Achtung Pollby

I bought this when I was in elementary school because I really liked 'mysterious ways' and was pretty disappointed that nothing on it was nearly as good. my opinion has only really changed in that now I also don't like 'mysterious ways'. zooropa is so much better.

lol at bono from the wikipedia article:

"I was explaining to people the other night, but I might've got it a bit wrong – this is just the end of something for U2. And that's what we're playing these concerts – and we're throwing a party for ourselves and you. It's no big deal, it's just – we have to go away and ... and dream it all up again."

zoo station > even better than the real thing > the fly >>>>>>>>> the rest

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

I didn't know ILM could be so cruel!

looking at these results, there's a lot of things if I could I'd rearrange, but I guess love is blindness

and euler, you'd said you'd wait, until

the end of the

I've been trying to find a video of someone making the "Zoo Station" riff, on air guitar, in the Berlin train station; last time I was there that was pretty all I did, Beavis-style, which I'm sure endeared me to the general populace.

Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World 1
So Cruel 0

These and 'One' are my favourite songs on the record, voted TTTYAATW in the end. Love it's languid, sensual vibe, something Bono doesn't do often enough for my liking.

"The Fly" is still the worst track on the entire album.

You are, quite clearly, empirically wrong on this assertion, Geir. How about, for once in your miserable life, you say "The Fly is still my least favourite song on the album" rather than couching your opinions in such fascistically dictatorial absolutes?

you could always treat that as implied, thinking philosophically about it. he's hardly going to give you someone else's opinion, regardless of how it's couched.

The Fly" is probably my least favourite track here.

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 24 March 2009 02:42 (2 days ago)

wrong either way tho obv

well yeah. obviously.

listening to this whole thing for the first time in a VERY long time; it's startling how much better "One" works in the context of the album, and I'd also forgotten that I liked "So Cruel"

"The Fly", "Until the End of the World" and "Zoo Station" still pwn everything tho

^^^ so true, kind of always hated "One" as a radio single but when I got into the album it seems really just part of the texture, not this Grand Anthemic Statement or whatever. And I can't imagine liking "So Cruel" as much as I do except that it's part of this record.

I was talking to my friend the other night about how a lot of grand, arguably pretentious albums tend to have one song that kind of lighten the load, the band is just kind of having fun, goofing around, etc., and we were kicking around the equivalent songs for various bands, and my contention was that U2 just don't do this, that even their attempts to unwind and be authentic feel like Serious Gestures (with Rattle & Hum being kind of the main offender). Before I realized that they do have "The Sweetest Thing," he tried to sell me on "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World" as the local equivalent of your "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"s and what-nots. I'm not buying - I think it's kind of a string of Serious U2 Is Serious signifiers - but he knows more about U2 than I do. What's the verdict?

The Sweetest Thing is just a nice, light, weightless pop song; and is very good for it. TTTYAATW, while hardly Sunday Bloody Sunday, is NOT anywhere near being a Maxwell's Silver Hammer. If that's the closest thing to a Maxwell song in U2's oeuvre then U2's oeuvre is an even more miserable, self-important, pompous thing than I thought.

I think there are several fun unwind songs on AB: "Even Better Than The Real Thing", "Mysterious Ways", and to some degree "The Fly"

It would never cross my mind to describe TTTYAATW that way

Dali/trolley rhyme most likely triggered that analogy.

"Even Better..." is the most fun thing on the album though, just like "...Wild Horse" is undiluted garbage.

nothing on this album is undiluted garbage, particularly considering that they were coming off of Rattle and Hum

rattle and hum is strangely the album that sold me on U2 but I was also 12 yrs old. I still think the studio tracks are mostly vb defensible. But anyway the fly is maybe U2's best song right?

Nah, that'll be Bad.

"It's a musical journey" - U2 POLL RESULTS

I was talking to my friend the other night about how a lot of grand, arguably pretentious albums tend to have one song that kind of lighten the load, the band is just kind of having fun, goofing around, etc., and we were kicking around the equivalent songs for various bands, and my contention was that U2 just don't do this, that even their attempts to unwind and be authentic feel like Serious Gestures (with Rattle & Hum being kind of the main offender). Before I realized that they do have "The Sweetest Thing," he tried to sell me on "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World" as the local equivalent of your "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"s and what-nots. I'm not buying - I think it's kind of a string of Serious U2 Is Serious signifiers - but he knows more about U2 than I do. What's the verdict?

Always felt this way about "Trip Through Your Wires" - goofy harmonica, an Edge guitar break that owes more to Dick Dale, overall non-statement. About the only thing it shares with Serious U2 is the word "wire"

Has to be Party Girl, Trash &Trampoline or whatever it's called.

'Until The End Of The World' is blatantly influenced by 'Dennis and Lois' by Happy Mondays.

ha yeah i think it might well be, dunno why i never spotted that before.

no votes for So Cruel? that's kind of a shame, but also a reflection of the depth of this album, i guess.

this is great, hadn't heard it for years. a Radio 1 interview just prior to the ZOOtv tour, incredible how radical Bono sounds looking back; ranting about corporate sponsorship and the daft-arsed myths of rock, sticking up for indie bands, slagging off rock's 'fat bastards'
and swearing more than Noel Gallagher.

http://u2interview.com/2007/07/16/interview-with-mark-goodier-radio-1/

What went wrong?

ha, good question!

I am listening to this album for the first time ever right now. What Disco Inferno song is a ripoff of "Even Better Than the Real Thing"? Grrr. I can't think of it.

"The Fly" is still the worst track on the entire album.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:54 AM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i miss this man's insanity

He was kind of a Magic Eightball of RONG

Oh man I forgot about this trend in thread titles

Welcome back, my friend

To the Poll that never ends

So Cruel 0

man i woulda voted for "so cruel"

Can I vote for the whole thing

The whole album is awesome, IMO... except for 'Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World', which isn't awesome but still pleasant.

'90s U2 is my favourite U2.

It was the first album they released since I had started to be a fan as a teenager so it was a big deal.
Loved it so much at the time.
Except "Whose Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" which I have always found awful.
I still like all the album. except that song !

I love that song.

me too, it's a huge song

back around the time of this album's release a VHS tape was released that was kind of a haphazard tossed-off promo thing but it's kind of amazing. i bought it at the time and it helped put this album in some kind of context. it's extremely early-'90s.

I don't think(?) it's available anywhere else except as an easter egg on the Live From Sydney DVD.

https://vimeo.com/15070790

Ah yeah, I remember, I had that VHS too !

man i woulda voted for "so cruel"

Same. Especially in 2009.

It's totally unfashionable to say so but I really, really, really love most of this album.

― Lots of praying with no breakfast! (HI DERE), 28. februar 2009 00:30 (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM (still unfashionable, right?)

Edge's ridiculously great solo, swelling keyboard chords, entrance of Bono's Fat Black Lady voice for one final go-around of "The Fly"'s chorus = greatest U2 moment ever.

― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 27, 2009 7:42 PM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM 2

Nobody was arguing your 'Numb' point!

Yeah, that fast pattern at the beginning of 'With or Without You' is sequenced.

I was listening to "Miss Sarajevo" and some other Passengers songs lately and these are so good. E
specially considering how a U2 / Pavarotti political track about Sarajevo and war could/should have been atrocious !
The Pavarotti part which could have been an ott disaster is so moving.
Between Achtung Baby and Passengers, they were basically on fire creatively.
And the best songs from that time were so different from their sound ("The Fly", "The Wanderer", "Miss Sarajevo"...).