The Edge

As a guitar player, The Edge is recognised as having a trademark sound typified by understatement, a chiming, shimmering sound that’s achieved with extensive use of digital delay effects, reverb, and a focus on texture and melody. 1987’s The Joshua Tree is probably the best example of the ’U2 sound’, with songs like “With or Without You” and “Where the Streets Have No Name” being among the band’s most critically acclaimed and best loved works. The album was recorded at the height of the 1980s “shred-metal” era, but The Edge’s guitar playing on it couldn’t be further from the emphasis of the time on technique and speed (for example, Edge has suggested that “With or Without You” could easily have gone off into a huge guitar solo, a la “November Rain”, but instead resolves after a brief drum interlude to a relaxed and “chilled out” strummed guitar part, which he cites as his favorite from the album). The album showcases The Edge’s approach to the guitar: rather than trying to push his guitar to the front of the mix and make his contributions obvious, The Edge focuses on the song and the mood, often contributing just a few simple lead lines given depth and richness by an ever-present digital delay. The intro riff to “Where the Streets Have No Name” is simply a repeated six-note arpeggio, broadened by a modulated delay effect. The Edge has said that he views musical notes as “expensive”, in that he prefers to play as few notes as possible.