We interrupt your regularly scheduled (er, irregularly, rather—sorry) blog schedule to go on an unscheduled, but essential deep dive.

Per the rules of the blog that I established over a decade ago now, this project is a record-by-record review of every album in my collection in alphabetical order. This poses some challenges, but perhaps the biggest challenge is the fact that it’s taking me much longer than necessary.

So long in fact that some days I start to think that I might not ever finish. And that’s a real shame because there are several artists buried deep in the alphabet that I love deeply and want to make sure I talk about. So I figured to hell with it: it’s my blog, I’m going to post what I want. Starting now, I am going to break from the usual order and take some deep dives into some of my favorite bands.

The impetus behind this new feature is the U2 Blackhole I have found myself in. Early last month, I joked to someone that the first five and a half U2 records were incredible, but they fell off halfway through The Joshua Tree and never recovered. They very seriously told me to reevaluate the stuff after that.

And I was flabbergasted. I had always had the impression that their 90s input was vapid and uninspired, and discovered instead one of the most innovative reinventions of any artist. In the last few weeks, I have listened to almost nothing but U2. I have purchased five more of their records on vinyl and have been systemically going through the later material that I was unfamiliar with, all rotated with their early material that I have loved for years.

This inescapable phase has brought me to the realization that U2 is a Top Ten band for me—maybe even Top Five—and that The Edge is not just one of my favorite guitarists, but he is the top of that hierarchy, and perhaps the most important guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. And I figure that as long as I’m listening to nothing but the Irish arena-rock-via-post-punk heroes, I might as well do something productive with it. Maybe then I’ll finally be able to move on to some other music.