Vorsprung durch Technik: U2 Zooropa poll

My favorite U2 album, sure, although 'Unforgettable', 'Joshua' and 'Achtung' are right up there and close. A superb four album run (we'll forget about the other one that's mixed in there, although I do love a lot of that too)

But yeah, it's "Stay". Love the way the melody/Bono lifts up on the "like a car crash" line. Just a beautiful performance. probably his best like I think someone said upthread? Seeing them perform it the last couple years on the 360 tour really drove it home too.

also i 'get' that it's a more traditional 'guys playing instruments' song than the rest of this fantastic album, but i think it has more gravity becuz of that when you listen to the rec. the tone on that guitar line on the chorus sounds totally Bowie/Eno/Fripp Berlin tho

really the whole record is Bowie/Eno/Fripp Berlin, which is why it sounds so great

It's got to be Stay v Lemon but I like every track on this, especially Numb and Dirty Day - the only U2 album I can say that about.

I agree Stay is his best ever vocal performance and maybe his best lyric too.

Lemon. This is far and away their best album.

Once the encore began, Bono would return as a different alter ego—Mirror Ball Man in 1992, and MacPhisto in 1993. Performances of "Desire"—accompanied by images of Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Paul Gascoigne, and Jimmy Swaggart—were meant as a criticism of greed; cash rained the stage and Bono often portrayed Mirror Ball Man as an interpretation of the greedy preacher described in the song's lyrics. Bono often made a crank call from the stage as his persona of the time. Such calls included dialling a phone sex line, calling a taxi cab, ordering 10,000 pizzas (the Detroit pizza parlor delivered 100 pizzas during the show), or calling a local politician. Bono regularly called the White House in an attempt to contact President Bush. Though Bono never reached the President, Bush did acknowledge the calls during a press conference.

http://i.imgur.com/MWmSl.jpg

i fucking love this album.
no idea where to place my vote as the whole thing is just a stream of "lets just do it" madness.

Mirror Ball man >> McPhisto imo. it's weird how under-documented and barely remembered Winona Ryder's part in the early Zoo Tv era encores was. even google doesn't bring much up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpWBasyoMs

1993 was so fucking awesome

ha.

me & gr8080 = two old f*ckers on porch knocking back a few tins reminiscing re the brilliance of trabants being used for the foundation of a light show.

voted Numb because its what i immediately think of when i think of this album and i was totally obsessed with it in 7th grade, but after listenibg to Stay(Farway So Close) for the first time in prob 10 years i wish i voted for that-- such a beautiful song!

voted "Stay" but I could vote for anything except "Dirty Day" & even that's a good song, if not a jam

read Flanigan this winter & listened to this album whilst walking from the East Side Gallery to Alexanderplatz; epic

did you like the book?

absolutely loved it. The band's confusion is convincing; maybe it's an artifact of following Eno but they're guided by basic intuitions, gestures, emotions, without much strategy, & so they're able to realize those intuitions in fascinating ways. plus I loved the decay as the book went on, ending up in brothels in Japan, drugs always around, no sleep. no wonder it all went pop!

It's been a while but other than Adam blowing a gig in Australia and the band's drinking habits were the drugs mentioned often?

the gigs in Japan seemed to lead to parties where drugs were around; Flanigan never says that the band indulged but it's a bit coy; & even if they didn't, getting involved in those scenes indicated something, maybe just prurience but even that's interesting enough

oh you're right: Flanagan flirts with conflict of interest a lot, so I don't doubt he kept the drugs under the doormat.

i may be misrembering this, and i can't find a link, but i seem to recall reading a rolling stone piece that came out (i think?) just in advance of zooropa. it described entering the band's studio hole-up as though it were some sort of subterranean drug den: dimly lit, reeking of weed and incense, booming with occult dance music. the band were characterized as louche and zonked, in love with "trash" and pop. seemed as though we were supposed to understand that it was gonna be their druggy experimental album.

voted 'stay' and while i don't exactly regret it, thinking i should have voted 'zooropa'

lol macphisto

Can you imagine being at a U2 show in 1993 and 100 pizzas show up

Does it strike anyone else as awkward or strange at all that these days Bino and Wedge seem to be more interested in making money (vis-a-vis Elevation Partners) than good music?

i was at a u2 show in 1993 and got no pizza alas

i caught two zoo tv shows, a friend was in their fan club so we got amazing seats. first was that spring at the omni, standard basketball arena, pixies opened and it was super apparent that band was gonna break up soon. we'd attempted stalking out their bus (ie we hung around their bus for fifteen minute or so) to no avail; attempting to stalk u2 never even occurred to us, like what were we gonna do - just hang out at the mlk center all day? second time was that fall in the georgia dome (first concert there) w/ the huge set, big audio dynamite II opened which we were kinda :/ about (were hoping for sugarcubes) but (as big a thrill as u2 for me) public enemy also opened, at that point they could do no wrong. our seats were eight rows back from the stage and we were by a pretty huge margin the biggest pe fans in the vicinity so when they went on my friend and i were able to rush the stage and flav and chuck spent pretty much the entire set performing directly to us, two teenagers who were shouting out every word to every song vs a crowd of skeptical yuppies - it was an easy choice. u2 were great also, afterwards i did a writeup for the high school paper, an attempt at recreating 'the kentucky derby is decadant and depraved' titled 'i'm ready for the laughing gas', i think fucking god that thing isn't on the internet and i never kept any copies of my high school paper.

standard basketball arena, pixies opened and it was super apparent that band was gonna break up soon

had this precise experience in chapel hill

jb I would love ... I mean I would LOVE .. to read that thing. You know you still have some sort of copy somewhere. Share it with me, I won't betray you (huge HST fan here, would love even a juvenile attempt, esp from YOU.) Had no idea PE *ever* opened for U2?? how did that fact escape me all these years, that is nuts.

First time I ever saw U2 was 2009 on 360 tour. crazy I know. saw it three times tho ... making up for lost time, I guess

I know I'm on the right board when so many other people pick this as a favourite U2 album!

yeah, I dunno, I feel self-conscious, that it is challopy to say so. but if it is not this one, then it is 'Achtung' or 'Unforgettable'. but at the end of the day it really really is this one

PE also did the Stop Sellafield gig with U2 in 1992. there was a VHS of it and everything

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a4/63/87e262e89da05d8221434110.L.jpg

Noel Gallagher's favourite *ever* gig he's said since.

i know i've said this before on this board but imo U2 disappeared mysteriously after recording Zooropa, popped in briefly to help Eno with Passengers, and then disappeared again. given the trajectory they were on i have to imagine they would have made some amazing records if only they'd stuck around...

the saddest truth bomb

It's significant that this is the quickest album they've made since the early days and that it followed a big gamble that paid off. Achtung Baby and Zoo TV were really tense and fraught and might have misfired but they did so well that it gave them the sense that they could do anything - you don't lead with Numb unless you're feeling pretty confident. But the failure of Pop put paid to that and ever since they've been hedging their bets and not wanting to risk another flop. The saddest thing about No Line, as Bono has acknowledged, is that it should have been a braver and more unapologetically leftfield record but they attempted to have it both ways with "big" singles that turned out to not be big at all. They can't get back to the headspace they were in when they made Zooropa, when it felt like they could do whatever they liked and momentum would carry them through.

i know i've said this before on this board but imo U2 disappeared mysteriously after recording Zooropa, popped in briefly to help Eno with Passengers, and then disappeared again. given the trajectory they were on i have to imagine they would have made some amazing records if only they'd stuck around...

according to Eno's diary they relaxed in the chateaux Bono and Edge bought in the south of France, drinking wine and hanging out with supermodels by the pool.

daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car

there are more songs from Achtung I love than on this album, but if I have to hear one of their albums front to back this is def my pick

I never saw a concert and didn't bother hearing "Pop" during my high school writing days, but I DID put Zooropa at #9 on the 25 best alternative albums of ALL TIME, between Black Love and The Modern Lovers:

"The classic band really got it right on this one: classic melodies, futuristic sounds and soul searching lyrics. What went wrong between this and 'Pop'?"

This album reminds me so much of my first Inter-rail trip in the summer of 93, despite the fact that I've never owned it or heard it in full. Seems like it was the soundtrack to many a backpacker

http://i.imgur.com/eap1P.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The worst album Henry Rollins has made, no less

still haven't voted. so hard!

still in contention:

Zooropa
Lemon
Stay
Some Days Are Better Than Others
Dirty Day

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

poor "Babyface."

Was fully expecting 'Lemon' and 'Stay' to be up there. Pretty surprised that the title track only managed 4 votes, though. I think it's definitely better than 'Numb'.

'babyface' is probably my least favorite track on the album, which isn't to say i don't think it's really good. 'achtung baby' is probably my top U2 album but i think the valleys here are higher than the valleys there. and it's their best 'nighttime listening' lp.

ha, i almost voted babyface there at the end. it's a pretty lazy song, but it kind of works in that way.

I dig its chorus (backup vocals are nice), & the bell sound on the verses. I like it more than "The First Time", which is still great.

Oh, fuck me. It's not just nostalgia for the back of my first drummer's car. I actually *like* this album.

Curse you, Elvis Telecom

::shakes fist::

Yeah, I like this album quite a great deal, and I wouldn't call myself a U2 fan. The first five songs are incredible, and I have more than a soft spot for 'Some Days Are Better Than Others'. What makes this album comparatively more palatable to me in U2's discography, is that Bono (when he's not singing in that ridiculous falsetto as on 'Numb' and 'Lemon') seems to adopt a more restrained vocal style here. Listening to his vocals here and comparing them to say, his vocal approach on The Joshua Tree and most certainly Boy is like day and night. I find "bellowing Bono" gets a bit much.

listening to this right now, crazy nostalgia rush. stormy otm above about 'stay', the context of the album makes it hit so much more than it might - first vaguely "traditional" u2 cut. this thing still sounds fantastic.

I totally missed Window in the Skies. Listening now, it's ... ok. A good Beatles-y pop song.

got the wanderer on repeat today. such a fantastic one-off that seems like it shouldn't work in theory, but it just does. anyone know where i can find similar post-apocalyptic synth country?

That's a tough one, since there are so many unique attributes that make that song great. There's of course Johnny Cash, who himself is kind of a fantastic one-off. There's the Eno-fied backing (Eno being another fantastic one-off), and then there's Bono/the song, both of which defer to Cash's Mt. Rushmore presence. The closest I can think right now is some of the solo Lanois stuff, like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrhIfbUsptw

Yeah sometimes I wish there were a full J. Cash album of songs like « the wanderer »...

xpost, thanks for the lanois rec. been meaning to check that out for a while. really nice ghostly omnichord.

i also just remembered eno's cover of ring of fire, which seems like the main precursor to the wanderer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fJqPsMB-g8

Perhaps check out Daughn Gibson?

https://open.spotify.com/album/01pKh9HnyZQKwhJDMEBmvn?si=Utco6g0VRQ2p5J_6jQAEmQ