Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| The Austin Chronicle | |
| The Boston Globe | (favourable) |
| Robert Christgau | C+ |
| Hot Press | (11/12) |
| Pitchfork Media | (8.3/10) |
| Rolling Stone | |
Boy's highest position on the Billboard 200 was #63, but after the success of U2's later material, it re-entered the American charts for a lengthier spell. In the United Kingdom it reached #52. Despite criticisms of their live shows as predictable and Bono using "too much echo", these early live shows nevertheless helped demonstrate U2's potential, as critics noted that Bono was a very "charismatic" and "passionate" showman, reminiscent of a young Rod Stewart. Boy is the only U2 album from which every song (as well as every B-side) has been performed live at least once. The album finished in 18th place on the "Best Albums" list from The Village Voice's 1981 Pazz & Jop critics' poll.
The album's sexual overtones led to its enthusiastic acceptance by gays in American gay clubs shortly after its release. Bono commented on this phenomenon, saying, "First of all we started out and made Boy, which is a sexual LP, and we changed the cover in America to stop any concern there might be about paedophilia and the like, because it was our first album. But import copies got in and, as you know, in America a lot of music is broken in gay clubs and so we had a gay audience, a lot of people who were convinced the music was specifically for them. So there was a misconception if you like."
In 2003, the album was included at number 417 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The magazine wrote, "Too ingenuous for punk, too unironic for New Wave, U2 arrived on Boy as big-time dreamers with the ambition to back it up." In 2006, Uncut ranked the album number 59 on its list of the "100 Greatest Debut Albums".
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