What if POP + Zooropa = 1 album?

[beLIEve]

Since we're always looking at setlists and tracklistings, I thought I'd raise a question that I've thought of before that could have changed U2's career significantly. First, R&H could have been a double disc live album with a few of the new songs thrown in but no covers unless it was from the Joshua Tree Tour. Something closer to Under a Blood Red Sky, I guess.

But, more importantly, what if U2 had simply toured with Zoo TV in 1992/93 simply off of Achtung Baby, and then come out with POP in 1995, touring again in '96 & '97? The Machpisto character could have been introduced during POPMART and would still have been a perfect evolution from Zoo TV. As for the album, I'd propose something like this:

Zooropa
Numb (industrial remix version on video only)
Mofo
If God would send his Angels (single version)
Please (single version)
Stay
Hold me, Thrill me
Staring at the Sun
The First Time
Discotheque
Gone

Ditch the Discotheque video and lead off with Hold Me, Thrill Me or Numb. Promote the album as U2 exploring new colors with Numb, Mofo, Discotheque, etc., mixed in with some rockers and a few ballads. I believe this would have been a solid if not great album, and ATYCLB would still have succeeded in 2000 due to the rampant bubblegum trash and the need to get back to what U2 does best - soaring, uplifting athems and an earnest, elevating world tour.

Hard to argue with U2's success just as it is...this is something that I've just thought about occasionally and now finally put it into writing.

 

[LMP]

This is a pretty sweet idea, but what wuld happen to the "leftover" songs from these albums

Please is one of my faves, and so are Dirty Day and Lemon

 

[djerdap]

I can't believe ideas that can be made on this forum...
No, no and NO!!! Pop and Zooropa are separate and perfect as they are.

 

[innocent_eyes]

I like, just change numb back to origional mix, add lemon and change blue room to north and south of the river!!!!!

That's my opinion and preference anyway, lol!

 

[quesboc]

I've often thought about this. With the Complete U2 I took some of the songs that weren't on Pop or Zooropa but that were recorded around the time and took some songs off Zooropa and the Passengers album and made my own album. I think thats what is great about U2, with all the extra songs they release on singles you can create your own U2 album. An I idea I had was that for the next U2 album they should release all the songs from the recording session allowing the individual fan to create an album, by buying the song on Itunes.

 

[UnforgettableLemon]

They're too different to combine for my tastes. But it could have a great name... pooropa!

 

[ultraviolet7]

Hmmm, No. Some of my fave songs off Zooropa and Pop are not in the list. Besides if they had released something like this in 1995 we would have missed Passengers. Definitely NO

 

[Zootomic]

They're too different to combine for my tastes. But it could have a great name... pooropa!

ZooPOPa

 

[Flying FuManchu]

Zoop

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

While I don't entirely agree with the tracklisting, I agree fully with the sentiment that they should have used tracks from both albums for a mega follow-up to Achtung..it could even have matched that album!

 

[theedge111]

I can't believe ideas that can be made on this forum...
No, no and NO!!! Pop and Zooropa are separate and perfect as they are.

Fuck YA!

 

[jick]

Zooropa is one cohesive masterpiece.

Even POP is not one album, being unfinished and disjointed and having no flow to it whatsoever.

So I don't think that would be a good idea.

Cheers,

J

 

[Lancemc]

I don't think we can even really consider this. Two albums that are so extremely different (yes they are, don't say something stupid now... ) and separated by 4 years and a full album/project (Passengers OS1) can't really be "joined" even in pretend-land. They are U2 in two different places at different times. Let's just let them be and enjoy them as they are.

 

[JOFO]

While I don't entirely agree with the tracklisting, I agree fully with the sentiment that they should have used tracks from both albums for a mega follow-up to Achtung..it could even have matched that album!

but that means they would have put out 1 album between AB in late 1991 and ATYCLB in 2000. so it would've come out in 1996 maybe....

hmm....who knows? maybe it would've been cool, but for me zooropa was a key album in 1993, and to wait that long after AB would've been pure torture.

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

but that means they would have put out 1 album between AB in late 1991 and ATYCLB in 2000. so it would've come out in 1996 maybe....

hmm....who knows? maybe it would've been cool, but for me zooropa was a key album in 1993, and to wait that long after AB would've been pure torture.

Well the tour finished in '94 didn't it? coming 2 years after the tour would be ok, but overall, yes, 4+ years after Achtung is a very long wait..

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

Also, remember that if they just brought Zooropa out in '93, they would have been able to use some POP songs, since they were recorded for Zooropa, so a POP/Zooropa combo of sorts could have happened!

 

[burns]

Well the tour finished in '94 didn't it? coming 2 years after the tour would be ok, but overall, yes, 4+ years after Achtung is a very long wait..

but when Zoo TV was going in 1994, they were riding on the back of ZOOROPA, and in this strange twisted paradox that we've created, Zooropa doesn't exist. I'm not sure of the venues they played and whatnot but i would have guessed that Zoo TV would have lasted for about a year on the back of Actung Baby


I'v always wondered what would have happened if you mixed Zoo TV and Popmart together. Imagine, the alter egos, the confessions, satalite(sp) tv all blown up on the largest tv screen ever created. .....that would have been THE MOTHER of all tours.......Zoo TV is enough though on it's own

 

[D'oh!]

Nope....the songs in Zooropa fit together beautifully and it is one of the best u2 albums in my opinion........

any inclusion of any songs from Pop would just bring down the overall quality of Zooropa.......

only HMTMKMKM sounds like it could have a home on Zooropa...

 

[Axver]

Well the tour finished in '94 didn't it? coming 2 years after the tour would be ok, but overall, yes, 4+ years after Achtung is a very long wait..

ZooTV ended on 10 December 1993.

If U2 had kept Zooropa songs and made a big album for, say, 1995 or 1996, the course of U2 history would have been unimaginably different. You cannot talk about a 'mega-album' of Zooropa and Pop while continuing to believe ATYCLB would have come out in 2000 and everything now would be the same.

 

[beLIEve]

Interesting responses

Thanks for the feedback, it was interesting. I did completely forget Lemon, which should be included, making it a 12 song "idea album".

Zoo TV did extend itself with Zooropa, I agree. Commercially, a combined album probably wouldn't have yielded more album sales, as the two together have sold 13M and counting to date.

I like both albums, and we'd be robbed of some great material if they were to be condensed into one album.

I guess my thought (not nearly as strong as a feeling) is based on critical acclaim/success. The only advantage to this thought would be that I agree with the person who said the combined album follow-up to Achtung Baby could have been a mega-hit, giving POPMART it's due as well as the songs.

I used to think U2 really didn't care about this kinda stuff, but then Bono starts the "reapplying for the job" stuff back in 2000 and now the band concedes POP was a failure by their standards. If that's the way it's going to go down in history, then I thought that it could have been different with ZooPOPa, that's all.

Cheers!

 

[cybersyd]

This is a pretty sweet idea, but what wuld happen to the "leftover" songs from these albums

Please is one of my faves, and so are Dirty Day and Lemon

I agree: 1 U2 album means only 11-12 songs and I want MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So long live to POP and ZOOROPA as two different piece of art!

 

[Pero]

NO NO!!!! They are too different to be united, good idea, my opinion: 1.Zooropa
2.Discoteque
3.Do you fell loved
4.MOFO
5.Stay
6.Gone
7.Lemon
8.Staring at the sun
9.Numb
10.Hold me thrill me
11.Last night on Earth
12.Wanderer

This would be good album but in any order.

 

[eviltwin]

ok let's look at it this way...4 seasons

winter Boy + October + War (+ live at red rocks)
spring Unforgetable Fire+ a sort of Homecoming + Joshua Tree + Rattle & Hum
summer Achtung Baby + Zooropa + passengers
autumn Pop, AtYCLB, HTDaAB

if you are going to combine, stay within one season.

So the answer is no, I don't want to see Pop merged with Zooropa.

There is also another cycle
Boy to War : European
Fire to R&H : American
AB to Passengers : European
Pop to HTDaAB : American

another reason not to combine the two.

 

[TommyB]

Do you Feel Loved

has to be followed by MOFO

these 2 song are absolutly inseperable.

 

[OnFire]

Zooropa seems to me to be thematically about the individual and collective identity crisis of europeans at the dawn of the EU. I don't see how you could incorporate POP into it without diluting it too much.

 

[God Part III]

They're much to different.

People underestimate how different they are, actually. Especially themes and lyrics, Pop and Zooropa are as far apart from each other as War and Rattle and Hum.