Andy Greene
View all posts by Andy Greene July 7, 2026
U2 haven't always played it safe when announcing a new album. We rank each of their leadoff singles. © Aaron Rapoport/CORBIS OUTLINE/Corbis/Getty Images On Tuesday afternoon, U2 dropped “Street of Dreams,” the leadoff single from their forthcoming studio album, slated for release later this year. Fans have waited a very long time for this moment: The band’s previous LP, Songs of Experience, came out nearly nine years ago. This is, by far, the longest they’ve ever gone between studio albums. And even though it’s still way too early to fully assess “Street of Dreams,” we have gone back and ranked all the leadoff singles from their prior albums. This involved a few tough judgment calls, but we ultimately chose a ranking that accounted for both the quality of the song and how well it set the stage for the album that followed.
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“Get On Your Boots” (2009)
Image Credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images As we’ll see over and over on this list, the quality of the leadoff single from a U2 album doesn’t always match the quality of the album. In many cases, it doesn’t even come close. That’s certainly true with 2009’s No Line on the Horizon, which marked the return of the Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby dream team of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. The album may not have been connected with the culture like their prior two albums, but songs like “Moment of Surrender,” “No Line on the Horizon,” “Magnificent,” and “Breathe” rank among U2’s best work of the Nineties. But they erred big time by dropping “Get On Your Boots” as the first single. The riffy song is a cousin of “Elevation” and “Vertigo,” but not nearly as memorable. This was a bold, experimental album. There was no good reason to mask that. It would have been smarter to release “Moment of Surrender” first, and save “Get On Your Boots” for a B-side — or even the cutting room floor.
