Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally A Good Unforgettable Fire CD Release, October 26, 2009
I've never been very happy with U2's 1980s work on CD. The mastering was not done well for the format and it really took some life out of it. Now that has mostly been corrected (Rattle and Hum is the lone 80s album yet to be remastered).
This box set is fantastic, in the tradition of The Joshua Tree box set from 2007. You get a beautiful book with pictures and comments from Eno, Lanois, and others reminiscing. The lyrics are there as well, something excluded for the CD release. Also some nice black and white photographs on textured parchment that are frame worthy.
The first disc is the album, sounding better than ever. Adam's bass is more pronounced here and the dynamic range of the CD is finally put to good use, giving as a better feel for each song. Very well done. There's stuff in there that I had not heard before, only ever hearing the old CD version.
The second disc is full of extras. Only a few songs had not been released in the past. Most of it is remastered stuff that appeared as b-sides for the singles or on the Wide Awake In America EP, making that EP obsolete. Disappearing Act is a great song, featuring recently added vocals by Bono, much like Wave Of Sorrow on Joshua Tree. Yoshino Blossom is a good instrumental that had not been officially released. Then there are two remixes of Wire and an excellent Sort of Homecoming remix done by Daniel Lanois as he was working with Peter Gabriel on So. And because of that you can hear Gabriel on this quite excellent version of the song.
Everything else on this disc was released before but it sounds better than ever, just like the album itself. It also compiles all the releases that occurred surrounding The Unforgettable Fire into one set.
Now onto the DVD. It features music videos from this album. Two for Pride and "live" videos for Bad and A Sort Of Homecoming as they were released to MTV. We also get The Unforgettable Fire documentary - so it is basically the old Unforgettable Fire Collection that was released on video cassette back in the 80s (and it is called that on the box set). So that's the first time it has been released on DVD.
The second bit on the DVD is live material. A couple of songs from the 1986 Conspiracy of Hope Tour and U2's Live Aid performance. The second Pride music video (Sepia version) is found here as is a bootleg video of 11 O'Clock Tick Tock. I'm not sure why the bootleg is on there as the quality is not all that good.
Overall the set is great. The one complaint could be that they didn't include the concert from Dortmund that was recorded for this tour, but I can also understand why it was not included. Much of that music was covered in the restored DVD release of Under A Blood Red Sky that featured the full concert outside of Fire as that footage was unusable. However, it would have been nice to have a live version of The Unforgettable Fire, a live version of Wire, and a live version of A Sort of Homecoming. Indian Summer Sky was only played a few times and it didn't come off well. Promenade, 4th of July, and Elvis Presley and America were never played. So ultimately the only critique I'd levy would be the lack of performances for those three songs (the performance video for Sort of Homecoming wasn't a real performance video nor was that concert performance a real concert performance - it was a soundcheck recording with audience reaction thrown in).
I'd guess that U2 either doesn't have the rights to the Dortmund show, they don't like it, or they're saving it for a release at some later date (a boxed set of U2 live shows on DVD would be nice).
But that is really a minor complaint. This great album sounds better than ever. The DVD gives you some good stuff and the extras CD is full of goodies, old and new.
A must buy for any fan.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Heart and Soul of U2, October 31, 2009
THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE was the album that forever changed my taste in music. I was not a U2 fan before this album was released; I didn't dislike their previous music but it never inspired me to buy one of their albums. But when my college roommate first played this album in 1984 it struck me like a lightning bolt, or a revelation. It was haunting, beautiful, soaring music, like nothing I had ever heard before. It instantly transformed me into a lifelong U2 fan.
After the WAR album, U2 felt that they had reached the creative limit of their post-punk sound, so they decided to explore new musical territory. This was the riskiest move they had made in their career to that point. The safe move would have been to release WAR Part II rather than to risk alienating their growing fan base with an experimental album. But they felt that they had more artistic potential than post-punk would allow, so they sought to expand their sonic palette. With the help of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, they were able to shed their prior musical influences and explore uncharted territory. They all achieved new levels of musicianship on this album. The Edge developed more complex, layered guitar work, Adam and Larry developed more sophisticated rhythms, and Bono's vocals soared to heights they had never reached before. To me, this album represents U2 in their purest form, unencumbered by other musical influences and discovering their own unique sound. After this album they began assimilating American musical influences, and in the 1990s they moved on to assimilate Europop. All of these phases led to some great music, but their sound was never quite as original or unique as it was during the UF era.
My anticipation went through the roof when I first heard that U2 would be releasing a super deluxe package of UF with a remastered CD, a bonus audio CD and a DVD. High expectations are usually a prescription for disappointment, but in this case I found that the final product actually exceeded my expectations. The album itself has never sounded better, and the bonus CD is phenomenal, in my opinion the best one that they've put together so far. Packed with 16 tracks (69 minutes of music), it has every track from the Wide Awake in America EP (including my all-time favorite U2 track, their incredible live version of "Bad"), all of the hard-to-find B-sides from their "Pride" and Unforgettable Fire" singles, and best of all, 4 previously unreleased tracks (2 original songs and 2 remixes). All of the previously unreleased tracks are great. "Disappearing Act" (a former instrumental track to which they recently added vocals) is an epic U2 song which is more inspired than most of their recent work, and "Yoshino Blossom" is one of their best instrumental tracks. The 2 never before released remixes of "Wire" (Kervorkian remix) and "A Sort of Homecoming" (Daniel Lanois remix) are also inspired, particularly the latter, which features background vocals by Peter Gabriel. You know it's a great song when a band can record 3 radically different versions and they all sound great. The DVD has all of the music videos derived from this album, the "Making of UF" documentary, and best of all, great concert footage from their Live Aid and Conspiracy of Hope concerts. The Live Aid performance (with their phenomenal 12 minute rendition of "Bad") was the one that changed their status forever, showing the world that they were superstars. After this concert everyone knew who Bono was. My only quibble is that it would have been nice to see live versions of "Wire" and "The Unforgettable Fire", but that's a minor quibble. Overall, this package is a dream come true.
If you liked the original UF album, I would recommend that you at least buy the deluxe package with the remastered album plus the bonus CD, as the latter has some inspired tracks. This was one of their most creative periods, and it's the first time that all of the musical ideas from this phase of their career have been made available. But if you are a big fan of this album, then I would suggest you splurge and get the super deluxe package with the bonus DVD. It's definitely worth it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Love overdue and needed remaster, October 29, 2009
This was one of the first CDs I ever got when I began my LP/cassette to CD conversion of my music library, and has been long overdue for a remaster. I also have the MFSL mastered gold disc which is an improvement over the original issue, but this one sounds better (plus you get a bonus CD and DVD). The only reason I give this collection 4 stars and not 5 is the incomplete performance from Amnesty International's Conspiracy of Hope concert at Giants Stadium. Left off the DVD was "Sunday Bloody Sunday", "Maggie's Farm", "Help!", "Sun City", and "I Shall Be Released" (the last four for legal and licensing reasons obviously). The band should have bit the bullet and put up the money to license those songs for inclusion on the DVD. That was a pivotal moment in U2's career that should have made the DVD, where The Police handed their instruments to U2 to play "I Shall Be Released": a symbolic passing of the torch from the then current World's Greatest Band to their successors.
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![Magnificent [REMIXES]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ilGIrKPSL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
See all 10 tracks on this disc
album The Unforgettable Fire 
