U2 - The Best Of 1980 - 1990

Album • U2 • 1998 15 songs • 1 hour 4 minutes
The Best of 1980–1990 is the first greatest hits compilation by Irish rock band U2, released in November 1998. It mostly contains the group's hit singles from the 1980s but also mixes in some live staples as well as one new recording, "Sweetest Thing." In April 1999, a companion video was released. The album was followed by another compilation, The Best of 1990–2000, in 2002. A limited edition version containing a special B-sides disc was released a week earlier than the single-disc version. At the time of release, the official word was that the two-disc album would be available the first week the album went on sale, then pulled from the stores. While this edict never materialized, it did result in the two-disc version being in very high demand. Both versions charted in the Billboard 200, with the two-disc version debuting at number two and setting a new first-week sales record in the United States for a greatest hits album by a group with 237,500 copies sold. The boy on the cover is Peter Rowen, brother of Bono's friend Guggi of the Virgin Prunes. He also appears on the covers of the early EP Three, two of the band's first three albums, and Early Demos.

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