Vorsprung durch Technik: U2 Zooropa poll

True. 'When Loves Comes to Town', 'All I Want Is You' and the 'Everlasting Love' cover were the three singles preceding 'The Fly'. That's a huge difference in sound and approach.

There's a lot of tracks on Achtung Baby that, shorn of their window dressing - which essentially is all that it is - could have fit on any U2 LP. A lot of those tracks are indentifiably U2 songs at their core. The usual melodic sense, and even with the window dressing there's still one eye on classic rock.

'Lemon' would not work any other way than how it is presented on Zooropa, and there's barely an element of classic rock in there. It's far more modern a construction than, say, something like 'So Cruel', which could have closed The Joshua Tree or something.

But The Fly *at the time* was a huge shock, way more than Zooropa was.

It came as such a shock to this guy it took him 25 years to remember to sue them:

http://www.nme.com/news/music/u2-accused-of-stealing-song-for-achtung-baby-1996651

True. 'When Loves Comes to Town', 'All I Want Is You' and the 'Everlasting Love' cover were the three singles preceding 'The Fly'. That's a huge difference in sound and approach.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Wednesday, March 1, 2017 3:57 PM

You're forgetting their cover of "Night and Day," an aural precursor.

anyway "The Fly," a flop in America released like Def Leppard's "Women" several years earlier as a way to consolidate the Real Fans, wasn't such a shock in America. Remember: Jesus Jones and EMF had hits here.

"Night and Day" wasn't a single, oddly enough, but I remember hearing it on the radio, and the video was in regular rotation.

There's a lot of tracks on Achtung Baby that, shorn of their window dressing - which essentially is all that it is - could have fit on any U2 LP. A lot of those tracks are indentifiably U2 songs at their core. The usual melodic sense, and even with the window dressing there's still one eye on classic rock.

'Lemon' would not work any other way than how it is presented on Zooropa, and there's barely an element of classic rock in there. It's far more modern a construction than, say, something like 'So Cruel', which could have closed The Joshua Tree or something.

Replace the piano in "Lemon" with a guitar playing the same figure and it's almost "Last Night On Earth" with more falsetto

I would love to get my hands on the bordering-on-avant-garde-for-U2 album you all are talking about because it sounds a lot more interesting than Zooropa.

Unforgettable Fire is a lot more U2 gone avant-garde, as such. Zooropa is just a fun weird spare album.

that would be Passengers! probably best to forget Elvis Ate America, as you said. everything before and after is really something though. I was listening to Eno's The Shutov Assembly album the other day and it was eye-opening how much it resembled the passengers album in a lot of ways. Made me want to further explore Eno's early to mid nineties work, and probably more relevant to what showed up on that album than what U2 and Eno did with Zooropa.

Nerve Net!

nomar otm

I bought The Shutov Assembly and Arrested Development's debut at a Sound Warehouse in Broward in spring '93.

Guess which I sold to CD Warehouse fist.

'Night and Day' was on the 'Red Hot' compilation wasn't it? But I agree with you Alfred, that it is on the same sonical palette. Still, a Sinatra cover wasn't exactly the same as The Fly.

btw here's where I recommend Bill Flanagan's U2 At the End of the World again, one of my favorite biographies. It follwos the band from 1990-1994 as they record Achtung with the threat of breakup, tour the world, record Zooropa with Eno and the Edge fully in control of production, and watch Bosnia and Michael Jackson collapse.

^ cosign that, enjoyable read, like a really good travelogue Rolling Stone or Spin article made book length.

i prob said this upthread but i wish lcd soundsystem would cover "daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car"

You're alone, bro.

Couple of tracks on Zooropa sound like LCD Soundsystem already, well, apart from the vocals

Something to be said about Zooropa is that it's probably the swan song for Bono's voice. Up to that point I'd put him among that generation of great post-punk, post-Bowie and Ferry romantic vocalists from the 80s such as Midge Ure or Morten Harket, with considerable depth and range. From Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me and onwards his voice'd become increasingly thinner and weaker, to the point it's become nearly unlistenable to me now.

Malo Vox.

I was a huge u2 fan as a teenager, especially "Achtung Baby", up until "Zooropa" was released (I haven't listened to any of their albums after that).
I've always found it - not bad - but minor.
I tried to listen to it again following this thread (maybe for the first time since then).
"Lemon" is nice. "Stay" too. the rest is ok.
The only track I really like is "The Wanderer" !

As said upthread, I think The Fly was a shock primarily because of the video and the new branding of the band. Sonically, the so-called transformation was greatly exagerated.

Seriously. I was a long time fan, Joshua Tree was my first ever concert, and I saw a Rattle and hum in the theaters, even bought a poster in the lobby. I was maybe sixteen when The Fly came out? My reaction to the video was that they had turned into Depeche Mode. Ridiculous now, obviously, and ridiculous then, but I think it defines the context a better.

well, then Depeche turned into U2 by releasing "I Feel You" (which also flopped in America).

yeah, the video was a huge part in the shock of "The Fly" but sonically it was also a big leap from "Rattle&Hum".

Anyway, the big single was "Mysterious Ways", which was more in line with what came before

On your knees, boy!

yeah, that one was less of a change (never liked it much).

What I wrote about Zooropa on its anniversary several years ago.

"The Fly"was bigger in EU (well, I checked UK and NL chart history), "Mysterious Ways" did better in the US.

Seriously. I was a long time fan, Joshua Tree was my first ever concert, and I saw a Rattle and hum in the theaters, even bought a poster in the lobby. I was maybe sixteen when The Fly came out? My reaction to the video was that they had turned into Depeche Mode. Ridiculous now, obviously, and ridiculous then, but I think it defines the context a better.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, March 2, 2017 2:31 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, then Depeche turned into U2 by releasing "I Feel You" (which also flopped in America).

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, March 2, 2017 2:39 PM (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Great Corbijning

Re Mysterious Ways, that super low dubby bass was a huge change from old U2, not a continuation, IMO. Aside from With Or Without You, bass is not that prominent on Joshua Tree, say, Ted Nugent's rip aside.

well, "Bullet the Blue Sky" was quite heavy with big drums, low end and metallic guitars.
That one wasn't too far from "Achtung Baby" (except the lyrics, of course).

"Mysterious Ways" it was more the drums that were different from their previous sound.

Bullet was the Nugent rip I referenced. Nugent sucks, but Stranglehold rules.

Zooropa is weirdly linked in my mind with the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, which I was listening to concurrently at the time as a kid in my rural hometown, so I was excited for U2's apparent new mood experiment phase.

I don't remember very well but I think "Exit" was also something that could have been a link between the "Joshua Tree" era and the "Achtung Baby" era.

xxposts
Nugent ? ah, I had no idea "Bullet" had anything to do with Nugent (I don't know much about him...).

no need to, he sucks. but Google Stranglehold.

'Some Days are Better Than Others' is seriously underrated, IMO. One of my favourites.

yeah that's a good one, love the bassline on that and the fuzzy guitar solo and the chiming church bells effect

i do think that while there are some tracks on AB that could have appeared on an earlier album and not really stood out that much, i think there are elements on all the songs that really indicate their new direction. Bono's vocals on most of the songs are pretty different too.

i guess One and So Cruel and Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses? are probably the most trad sounding ones with the fewest "Berlin" touches.

Disagree about the second two. so cruel has a crazy treated drums and great nu Bono vox and wild horses is radically different in scope and approach from past U2 anthems, plus the guitar effects are the groups most shoegazey since unforgettable fire at least.

Huh, I guess this was in U2 by U2:

Adam: So Cruel was lifted up by studio trickery. It started out as an acoustic tune, I was playing acoustic bass, Edge was playing acoustic guitar and Larry was playing a bodhran (Irish drum). It wasn't something one could imagine being on the recrod but overnight Flood did a couple of treatments to the track that utterly transformed it. He keyed my bass part off Larry's bodhran, which gave it a much more bubbly, off-beat feel and then we overdubbed a few things and the drum part went on"

and wild horses is radically different in scope and approach from past U2 anthems

I dunno, it starts out with Edge using some new-fangled fuzziness, but by the chorus, it might as well be a Joshua Tree outtake.

The thing about Achtung, Baby that makes it special to me is that it simultaneously sounds like a new sonic direction for the band and also exactly like what my conception of "a U2 album" sounds like. There are individual songs from the Pop/Zooropa era that I can get behind but overall both sound like the band chasing trends rather than the band using a trend to express their own musical vocabulary (if that makes any sense).

I wanted a whole album of "Mofo" and "Do You Feel Loved?"

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 28, 2017 1:29 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wanted a whole album of "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me".

Huh. Pop, sure, but I don't hear Zooropa chasing any trends at all, and less so than Achtung, at that.

I really don't hear Horses as Joshua Tree at all. Achtung almost from start to finish is also emotionally devastating/devastated, which is new for them as well. Flanagan's review remains the standard-bearer take, imo. It's a dark record, darker than Joshua Tree for sure, which tackles dark stuff, too, but in a really facile way.

due to this thread revival i have put this album on for the first time in ages.
it's still my fave album of theirs, by far.
thought i would get bored after a few tracks, but no, not at all.
i like the demo/random ideas type groove.
i love the use of weird drum loops/textures.
and many of the songs send genuine shivers up my spine
'some days' has just finished, and i am in bits, and this is followed by the brilliant and moody 'the first time'
so much for the suggested front loading of this album.

tldr : DJP : you mad.