I like Zooropa better than ATYCLB, but it doesn't mean anything bad towards ATYCLB. There's no way to separate what Zooropa, Achtung Baby and POP mean to me on an emotional level.
Though the bands earlier work was a soundtrack to my little childhood, IT was the nineties work that carried me through my teens. I could relate to all the U2 albums, especially October and Boy, but it was the nineties stuff that was being released at the moment and that counts for a lot when your a teenager, especially when you feel those albums are riding the highs and lows with you.
Achtung Baby was definitely my soundtrack for my raging hormones and spiritual searching. Zooropa really came at a dark time for me and connected very deep as well. POP came along in a time of my life when I felt like the characters in it, like waking from a long dark night and into my twenties, finally feeling like I may have scratched through to God after all, and I might be willing to listen to him now.
The nineties work really split music wide open for me as well, U2 had synthesized a dozen or so different types of music and brought in a range of influences. The strange and exploratory noises sent me searching for everything from Tom Waits, to NIN, to Aphex Twin. For the early nineties the Edge was basically my guide to what was cool in new music. The only musician who has opened me up more to different kinds of music is David Bowie.
Not only do I have a wide range of experiences dear to me that have been sound tracked by nineties U2, you also have the image of U2 themselves at the time. I still think ZOO TV and POPMART have been unsurpassed by anybody, and probably won?t be for a long time.
ATYCLB is a great album and also came along at a time when I?ve never felt better or more spiritually centered. ATYCLB is a joyful album that still searches for meaning and once again U2 have eerily provided a soundtrack for another phase in my life. I can always put one of their albums on and relate to it, even if I?m taking from it what was never intended in the first place. For about a month now I've been listening to UF and BOY the most, but that always changes depending on the mood. It?s just that whatever album which seems to be the newest at the e moment is the one I relate to the most.
I have a hard time comparing U2 albums to each other, they are all far ranging and very different from each other. I think UF was as shocking a departure from War as AB was from Joshua Tree. U2 manages to surprise each time out of the gate, and seem, to me anyways, to always be improving, even if it?s not in a direction I would have chosen.
And when it comes down to it ACHTUNG BABY, ZOOROPA and POP make me see colours and feel emotions on a wider scale than most any other albums out there. The lyrics and music on those albums really blow my mind still. I?ve probably got every note of Zooropa and AB memorized, but when I listen I can still pull something new out of them. I?ve always enjoyed strange things and strange music. I can?t say U2 hit a peak with those three albums, because in many ways ATYCLB is the strongest album U2 has put out yet, but they hit a peak in the nineties with the scope I am inclined towards.
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Steve
SAME OLD STORY- Hardcore American Comedy