The album debuted at number one throughout the world and spawned Top Ten hits with "Mysterious Ways" and "One. Dubbed Zoo TV, the tour was an innovative blend of multimedia electronics, featuring a stage filled with televisions, suspended cars, and cellular phones.
Bono devised an alter ego called the Fly, which was a knowing send-up of rock stardom. Even under the ironic guise of the Fly and Zoo TV, it was evident that U2 were looser and more fun than ever before, even though they had not abandoned their trademark righteous political anger. Following the completion of the American Zoo TV tour in late and preceding the launch of the tour's European leg, U2 entered the studio to complete an EP of new material that soon became the full-length Zooropa.
Released in the summer of to coincide with the tour of the same name, Zooropa demonstrated a heavier techno and dance influence than Achtung Baby and received strong reviews. Nevertheless, the album stalled at sales of two million and failed to generate a big hit single. During the subsequent Zooropa tour, the Fly metamorphosed into the demonic MacPhisto, which dominated the remainder of the tour.
Upon the completion of the Zooropa tour in late , the band took another extended break. Later that year, they recorded the collaborative album Original Soundtracks, Vol. It was greeted with a muted reception, both critically and commercially. Many hardcore U2 fans including drummer Larry Mullen Jr.
The album took longer to complete than usual, ultimately being pushed back to the spring of During its delay, a few tracks, including the forthcoming first single "Discotheque," were leaked, and it became clear that the new album was going to be heavily influenced by techno, dance, and electronic music. When it was finally released, Pop did indeed bear a heavier dance influence, but it was greeted with strong initial sales and a few positive reviews.
Demand for the album lessened in the following months, however, and Pop ultimately became the band's least popular album in over a decade. In late , the group returned with Best of , the first in a series of hits collections issued in conjunction with a reported 50 million dollar agreement with Polygram.
Included in the comprehensive track list was a remixed version of "Sweetest Thing," originally released as B-side in , which charted well in multiple countries. The album was heralded as a return to form, melding the band's classic sound with contemporary trends.
It topped charts around the world, reached number three in America, earned Grammy Awards for the singles "Beautiful Day" and "Walk On," and became the band's biggest-selling record in years.
The Elevation tour that followed also brought U2 a hefty paycheck. Released in November , it hit the top of the Billboard charts and quickly gained platinum status. U2 returned to the drawing board in by partnering with veteran rock producer Rick Rubin.
Two songs from those sessions appeared on the compilation U Singles, but the remaining material was ultimately scrapped. The band then turned to longtime friends Brian Eno , Daniel Lanois , and Steve Lillywhite , all of whom helped shape the sound of U2's 12th studio effort.
Entitled No Line on the Horizon, the album was originally slated to appear in October , although the release date was ultimately pushed back to March It sounds like U2 trying too hard to to do U2-type things in a U2-type song. It falls apart a little with the bridge because it takes you out of the giant rumbling noise. Still, very fun.
Nice red pants, Bono. The choruses are bright and impassioned. But the version on Boy is almost unrecognizable from the original — the latter being almost pop-punk parody, while the album rendition is larger and more interesting. There needs to be some grit and space, or U2 is not interesting. The bridge is kind of interesting, and after basically not being able to hear Larry Mullen Jr.
Mostly forgettable, though. It is particularly sympathetic to its protagonist, and was a definite counterpoint to how women appeared in other songs of the time. The band contributes a solidly constructed soundtrack that feels like the hustle and bustle of a big city, and the tension of one person trying to find or fight their way through.
It feels just a tiny bit dangerous, which is a pretty great thing coming from some fiftysomething former punk rockers. Bono said in the liner notes that this is meant to be about the first time U2 went to L. Then again, that is the entire story of Pop , depending on who you talk to: not enough time and not the right people. It is gray and brittle, the sound of frozen tree branches and faded autumn leaves trapped in the first layer of ice on a pond.
Also: Sometimes there can be too much backstory to a song, no matter how inspirational it might be. And the Edge does so with aplomb.
The xylophone that rings in the background adds both tension and fragility. This is how U2 were going to write about sex. The question, then, is whether you get up from the ground or surrender. When they got no response, they recorded it themselves — only for Willie to ring them up the next time he was in Dublin.
They recorded a lovely version with him on lead vocals and released it on another single later. The cool detachment of the early verses open up to an impassioned pleading. You get all of that, for sure, but if you have the slightest bit of imagination, you can see the scenes in your head, and you suddenly have the urge to visit Morocco. The video is fantastic. Sound familiar? Obviously not, or we would still be playing it live.
U2 have also characterized it as a drinking song, and made that point most definitively on the Zoo TV tour, where the Fly would go out on the catwalk, find an attractive young woman, spray Champagne around, and serenade the lucky lady on Handicam. They were attending regular meetings of the group while trying to put together the album, which was causing Bono, Edge, and Larry to question everything, including their membership in the band.
The whole thing shimmers with gold. The band only performed it live once, on an Irish TV benefit for the victims of the Omagh bombing in , where they deconstructed the song and made it more U2, and, understandably, more personal.
This is not a bad thing. He finally got his wish when he recorded it with Jools Holland in Yes, Holland is a skilled bandleader, but the vocals are Bono in full torch-singer mode.
But they never heard back from Frank, so Bono recorded it himself. To be honest, this would have been perfect as a background scene in Oceans 11 , Bono dressed as an aging version of the Fly in one of the casinos up on Fremont Street.
It is a vast, expressive piece that bears no resemblance to traditional verse-chorus-verse rock or pop songwriting from a vocal melody standpoint. The soft melody would have fit into The Unforgettable Fire. Adam Clayton, the bass on this created the deepest, most unexpectedly danceable rhythm. But where this song excels is in the dance remix by Steve Lillywhite , which pulls out the bass line and keyboards and digs a solid groove.
He even works in a Van Morrison reference, to boot. A commentary on the —85 U. The song is a masterful composition of despair and helplessness; the anguish in the vocals in that last bridge is truly heartrending. On the other hand, Island would have pushed hard for it to have been a single, and that would have been difficult to walk back from, taking away from the mood set by the actual singles.
In this rolling, surging melody, with Bono half-singing, half-speaking, his delivery is a mixture of Nick Cave, Michael Stipe, and maybe a little Allen Ginsberg. The breathless, conversational style is matched by an equally urgent melody behind it. When the band finished the record and went back over the outtakes to cull material for B-sides, they decided this track was too strong, so they put it aside.
Bono pulled together a lyric and rerecorded the vocal. It is not a bad song, just a curiously sequenced one, and did not help U2 in service to the story they were trying to tell with the album and, later, movie. Anywhere else, it would have made sense, but at the top it was just too precious.
Sorry, Edge. There was, however, no need to play it twice during a show, which U2 were entirely too fond of doing. There is blame and pleading and confessions and insistence and obsession and regret. Otherwise it fits beautifully into the Songs of Innocence and Experience cycle. It soars and zooms and creates a mood. Every single member of the band turns in a stunning performance, the instrumentation providing both delicate shade and solid counterpoint, the vocals raw and impassioned, and the lyrics grounded in adoration of both spiritual and physical.
It would grow to fit its boots in the live show, most notably during the Joshua Tree tour in , where the theme of the song made so much more sense. It has a groove; it genuinely swings; it feels organic and fun.
The organ in the background, courtesy of none other than Billy Preston, should have elevated this track off of the cutting-room floor, but, alas. It is evocative and memorable. No, but it has a good beat and you can dance to it, and the video is hilarious: pouting Larry, Adam with a giant disco ball over his crotch, and major homoeroticism between Edge and Bono.
A lengthy book could be written about the disaster that was Pop and the subsequent tour, but this track, at least, is a good bit of fun. The delicate impressionism of the title track is about dreams and escape, and you can hear it.
So he calls Bob and goes to his house in Malibu, where he sings the song to Dylan. Maybe someone should have paid attention to the lyrics. But live, this track is electric and cathartic, U2 building a sonic space that others would later try to duplicate but never succeed in doing.
But listen to the Edge peeling Townshend-ian riffs off of his guitar, Larry hitting the drums with crisp precision, Adam playing a secondary melody, and it can just be a love song to rock and roll. It is U2 inviting you to get on that train with them and run away. It is very clear here, a song about alienation and electro-convulsive therapy, vocals hidden amid trebly, reverb-heavy guitars, drums heavy on tom-tom thunder.
Moreover, they somehow did it without surrendering their, well, U2-ness. Who else among their peers would write an open-hearted, earnest celebration of Christian faith? From its opening blast of chaotic guitar, The Fly boldly announces things are not as they were in the world of U2. Out goes earnestness that could border on painful, in come more murky, ambiguous songs sung in character. Rattle and Hum marked the point at which U2 allowed their passion and self-belief — and indeed their reaction to superstardom — to slip into bombast, but sometimes its experiments with US roots music work.
Inspired by the rise in heroin use in 80s Dublin, Bad looms large in U2 legend. Most famously, they played it for 12 minutes at Live Aid , a performance they thought was a disaster, but which turned out to be a highlight.
Incisive and personal, it is heartbreakingly frank. It is helped by the fact the song itself is great; you could strip it of its production and it would still work.
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