Unforgettable Fire: A bigger reinvention than Achtung Baby

[cobl04]

Listen to Rattle & Hum and then listen to AB straight after it. It's a much bigger shift! AIWIY > Zoo Station! Not to say War > TUF wasn't a big step, but I don't agree with the op.

 

[david]

It would have been a bigger reinvention if they never wrote Pride.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

If they never wrote Pride, U2 might not have had the opportunity to become what they are today.

 

[Axver]

Agreed with Gabe: listen to Scarlet and tell me they didn't have Unforgettable Fire in them. Of course, people claim God Part II telegraphed Achtung Baby to us because it has loud guitars on it, so yeah.

The major difference is the lyrical content. Bono freestyled shit all the time up to TUF. Achtung, on the other hand, is a complete about face in his attitude and perspective, switching out the external for the internal. TUF appears to be more of a superficial change, with Bono abstracting his thoughts and reading a fuckton of Frost.

I really must disagree. RAH has Achtung all over it, and I thought it was fairly self-evident that War --> UF was the much greater re-invention. Desire/EBTTRT/MW fit together easily. You could swap God Part II and Acrobat and barely anybody would notice a change in the vibe. Love Is Blindness rips off some lyrics from She's A Mystery To Me. One clearly belongs to a tradition of U2 ballads that well and truly predates Achtung. So on and so forth.

Obviously there were hints of UF earlier (The Ocean, Scarlet, and Tomorrow being most obvious), but they were much fewer and far between than the hints of Achtung.

 

[Axver]

Listen to Rattle & Hum and then listen to AB straight after it. It's a much bigger shift! AIWIY > Zoo Station! Not to say War > TUF wasn't a big step, but I don't agree with the op.

By this logic, check out the massive shift from JT to RAH with Mothers Of The Disappeared --> Helter Skelter!

Or that even greater re-invention early in the 2000s from Grace to Vertigo! WOW!

 

[kingofsorrow]

for me neither was a greater shift than the other. only difference was the reception they received from the fans and general public. UF got a serious WTF, have they gone crazy reaction from fans and critics. AB got a more WTF, this is great shit reaction from fans and critics.
if anything the AB shift was a more well received shift than UF.

 

[LemonMelon]

Desire/EBTTRT/MW fit together easily.

Because they're rockers? Follow the influences: Edge nicks Bo Diddley on Desire, while EBTTRT sounds more influenced by the fire alarms Adam is always setting off. MW is some funky shit that U2 never approached again until Playboy Mansion, and never once after that. I still have no idea where it came from.

You could swap God Part II and Acrobat and barely anybody would notice a change in the vibe.

God Part II is loud and aggressive, but its vibe is campy compared to the suffocating despondency of Acrobat. Wasn't it remixed for club play? No one would consider tweaking Acrobat that way, not outside of a fruitleg context.

And that's really the issue here: the entire attitude and lyrical approach of the band was modified for Achtung, and you can't really say that about TUF. One is far more angry and internalized, while the other still gives a shit about the world at large. That shows a more profound change, to me.

 

[cobl04]

I don't see Achtung at all in God Part II.

 

[blueeyedgirl]

for me neither was a greater shift than the other. only difference was the reception they received from the fans and general public. UF got a serious WTF, have they gone crazy reaction from fans and critics. AB got a more WTF, this is great shit reaction from fans and critics.
if anything the AB shift was a more well received shift than UF.

I agree with this, when considered in the context of the time the 2 albums were released. In 83, U2 were part of the whole new Celtic Rock thing with Big Country, Simple Minds etc and for them to go all "atmospheric" on TUF was a bit of a mind fuck.

In 91, AB tends to more reflect what was happening elsewhere music wise (Edge's interviews where he mentions listening to stuff like Nitzer Ebb etc). Also, because of the endless hype that R&H had (and negative reaction to the endless hype), it was more expected that U2 would come out with something totally different. More fans were ready for it.

 

[cobl04]

I wouldn't know beg, I don't think my parents had even met in 83

 

[blueeyedgirl]

Kids! Get off my lawn!

 

[Chill Mike D]

I was a kid when UF came out, and didn't really start paying attention to U2 until all my siblings and their friends went ape-shit when JT came out. I was 10 at the time. I remember hearing the older albums, expecially War, but all the U2 stuff seemed of a piece until Achtung Baby.

That was like listening to a different band, and a different kind of music altogether. In 1991 I was still listening to Guns and Roses and other late 80s stuff, and when I first heard The Fly with my brothers we were all basically like "what in the hell is this? Is this even a song?"