Customer Reviews

Zooropa

5 star:		(127)
4 star:		(59)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Give U2 credit for not settling into a comfortable groove after the massive success of "Ach-Tung Baby," and just releasing more albums in that same mold. On "Zooropa," Bono and the boys decided to experiment with their sound and take it in unusual new directions. And while it doesn't always work, enough of it does to excuse them for not producing another single as catchy as "Mysterious Ways."

The album is best characterized by "Numb," in which seldom-heard-from guitarist The Edge mumbles the barely sensical spoken word lyrics over a gorgeous synthesizer background. Other oddities include the slowly building opening title track, the strange vocals on "Daddy's Going to Pay for Your Crashed Car," and the Johnny Cash collaboration "The Wanderer," with some bizarre apocalyptic imagery that closes things on an appropriate note. Even the more conventional songs, like "Babyface," "Stay," have an otherwordly quality about them.

Overall, "Zooropa" is not the place for casual fans to start their U2 collection. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile challenge for the already commited.

For me, Zooropa was the one U2 disc that I had written off by word of mouth: All of my friends and favorite critics considered it "U2's dissapointment." I picked it up after seeing it in a discount bin just to round off my collection. I plopped it into the CD player, and prepared to go off to do other things, but I was held- and immediately fascinated. I listened to it 2 times in a row, hardly doing anything but rereading the sleeve. I was more than pleasantly surprised: I love this album!

Don't get me wrong: there are some significant flaws. But I'd rather get them out of the way quickly; the strengths are much more fun here. Sequencing is a huge problem: the album never sounds conceived together. It almost sounds like a B-sides collection: in fact, some of the weaker tracks ARE obviously B-side material (Babyface, Dirty Day, The First Time) and then there's The Wanderer, such a strangely out-of-place song that its puzzling how it merited inclusion. But, then again, Zooropa itself is an out-of-place album...

Flaws aside, this is U2's most inventive album ever. Much more groundbreaking than even Actung Baby (a fairly groundbreaking album), they successfully merged eurodance and pop with these tracks. With elements that are entirely new. Zooropa is a collage introduction that is perfectly described by the sleeve art. Numb is terrifically catchy and irreverent. Some Days are Better than Others is such a laid-back ode to the philosophy of "take life as it comes" that it should be standard on todays cd player to defeat road rage. And then theres Lemon, U2 most "epic" song of the 90's, and my personal favorite U2 song since "One Tree Hill."

Not every disc can be perfect, but Zooropa just goes to show that with great bands like U2 even their flawed discs can be as interesting as their classics. Definately recommended.

What can I say! This album was fresh off the heels of Achtung Baby and in the midst of the ZOO TV Tour. Recorded in 3 months, Zooropa is a spontaneous masterpiece. If U2 isn't officially credited with a "Concept Album", this is it!

The leadoff song, "Zooropa", is everything ZOO TV is all about. Commercial slogans used as lyrics and arcade sound effects to fill in the blanks. This song sums up the album. Technology and commercialism IS life...not a way of life. This mentality proves to be true on the tune "Numb". The Edge, not Bono, takes the mic and repeats a list of do's and dont's. We are told what to do and brainwashed what to buy. U2 has fun disguising everything by flirting with dance rhythms. "Lemon", "Daddy's Gonna Pay...", and "Some Days Are Better Than Others" are U2 at it's most playful yet serious. Peel the layers and these songs will make more sense.

Of course, no U2 album is complete without a bittersweet lovesong. "Stay" is a song that fits the bill. This tune will take you away to that U2 of yesteryear.

Finally, after a blitzkrieg of trashiness around Europe, technology, and excess, someone has to make sense of it all. Enter Johnny Cash. Mr. Cash makes his appearance in the album's finale, "The Wanderer". What better way to bring in an elder statesman to make sense of U2's "sinful" tactics.

Zooropa isn't the most popular U2 album, but it is indeed the most playful and danceable. Give this album more credit. Released in 1993, in the middle of Grunge's heyday, U2 was brave enough to release an "experimental" album which didn't feature a single guitar solo.

Remember, Achtung Baby was a hard album for the band to make. Zooropa was born from Achtung Baby. ...and thank God Zooropa doesn't sound like Achtung Baby PtII. Turning the corner and reinventing their music is what U2 is known for...I just wish most of you knew that.

U2 leaped well ahead of their fan base with this experimental record that is a way out there vision of the world and society.

Numb was a hit, and is perhaps the most bizarre and yet hypnotic U2 song ever. Lemon sounds like a lemon tastes. I can't explain it if you haven't heard it. Zooropa and Babyface also have that futuristic quality about them, with lots of Bono singing in a high-pitched tone.

My favorite song on the album, actually, even though it doesn't really fit here, is The Wanderer, with Johnny Cash. I simply couldn't get enough of that track when I bought this.

Basically, this is a good album with several intriguing songs and certainly is a must for fans tracking the evolution of the band. But it doesn't have the emotional gut resonance for me that some of U2's most inspiring work does.

Enjoy!

I know I know... I'm late to review this CD. It's been out for quite a long time. But I think after listening to Zooropa again, my likes for it haven't died.

The best song has to be "Lemon" for its humorous video & "tangy" lyrics. Another great track "The wanderer" is haunting with Johnny Cash's vocals. This track finishes off Zooropa in the way I would. Zooropa is a jumble of ideas put into action, in a way I would call a fantastic B-side Cd. Bono & the boys experimentation has created a classic CD.

"Daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car" is another one of those great rock songs, with brilliant, tantalizing lyrics. So is the song "Some days". "Babyface" comes to us soft at first with that drifting electric guitar and drums, the toy piano balances the sexy part of this tune.

The title track sounds like the closest sound we're accustomed to hear from them. It has all the sounds from the 80's. I don't care that the CD was made & released in 93. It's great. And I bought it the day it was released. I'm kind of glad I waited so long to review this CD. One reason is because I read many reviews before doing my own review, allowing me to decide whether or not it was worth it. Secondly, I noticed there were a few reviews done in the past few weeks. This made me decide to take a chance.

One thing I don't get is the Bleep bleep bleep... sound at the end of the CD, after 1 minute of the end of "The wanderer".

I hope you like the review. The Cd is excellent.

To the best of my knowledge, Zooropa was never intended to be a full album, but rather an EP that turned into a full album. Listening to U2's albums before and after, it's a pretty good guess as to why. This was U2 being U2, showing they can do whatever they want and doing so by creating an eclectic, infectious blend of electronics and a faint sound of rock n' roll. To futher confuse audiences, besides the lead track's ode/warning of commericial culture and a couple of love songs, the songs on this album are just plain weird - and that's what's so wondeful about it.

Numb was the lead single, featuring the Edge in monotone delivering a list of dont's with Bono providing incidental harmonies. All this done with interesting electronic sounds that have Eno written all over them. Hardly single material, but nonetheless engaging - and it produced one of the most iconic videos in U2's career.

Stay was the closest to standard U2, though the inspiration was a Wim Wenders film that was heavily featured in the song's video. Lemon, featuring Bono singing higher than ever before is a grand song, mixing strings with dance. These odd takes are just the singles. The meat of the album has even more to offer.

The two other standouts include Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car, and The Wanderer. The former is a mix of loops and samples with a lyrical cry for independence while the latter shows that Bono saw Johnny Cash as a hip alternative icon a year before the American Recordings series took off.

What makes this album so special though is that it's a risk taking album. Finished on the heels of the highly successful Achtung Baby, Zooropa should have promised to be a straight rock n' roll record, but it was something far different. While it doesn't have the post-punk excitement of U2's early records or the straight laced rock n roll of their later ones, it's U2 doing a record that is all them. The album is at times crass, and sarcastic, while the production courtesy of flood and Eno, as before, is sharp. Definitely one of the highlights of U2's post 80s career.

Zooropa was originally supposed an EP to coincide with the last leg of their Zoo TV Tour. The band found that they had a slew of material and decided to release a full album. Zooropa continues where Acthung Baby left off and takes them further into the postmodern sounds of that release. The songs are all extended numbers including "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" which became the title of a movie, the pseudo-disco of "Lemon" which finds Bono singing in a falsetto, "Numb" which is a hypnotic chant with The Edge handling vocal duties and the title track which is an airy number that throws out slogan after slogan and is the spirit behind the whole Zoo TV ideal. "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" is a collage of music and noises while "Somedays Are Better Than Others" is the most "traditional" sounding song on the album. The album closes with one of the most bizarre musical pairings in history. Johnny Cash sings lead vocals on the post-apocalyptic "The Wanderer". Not that it is crazy that Johnny Cash would perform with U2, but you would expect it on a song in the style of The Joshua Tree or Rattle & Hum. On "The Wanderer", the band utilizing a heavy synth sound and Mr. Cash's deep voice swims along the cracks and pops of the track. It is a truly inspired song and makes Zooropa a truly special effort and asks the question, how many artists could come up with an album this impressive when it was looking to just fill some time in the studio in between tour dates.

Zooropa is the logical follow-up to Achtung, and the social-statement precursor to Pop. It is dark, foreboding, witty, and persistent. The songs stick with you, not only because they are beautiful, but because the message they send is powerful and prescient.

Zooropa is a profound political statement about the current state of the world (e.g., ``Be a winner / Eat to get slimmer" from the title track) with a kind of bitterness that shades every subsequent newspaper reading.

And it's just a beautiful album. I think a lot of people oppose it because its style differs so much from that of the more-classic-rock U2 albums (``The Joshua Tree" and before). On ``Zooropa", U2 felt they had hit a wall; they had exhausted the possibilities of the rock medium. So they forged their own path. And because everyone loved ``Achtung Baby", it's hard to see how they got to ``Zooropa". Give the album a good listen, though, and I think you will see where they came from.

This is one of my favourite albums, and confirms U2's place as my favourite rock group.

As U2 prepares for the release of yet another studio album, this one supposedly heading back towards the band's flag-waving days of innocence and political angst (or however the critics usually put it), I've been listening back over their past releases and finding that I have a much greater appreciation for their 90s work than I ever did before. Not to malign "War" or "Joshua Tree," which are both great, but I think that U2 really hit its stride doing the things it is trying to escape from at present.

People call this album "experimental," or "difficult," or refer to it as techno-driven electro-music of some sort. Well, I don't buy it. There are elements of techno used here, but it's rock, and it's U2, and it's accessible. In fact, I think of this as their most grounded album, precisely because they aren't dealing with global politics or hate or the ravages of drug addiction as their primary themes for these songs. These are songs about life, and winding one's way through the maze of modern sensory overload. Even though the songwriter is a multimillion-dollar-rock-star kinda guy, the songs have humility and manage to sound very honest and universal in a way that the more pretentious earlier work did not. My favorite is "Some Days," literally a song about how life is lived on a day-to-day basis with ups and downs for everyone. Like the old adage, Bono admits that he has some good days, and some learning days. That says a lot for the man. Far more than "I'm at a place called Vertigo/it's everything I wish I didn't know/but you give me something I can feel/ yeah yeah yeah yeah...". And on the last track, Bono turns over lead duties to Johnny Cash, whose take on these amazing lyrics is beyond words.

I could go on about how this disc is "unfairly maligned" but then I'd sound like a grouchy middle-aged rock critic. I'll just say that it impacted me in a very personal way, which is more than can be said for any other of U2's albums. It's a shame that U2 seems to be moving far, far away from this sound and trying to return to the days of Live Aid. If only they'd read their own press. If I only I could write it.

-HW

The first U2 album that deserves the label "techno," more in its themes than in its music. This album presages the rock-techno merger of the mid-90s, as epitomized by Radiohead's "OK Computer." A soaring crescendo of mind-expanding sound pours forth from tracks such as "Zooropa" and "Some Days are Better Than Others," while "The First Time" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" are post-modern descendants of classic "Joshua Tree"-era ballads.

The argument that "Zooropa" is a "slight" album cannot be maintained after several listenings. While "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" may appear, at first, to be a throwaway, it is, in fact, steeped in deep psychological pathos. "Daddy" reaffirms Bono's lyrical genius -- "You've got a head full of traffic/ You're a siren's song." Save for a couple of minor flaws, "Zooropa" is one of the complete rock experiences of the 90s.