Boy

BOY announced the arrival of four young men from Dublin who would conquer the world in short order. Bono and company were barely out of their teens when they recorded their first album, and their youthful vigour lights up every track here. Full of ambition, driven by a politicised (though not yet explicitly so) sense of purpose, the songs give listeners an idea of what it's like to come of age in a strife-torn country and count on rock and roll as your means of transcendence.

BOY announced the arrival of four young men from Dublin who would conquer the world in short order. Bono and company were barely out of their teens when they recorded their first album, and their youthful vigour lights up every track here. Full of ambition, driven by a politicised (though not yet explicitly so) sense of purpose, the songs give listeners an idea of what it's like to come of age in a strife-torn country and count on rock and roll as your means of transcendence.
Bono's clear, strong voice rings out over the already-anthemic arrangements. Though none of the band members had yet developed much instrumental facility, their commitment and emotion are palpable in the simple-but-perfect parts they play. "I Will Follow" was BOY's calling card, unfolding with brashness and a sense of wonder as it chronicles the journey from boyhood to manhood, a trip the band had only just taken recently. BOY stands as an auspicious beginning to a long, successful career.

Rolling Stone (3/1/01, p.54)
- 4 stars out of 5 - "...In a way that hadn't been done in popular music since the Who...BOY explored male adolescence...as a state of desperate searching....fashioning dense, dusky atmospheres in which unabashed yearning and insistent conviction collide and intertwine..."

Q (7/95, p.148)
- 3 Stars - Good - "...a culmination of modern ideas amid a sea of confused contemporary directions..."

Melody Maker (6/3/95, p.36)
- "...they've made three great albums, of which BOY, their eulogy to the twilight of innocence is one. It's dated badly, but that doesn't matter...I hear gobstoppers and ghost stories, magic and mischief, the sunnier moments of my childhood..."