Achtung Pollby

They dialled down the reverb on the drums and Edge got a new set of effects, but the songs - at their core - are very recognisable as U2 songs, so I can see what mookieproof is getting at.

Zooropa is where they really start pushing the boat out. 'Lemon' and 'Numb' are barely recognisable as U2. The former feels like Bono guesting on someone else's record.

Except for the bass and drums, which are very much in contemporaneous character. What sets both of those songs apart really is the practical absence of guitar. If there's guitar in Lemon (from memory), it is very well disguised. And the guitar in Numb is so distorted and weird it is functionally just another synthesizer.

Numb was a really bold choice for a first single for those reasons as well as the fact that The Edge is the lead vocalist, Bono is relegated to the "too much is not enough" part, and Larry sings the "i feel numb". It removes all the comfortable elements from a typical U2 song and inserts some jarring ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvX596FyX40

this is legitimately the weirder one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZImRY8Wgtk

'Lemon' does indeed have guitar on it - those shimmering chords you hear right from the beginning of the song are all Edge's guitar, not a keyboard or synth.

Maybe! But my "Numb" point still stands in that they are functionally not identifiable as guitars. I mean, the drums could be all triggered by guitars for all it really matters.

(Speaking of guitars, I always thought the mood-setting four-note chiming pattern that starts "With or Without You" was a guitar, but on close exploration with a friend we determined it's massively awkward to play on guitar and then learned that it's actually a synth pattern.)

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"...).