Vorsprung durch Technik: U2 Zooropa poll

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.

stay still catches me off guard no matter how many times I hear it

i just went back & listened to stay for the first time in years

damn

I just love everything about Stay. Great lyrics and a perfect vocal.

put zooropa on just now. i remember thinking it sounded so horrible & alien, but I dont hear any of that now

wish the band that made this record still existed

truth bomb

^^^ how did they go from this to 'Pop'?

(which aside from Discotheque is more like 'Poop' or 'Plop' or something)

wish the band that made this record still existed

― inste grammophon (rogermexico.), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:53 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc, the story is that they were hastily rehearsing in a hotel basement the night before their Pop tour kickoff. They didn't have their samplers, drum machines etc. set up, so it was just guitars, amps and drums. Their soundman remarked on how much he dug their sound, and they incredulously replied, "Well, yeah, this is what we sound like." A light bulb went off, and they resolved after the tour to go all back-to-basics and shit.

20 years old today...

ive been listening to this a lot lately, i ignored it when it came out . it feels like the last great U2 album. theres no anthemic rockers, it just seems to glide all the way to the end with "the wanderer" (which is a really cool context to put JC into)

The Wanderer; the song i think should be played to people who think they tailed off after Achtung Baby.

the drum loops on daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car are so great

this is my favourite u2 album.

the drum loops on daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car are so great

yea thats incredible

The Edge Says U2’s Next LP Is Coming Together Quickly, Compares It To Zooropa
http://www.stereogum.com/1851251/the-edge-says-u2s-next-lp-is-coming-together-quickly-compares-it-to-zooropa/news/?

I am listening to this for the first time in over a decade (possibly 2) after seeing several people on Facebook and Twitter wax rhapsodic about it today and... idgi

My favourite U2 album, bar none!

yep

the first four songs sound like unfinished demos to me

u guys

i think

maybe

Dan is

NUMB?

:D

"Stay (Faraway, So Close)" is good, I'll grant that

wish the band that made this record still existed

― inste grammophon (rogermexico.), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 4:53 PM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god that is such a truthbomb

the first four songs sound like unfinished demos to me

― ornate orchestral arrangements (DJP), Tuesday, February 28, 2017 10:55 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow wait til you get to the second side

green light
7-11

"Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" – I wish more U2 songs sound like this.

The second side sounds like a hangover.

Zooropa is definitely frontloaded like pretty much every U2 album is, but the back half has grown on me quite a lot over the years.

I don't know, I guess it just feels to me like they took a bunch of Achtung, Baby demos and paired them with a bunch of Joshua Tree demos and then went on a pub crawl on the label's dime

have u heard the passengers record djp

I don't remember now. Probably? No memory of it if I did.

now that record is innocuous

am i the only person who loves it conditionally (the condition being "elvis in america" is improbably horrible)

"Your Blue Room" is lovely, the first half perfectly pleasant background music to play while reading Stendhal.

OH RIGHT I never listened to it after hearing "Elvis in America" because, well, why would I

Because Slug and Your Blue Room are on it

maybe they should have led with one of those then and hidden Elvis in America where it couldn't hurt anyone

U2 has a song called 'Slug'?

Oh, Passengers.

Is there a time for East 17?

the first four songs sound like unfinished demos to me

Even if this were the case, that in and of itself is appealing. This album is great, and I like the second half better than the first half. I mean, "Dirty Day" and "The First Time" are awesome, and for all their lame Rattle & Hum era pedantry, they recruited Johnny Cash for this before the Rick Rubin resurgence, which was pretty hip.

Still remarkable to me how many U2 fans I know that don't like it and dismiss it as some weird, inaccessible experiment. It's as strange a stance to me as people who truly bought into U2 as being somehow "ironic."

Demos interest me only in how they contrast with the final, polished songs that made the album (or the sketches of ideas that were abandoned). If I want to listen to half-finished, half-baked ideas, I have an entire folder full of abandoned GarageBand projects I can export to sound files and play to my heart's content.

I get that the loose, disconnected ramble is what you are all responding to with this album. That is precisely what is pushing me away from it. None of it speaks to me because none of it aside from "Stay" sounds or feels like a complete thought; I don't know exactly what the "more" I'm looking for is but it isn't present in the material as-presented on the album.

Yeah, 'Dirty Day' and 'The First Time' grew on me a hell of a lot. I don't think the record is inaccessible at all (of course) but I can definitely how people who love the U2 of The Joshua Tree or 'Beautiful Day' might find the record a little beyond their comfort zone.

For all that's been said about Kid A confounding expectations, tracks like 'Numb' and 'Lemon' must have sounded fucking bizarre to long-time U2 fans.

"Zooropa" and "Babyface" sound like demos? Wow. They sound complete to my ears (whether you like them is another point entirely).