingly, appears at the very top with 26,8 million, a number it conquered not only because of its initial massive sales but ongoing back catalogue activity as they released new albums, toured everywhere and grew in status during the subsequent years.

Achtung Baby is well behind but shows comfortably at number 2 with 17,5 million, whilst Rattle And Hum, All That You Can’t Leave Behind and War complete the the band’s personal top 5 on sales of 13,8 million, 12,3 million and 10,9 million respectively.

Their first two albums, Boy and October, sold mostly via catalogue. And, as it is widely known, their two nineties experiments didn’t reach a similar level of success as previous and post records. We are talking about Zooropa and Pop, which still garnered 8,0 and 6,7 million respectively, both remarkable totals considering the change in profile shown by the group on them.

Overall, U2 have sold 127,1 million studio albums, counting in Rattle & Hum.