Vorsprung durch Technik: U2 Zooropa poll

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

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...

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