By the time 2006's U218 SINGLES was released, U2 had been one of rock's reigning behemoths for a good quarter century. Whittling down the group's hefty discography to 18 tracks seems impossible, but U218 SINGLES solves the problem by focusing, as the title suggests, on singles. Consequently, some crucial tunes, namely early ones like "I Will Follow," "Gloria," and "Two Hearts Beat As One," are missing.
But since one of U2's greatest strengths is their ability to create imaginative and engaging music that can also cross over into the mainstream, the collection brims with great material. Some of the band's best recorded moments--"Pride (In the Name of Love)," "New Year's Day," and "One," for example--are showcased, along with immediately familiar anthems like "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Mysterious Ways," and "Sweetest Thing." A handful of tunes from the 2000s--like "The Saints Are Coming," the band's famed collaboration with Green Day--round out the set. Most of these songs have already become a permanent part of the pop-culture fabric, but that doesn't lessen the appeal of hearing them on this smartly compiled set.
Double vinyl LP pressing. U218 Singles is a greatest hits album by U2, released in November 2006. In most markets, the album contains 18 songs. The first 16 tracks are 16 of their most successful and popular singles. The seventeenth track is a cover version, in collaboration with Green Day, of The Skids' "The Saints Are Coming" to benefit Hurricane Katrina charities. The eighteenth and closing track is a new song called, "Window in the Skies". However, in some markets, such as the United Kingdom, an extra song, "I Will Follow" is added to the track list as the opening track. U218 Videos, a DVD featuring music videos from throughout U2's career, was released concurrently. The album debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart on 9 December 2006 at #12 with sales of 134,000 copies. It spent 45 weeks on the chart.
- Format: Vinyl
- Genre: Rock
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Tracklist
| –U2 | Beautiful Day | 4:05 |
| –U2 | I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For | 4:38 |
| –U2 | Pride (In The Name Of Love) | 3:48 |
| –U2 | With Or Without You | 4:56 |
| –U2 | Vertigo | 3:10 |
| –U2 | New Year's Day | 4:17 |
| –U2 | Mysterious Ways | 4:02 |
| –U2 | Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of | 4:31 |
| –U2 | Where The Streets Have No Name | 4:46 |
| –U2 | Sweetest Thing | 3:00 |
| –U2 | Sunday Bloody Sunday | 4:40 |
| –U2 | One | 4:35 |
| –U2 | Desire | 2:59 |
| –U2 | Walk On | 4:26 |
| –U2 | Elevation | 3:47 |
| –U2 | Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own | 5:05 |
| –U2 And Green Day | The Saints Are Coming | 3:21 |
| –U2 | Window In The Skies | 4:08 |
