Vorsprung durch Technik: U2 Zooropa poll

Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Lemon

two good choices imo

Why ty!

Instinct says Stay but the first half-dozen tracks are all really good. I really liked the description of Bono's writing process in U2 At The End Of The World. No memory of the last four except for The Wanderer sounding ridiculous.

I'll need to give this another spin before voting.

http://media.kickstatic.com/kickapps/images/74615/photos/PHOTO_9402914_74615_12651433_ap.jpg

Lemon - Bono's vocal theatrics serve the song instead of detracting from it.

'Lemon' or the title track.

like enbb it's either Stay (Faraway, So Close!) or Lemon for me.
it's funny, i was pretty heavily into u2 when this came out (age 13?), and i remember *thinking* about Zooropa a lot, trying to figure it out.

Absolutely love pretty much every song here apart from Babyface. Ny favourite U2 album. I voted Lemon as my favourite song in the U2 poll and I'm doing the same here.

the first half of this album is very strong. songwriting slips on the second half, but there's still some interesting textures. i voted for numb, even though i may like lemon better... numb was pretty audacious at the time (even for u2, which seems funny to say these days,) and still sounds incredibly strange, yet remains a great pop song. lemon really changed the way i listen to music, but it doesn't quite have the same impact as it did then (i guess it really couldn't). but i do love the backing vocals and the watery guitar line.

tyler i was about the same age when this album came out, i remember sitting on the floor with the zooropa guitar line washing over me, just blown away

The backing vocals are always great on U2 songs, whether it's Edge backing Bono or Bono backing Edge.

Or Eno, as is often the case.

"The First Time" is great, but will prolly vote "Stay."

Was U2 first onboard the Johnny Cash revival?

Does Eno sing on this? Or other U2 records? I never knew.

definitely him and the edge on lemon right?

yes

Often this is my favorite U2 album, thanks to timing: summer '93 when I discovered Eno, Roxy, and Bowie. What startled me about U2 is how well their new music adapted the sources I was myself absorbing. The playing is precise, the songs often beautiful. Think of the opening of "Zooropa": the wah-wah riff, the strings, Bono, mixed low, saying "What do you want?" or Clayton's bass hook in "Some Days Are Better Than Others," the entirety of "Lemon" but especially the Eno-Edge "A man makes a picture" section; a song that began consciously as Prince-meets-Talking-Heads, a song that could have been a farrago, succeeds beautifully.

I really liked the description of Bono's writing process in U2 At The End Of The World. No memory of the last four except for The Wanderer sounding ridiculous.

I've given U2 too many chances over the years thanks to how well Bill Flanagan presents them. The in-the-studio conversations between the band, Flood, and Eno make for my favorite you-are-there moment in any rock bio.

Was U2 first onboard the Johnny Cash revival?

seems like it, the first American Recordings album came out the year after Zooropa

"Stay" is a never-fail karaoke number.

voted "numb", just so much fun to nod along to, and i love the way bono's falsetto "too much is not enough" creeps in.

in recent years, U2 songs often start out with great textures, beats and guitar sounds, lots of ambient space, but usually drown themselves almost immediately in wedding cake glop. enjoyed them much more when they weren't pushing so hard for "songs of ascent".

And we've talked about this before, but this album was famously churned out, using the same process Eno and James used with "wah wah" - two studios, one for the band, one for Eno to fiddle with what the band had done.

When this album was released my roommate at the time told me "did you produce this album without telling anyone? It sounds exactly like something you would be into." I still feel that way... I don't know if I'd put any tracks from this on a POX list (maybe I did? Have to go look in the archives) but as a complete start-to-finish album this is easily my favorite U2 album. The short recording schedule absolutely works in their favor - U2 albums have always felt like there were months of second-guessing, hand-wringing, and doubt in between all the good parts. I suppose then that this is their Obscured By Clouds, but I also feel that Achtung Baby is the uneven transitional step, and this is the fully-realized work.

"Stay" is a wonderful song, something that any other band would have built a career out of, but in the context of the album it feels too traditional. I've always linked it with the bar scene in Wenders' "Far Away, So Close" where it's playing in the background - a small-scale slice of post-collapse Berlin. Too bad the movie is such a p.o.s.

Voted for the title track. "Zooropa" is their Bowie moment, sounding as if they took the architectural diagrams of a Bowie song (especially in how it steadily builds up) and built their own song out of it.

i'm not sure i'd call this my favorite u2 album, but it's definitely the one i'm most likely to listen to today

love u2 basically, love this album, voted 'lemon' which might get my top vote in a u2 poll (which has apparently already been done), runnerup to 'zooropa'.

johnny cash revival had been attempted many times (and tbh maybe wasn't totally needed really - those highwaymen records sold a shitload, got played like crazy on radio) before the rubin castrations took, johnny 99 (yes that song is on it) is a clear attempt and almost a blueprint for rubin to the extent that it's 'johnny cash needs to make records that sound like nebraska'. and water from the wells of home was an all-star type affair and was just a few years before american recordings. 'the wanderer' is a little ridiculous but i would LOVE if there was an entire disc of johnny cash making an old testament yazz record, i think it works wonderfully as an album closer.

i'd never thought about it before, but i suppose U2 do deserve credit for interesting america in the sort of "gothic americana" that's always been so popular in the UK and europe. and the awakening of that interest probably did pave the way for the johnny cash revival.

Lemon and Stay are my two favourite U2 songs. Stay has Bono's best ever vocal and gets to me every single time. Lemon is such a strange and wonderful song unlike anything else in thier back catalogue, I'd have to go with that but its very close. Love the first half of this album so much, second half is good but just doesn't compare.

Babyface is the most underated song on the album, always thought the "How can beauty be so kind" bit was heavily ripped off from the title track of Here Come The Warm Jets.

i always thought 'high and dry' was sort of a ripoff of 'stay' w/the latter being much better.

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lchb4oRSNR1qz6f9yo1_500.jpg

Almost everything's a contender but... very very hard not to vote the title track.

The Highwaymen is an album deserving rediscovery. Like a lot of eighties country it's gone down the memory hole.

i always thought 'high and dry' was sort of a ripoff of 'stay' w/the latter being much better.

Never thought of this before but yeah I can really hear it. I loved this album at the time, really wanted to see the tour but they played Roundhay Park (about ten minutes drive from our house) the same day we went away on our family holiday, was kind of gutted.

I've never really been much of a fan of U2, but there are one or two moments on this album I enjoy. Voted for the title track.

The drummer from my first band used to inflict this on us in the car.

I had completely forgotten about this album, but suddenly Bends era Radiohead makes a lot more sense. Even down to the inside cover art. That's just shocking.

This often seems to be the U2 album for people who hate U2.

Ha, it's easily my favourite. (I appreciate and respect the band but for the most part don't have very strong feelings for them, with a couple of exceptions.) My impulse is to pick "Lemon" but I should listen to the whole thing again. Listened to this so much in Grade 10.

Absolutely 'Stay (Faraway, So Close!)' by a country mile. You wouldn't have got Suede's 'The Wild Ones' or 'High And Dry' by the proto-Muse without it.

I largely hate U2 these days, but they were onto some good things at that point.

The Wanderer

This often seems to be the U2 album for people who hate U2.

It's their "Nebraska!" Oddly enough, I do know a few die-hard U2 fans who dismiss this disc as "too weird." They're stupid, because I'll forever take this over all the "too boring" that followed.

(It's a total aside, but yeah, of course Johnny Cash was always making records, some not bad, but he still had no cachet at all, inexplicably. I saw him tour behind "Unchained," and even then the crowd was mostly old guys with big grey beards. It took a while for even the comeback to connect with all but the cognoscenti)

Often this is my favorite U2 album, thanks to timing: summer '93 when I discovered Eno, Roxy, and Bowie.

I had gotten heavily into Roxy about a year before I heard this, and still see it as a sort of 90s Stranded. I remember it getting a fairly chilly reception on rock radio, though: they'd gone too far. One DJ angrily said, "Where's that cool strumming thing they always used to do?!"

love the title track here so much, including the ad-slogan lyrics. i like listening to this as the specifically post-91 end-of-history opening-of-europe album people usually say achtung baby is -- sensual but cold, adventurous but frightened, excited about new commercial opportunities going forward but already becoming numb. ("numb" is like if "fitter happier" actually functioned as a song.) plus this is a really quiet album mixwise; contenderizer's right about the space that u2 are still capable of but usually clutter up (this is also why i love the maligned "new york" off ATYCLB). and then lol johnny cash at the end doing his best to conjure some gravitas around bono's Serious Songwriter nuclear-prophet verse. and yeah like apparently half the thread this is basically the only u2 album i listen to. anyway my answer is probably the title track but you know what i'll put this on right now; i'm hungover.

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE / BUT BRIGHTLY LIT

most of the English reviews couldn't resist making analogies to the implosion of Yugoslavia (U2 themselves advanced the notion on tour).

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

Haha, my own memory left it out too. For sure, it beats Zooropa as far as committing to a concept, but tbf, it isn't U2. Eno shares writing credits on that album and is hardcore on concepts - I suspect he did a lot of the steering

i think "lemon" is my fav u2 song

Xpost Yeah, iirc it was going to be credited to U2, or U2 and Eno, but the label objected.

Eno essentially had cowrite on Zooropa, too,and I'm sure contributed earlier, but it wasn't until No Line that he and Lanois were ever formally credited as writers.

I sometimes wonder if 'Elvis Ate America' was deliberately crafted to be the most irritating track they could possibly come up with.

Blame it on Howie B.

Have we ever polled stupid songs about Elvis? Dire Straights, "Calling Elvis." Living Colour, "Elvis is Dead." Kirsty MacColl, Richard Thompson, Neil Young ... there are some good ones, too, and apparently a lot!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_about_or_referencing_Elvis_Presley

i think "lemon" is my fav u2 song

I'm starting to come around to this too. Also for a long time I'd mentally tagged this album as a curate's egg but after re-listening to the whole thing thanks to this revive I've completely changed my mind, right now I'd say it's at least as good as Achtung Baby.

is Bono doing a... boston accent on Lemon?

I don't know if 'Lemon' is my absolute favourite U2 song, but it's definitely an all-time favourite of mine. I wish that Pop had been both more of a success and that the end product was one that the band were satisfied with, then maybe they wouldn't have been too scared to go further down this path instead of wimping out with 'Beautiful Day' etc.

Lemon is my favourite U2 song. The moment around the five minute mark where those heartbreaking strings change note as the piano comes back in is probably my favourite moment in music ever. That and Stay are the two best songs they ever did.

I think 'Bad' might be their greatest ever song, fwiw.

i had it #1 when we polled

I used to appreciate the 3 tempos in zooropa. Now I could give a fuck

ISOLATION
MASTURBATION
COPULATION

Someone here (I forget who) made a joke about Adam Sandler's Cajun Man singing "Bad." Ruined the song for me. Thanks, jerk.

I like Bad fine, but I don't like all the A-A-A-A- rhyming or how it's just those two chords over and over again (which is all fine as are the performances but I don't really listen to it much). Until the End of the World might be my fave.

The Quietus: From The Joshua Tree To Pop: Angus Batey Revisits U2

Interesting take, but seems like there was even more room for rhetorical exploration in the piece. I think the band's issue is that up until Achtung the songs were largely political, not personal, in that they were about problems the world was facing, from drugs to war to etc.. But Achtung marked a remarkable shift to mostly personal stuff - failed relationships and the like - precipitated, apparently, by the dissolution of Edge's marriage. if Joshua Tree was the peak of U2 looking out at the world, Achtung was the peak of the band looking into itself, and Pop found the group struggling for a new mission. Hence the misbegotten and, in light of how people misconstrued Achtung and Zooropa, a more fervent and identifiable embrace of "irony." Recall when the band toured Pop they had their own version of the McDonald's arch on stage, emerged out of a giant lemon, and led Neil Diamond singalongs.

When they emerged post-Pop they were flailing for a direction, and they've been stuck in a sort of purgatory ever since. I want to say pretty much every album is preceded by rumors of a return to experimentation, or news that they've been so productive that there's an entire second album in the can, or EP, often hinted to be weirder and more adventurous. But those bonus records never appeared, and every time an album came out it was if any rough edges or weirdness had been cautiously sanded down, never more so than with No Line on the Horizon. If anything I'd controversially suggest the free album was the first U2 album in a long while with a clear direction or theme, which the band embraced on a tour that drew heavily from the new record (and amplified the theme). Which is partly why the group's first full-on sell-out move of playing Joshua Tree in its entirety is so lame, imo.

Even Bono is better than Reznor.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 3, 2017 9:46 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, no, i don't think this is right

― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson), Friday, March 3, 2017 11:57 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, Reznor at least is able to pivot away from his typical mode (misanthropy/self-loathing/etc.) for surprise moments of warmth and humanity here and there, especially on the newer records. Bono only has "pompous mouth garbage"

But those bonus records never appeared, and every time an album came out it was if any rough edges or weirdness had been cautiously sanded down, never more so than with No Line on the Horizon.

I don't remember all the records since Pop getting saddled with the "experimentation" label, but No Line definitely was. I just read the wiki entry for that album to refresh myself on it and got angry when I saw this

many of "the more contemplative and sonically adventurous songs" had been dropped, attributing the lack of African-inspired music to its sounding "synthetic" and unconvincing when paired with other songs.

yes, let's cut the adventurous songs because it doesn't mesh with a song we wrote with will.i.am

Xpost Oh, come on. I love Nine Inch Nails but I don't think there is a single Nine Inch Nails lyrics I can quote as anything other than a good Nine Inch Nails Lyric. That is, good for Nine Inch Nails, but terrible in pretty much any other context. Knees please disease is pretty much as deep as it gets, and yeah, compared to that stuff any moments of wit or levity seem pretty magnified and conspicuous.

Lately Depeche Mode seems to be splitting the difference between Reznor and Bono.

I'm not saying reznor is a good lyricist! But I will say that "the foot is deep and the mouth is wide" works on two levels (one of which is funny and, yeah, probably unintentional), which is more than one level than any bono lyric works on

i think "one" is mostly a kinda good lyric but then bono does the "too much/more than a lot" thing and poisons the whole affair

I love the synth strings in the "Have you.." section

as usual Eno plays Capn Save a Song

I think Lanois goes underrated as a producer/player/arranger, given he is far more musical than Eno. He's playing a lot of guitar, singing, too. I dunno if Eno alone can be credited with the strings on "One," but if you listen carefully you can definitely hear his Omnichord, which if memory serves is the last thing you hear. (Also the last thing you hear on "Trip Through Your Wires." Omnichord lets Eno play along with anything.)

I was so mad about the Negativland lawsuit that I didn't realize that the rawer mix of "Until The End Of The World" from the movie soundtrack is pretty much my favorite thing of theirs from this era - maybe my fave thing of theirs period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8md8py8yVxY

Lately Depeche Mode seems to be splitting the difference between Reznor and Bono.

Seems to me the trick here is to get the shade of Johnny Cash to comment, considering he covered all three of these bands. And presumably didn't mind the lyrics.

Knees, please, disease, cheese, peas, fleas, sneeze, pleas, ring of fire.

I was so mad about the Negativland lawsuit

Wasn't there an interview with The Edge where he denied that the band themselves had anything to do with that? I seem to remember an interview where one of the Negativland guys confronted The Edge about it all.

It's since come out that Bertis Downs (who worked for R.E.M.) was the one that purchased the record and forwarded it to U2's management.

Yeah, iirc it was the label. See also: Tom Petty vs. Sam Smith, etc.

http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=19

It's since come out that Bertis Downs (who worked for R.E.M.) was the one that purchased the record and forwarded it to U2's management.

He did? What a punk.

Yup, there's footage on Youtube of Mark Hosler confronting Downs about it - because they'd managed to figure out that the copy that made its way into the hands of U2's management was purchased at a store in Athens, Georgia. From what I can gather, he saw the record in the racks and got on the phone to U2's management as he was confused about the release, and then U2's management asked him to send a copy of the record. The rest is history!

I'm more bemused that he wouldn't have at least heard of Negativland after working a decade in college rock as such.

Well, yeah! I've often wondered what R.E.M.'s thoughts on the whole thing were... 'cuz Hosler is on record as saying he actually asked R.E.M. (prior to confronting Downs) whether anyone in the R.E.M. camp was responsible for forwarding the record on, but they were adamant nobody in the R.E.M. camp had anything to do with it.

Hahaha omg i guarantee that was at wuxtry - they had a huge negativland 'u2' poster on one of the front windows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2h1TOfeVFA

Just picked up the new vinyl reissue of this after reading a series of good notices on the pressing, and it sound pretty outstanding. It’s newly remastered!

They seem to be doing an extremely good job with these recent remasters, I actually picked up the one for HTDAAB and was pretty shocked at how much better the album sounded.

Didn't realize that the mixes of "Stay" and "The Wanderer" on the Faraway, So Close! soundtrack are different from the album versions – they're rougher, Eno's voice seems more prominent in "Stay".

I love that U2 took advantage of its imperial phase to do stuff like this album and Passengers. Speaks to their musical character, imo. As does "No Line on the Horizon" for the opposite: relocate to Morocco for a closer than usual collaboration with Eno and Lanois (first time they officially shared writing credits), and yet the results are pretty meh. And the band has been playing it safe and boring ever since.

nloth was an attempt at experimentation again but they clearly got scared about commercial prospects half way though recording and ended up with an even worse and less coherent album than they probably would have if they'd stuck to the original idea, and it still didn't have any his

i think U2 still has the ability to make an interesting and maybe even great experimental rock album, but whether or not they'll ever regain the courage to do so is another matter. considering the album sales of the last pair especially, and the fact that no matter what they'll always do well on tours, i think they should just say fuck it and try some weird shit. this will likely never happen, though. even though NLOTH is actually outstanding when it doesn't play to the fair-weather fans (on maybe half a dozen tracks). it's totally good for most of the rest of the time as well imo, albeit not very interesting.

In my humble opinion, they put the best song they've done in the last 30 years or even longer on a greatest hits album and nobody heard it. Window In the Skies should have been their biggest hit. I have no idea how everybody missed it.

i think "lemon" is my fav u2 song

― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson), Sunday, March 5, 2017 9:51 AM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same

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