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Zooropa

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This article is about the U2 album. For the opening song on the album of the same name, see Zooropa (song).
Untitled

Zooropa is the eighth studio album by the Irish rock band U2. Originally intended as an EP,[1] it was recorded between legs of the Zoo TV Tour and released on 6 July 1993 by Island Records as a full-length album. The album continues the band's experimentation with alternative rock and electronic music from their previous album Achtung Baby. Much like that album, Zooropa was critically and commercially successful. The album's title is a combination of "Zoo TV" and "Europa."

History

Zooropa was very much an "alternative rock" album in the climate of 1993. In North America, grunge was at its peak - meanwhile, U2 released an album without angst or even a single guitar solo. In Europe, Britpop was beginning to conquer the charts, yet Zooropa owed more to the experimentation of David Bowie and Brian Eno than to the melodic pop of The Beatles and The Kinks. Brian Eno's primary credit is as a producer on this album, although he also appears as a performer/contributor on several of the songs, including "Babyface" and "Lemon".

Zooropa was a successful release, riding the wave of popularity started by Achtung Baby and the Zoo TV Tour. It won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in the year of its release and spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200, despite lacking a strong single. It has subsequently sold 8 million copies worldwide.[citation needed]

As the title suggests, the album has a distinctly European texture (in contrast to the distinctly American roots of their late eighties work), continuing the band's experimentation with electronica, techno, and other predominantly European forms of music. Heavy on samples and irony, it also ties the "media overload" themes of the Zoo TV Tour into the context of a post-Berlin Wall Europe. The lyrics touch on how technology unites as well as separates us.[citation needed] The title track, for instance, contains ad slogans such as "Better by design", "Be All That You Can Be" and "Vorsprung durch Technik".

On the techno-rap "Numb", guitarist The Edge's drones a list of "don'ts", overwhelmed by a noisy backdrop of "arcade sounds"[2] and "fat lady vocals."[2] The Edge notes that the inspiration for this song came from "that sense that you were getting bombarded with so much that you actually were finding yourself shutting down and unable to respond because there was so much imagery and information being thrown at you."[3]

"Lemon", sung by Bono in a longing falsetto and played by The Edge amidst waves of almost unrecognisably distorted guitar, documents man's futile attempts to preserve time through technology, as well as the importance of private voyeurism to a band living in a constant spotlight (the song was actually about a film-to-video transfer received by Bono from some family friends; in the video, his mother was seen wearing a lemon-yellow dress, hence the title and subject matter).[4]

The closing track, "The Wanderer", features country music legend Johnny Cash on lead vocals. His haggard voice sings over a wobbly synthesiser line, a bizarre juxtaposition in line with the album's central irony: that the band's most synthesized and postmodern album would be a condemnation of technology.[5] The song's narrator wanders through a soulless world "in search of experience", ultimately finding meaning in the spiritual rather than the superficial.

Track listing

All tracks are written by U2, with lyrics by Bono (except where noted)

No.TitleLength
1."Zooropa"6:31
2."Babyface"4:01
3."Numb" (The Edge)4:20
4."Lemon"6:58
5."Stay (Faraway, So Close!)"4:58
6."Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car"5:20
7."Some Days Are Better Than Others"4:17
8."The First Time"3:45
9."Dirty Day" (Bono, The Edge)5:24
10."The Wanderer" (featuring Johnny Cash)5:41
Total length:51:15

A "hidden track" after "The Wanderer" features a ringing alarm similar to that which disc jockeys hear when there is 10 seconds of dead air.

The names of three songs from the sessions—"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me", "Wake Up Dead Man", and "If You Wear That Velvet Dress"—appear superimposed on the album cover. "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" was used in the 1995 film Batman Forever and included on the Batman Forever soundtrack. "Wake Up Dead Man", and "If You Wear That Velvet Dress" were included on the 1997 Pop album.

Chart positions and sales

Country Peak position Certification Sales
Australia 1
Austria 1 Gold [6] 15,000+
Brazil Gold 50,000+
Canada 4x Platinum [7] 400,000+
France Platinum [8] 300,000+
Germany Gold [9] 100,000+
United Kingdom Platinum [10] 300,000+
United States 1 2x Platinum 2,000,000+

Singles

The first single "Numb" was an unconventional choice for a first single, and was released exclusively on VHS as a "video single". The single very much reflects the avant-gardism and obsession with multimedia that marked both the album and the accompanying Zoo TV world tour. It was Directed by Kevin Godley. Three more conventional singles were released from the album; "Lemon" received a limited release in North America, Australia, and Japan; "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" was released worldwide, and "Zooropa" was released as a promotional single in Mexico and the United States.

Live

Much of the album was performed on the Zoo TV Tour, with the exceptions of "Some Days Are Better Than Others" and "The Wanderer."

"Lemon" and "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" were performed with Bono in his MacPhisto persona, during encores of the Zoomerang Leg of the tour. "Dirty Day" was also played on this leg after the acoustic set. "Numb" was performed with The Edge playing guitar and on lead vocals, with Larry Mullen Jr. performing backing vocals while drumming. "Zooropa" was played only three times and "Babyface" twice more[11] at the same shows on the Zooropa leg, but were cut out of the setlist after the band didn't feel they sounded right live. "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" was performed acoustically for the Zooropa and Zoomerang legs.

"The First Time" has been played multiple times on the Vertigo Tour, and "The Wanderer" was performed by the band in a tribute to Johnny Cash, with Bono taking the vocals Cash once held. "Some Days Are Better Than Others" is the only Zooropa track not performed live.

Personnel

  • Bono – lead vocals, additional guitar
  • Adam Clayton – bass guitar
  • The Edge – guitar, piano, synthesizers, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Numb", production
  • Larry Mullen, Jr. – drums, percussion, backing vocals
  • Johnny Cash – lead vocal on "The Wanderer"
  • Brian Eno – production, synthesizers, piano, arcade sounds, backing vocals, loops, harmonium
  • Flood – production, loops
  • Des Broadbery – loops

See also

References

  1. ^ U2 "Zooropa" - Rolling Stones
  2. ^ a b "Zooropa" Liner Notes
  3. ^ The Three Sunrises has moved!
  4. ^ "U2 MoL - Zooropa - Lemon". Retrieved 2006-12-20.
  5. ^ U2 "Zooropa" - Rolling Stones
  6. ^ IFPI Austria
  7. ^ CRIA
  8. ^ Disque En France
  9. ^ IFPI Germany
  10. ^ BPI
  11. ^ Live performances of Babyface
Preceded by Billboard 200 number-one album
July 24 - August 6, 1993 		Succeeded by
Preceded by UK number one album
July 17, 1993 – July 23, 1993 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Australian ARIA Albums Chart number-one album
July 18 - August 14, 1993 		Succeeded by


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