Achtung Baby and Zooropa as Natural Progrssions From Lovetown

[the tourist]

Now, I fully understand if most of you are ready to draw and quarter me after I post this. But what if U2 hadn't decided to go and completely dream it up again? What if they had just taken the sound of Lovetown and pushed it one step toward where Achtung Baby went, and not gone the whole way? What if Achtung Baby was a natural seque from Lovetown with bits of electronic added in, instead of something completely different? And then if Zooropa was the natural progression from that alternate Achtung Baby?

Here's how I see how it could have worked:

Lovetown'd version of Achtung Baby:
(all guitars sounding like Lovetown guitars, tonewise, and without any modulation--delay, reverb and tremelo, however, are used extensively on the guitars)

01. Zoo Station (with a big organ intro and with a solid All Along The Watchtower-esque beat)
02. The Fly (with less "dancy" drums, but more "pounding-away" drums)*
03. Until The End Of The World (with God Part II-esque drums)*
04. She's Gonna Blow Your House Down (a much refined version from Salome tapes)
05. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses? (close to the Temple Bar version)
06. Mysterious Ways (with a Desire vibe to it)*
07. She's A Mystery Girl (with a Dancing Barefoot vibe to it)
08. Wild Irish Rose (a somewhat refined version of what we've heard)
09. One (with a much more grand, important, urgent With Or Without You sense to it)*
10. Ultraviolet (with better lyrics and Where The Streets Have No Name drums)
11. Acrobat (just as it is, but with better production)
12. Love Is Blindness (with a better outro)

*singles
all with a bit more poetic/Lovetown'd lyrics.
This would be my favourite U2 album.

In a natural progression world pt. 2: ZOOROPA
(all guitars sounding like Lovetown guitars, tonewise, and with no modulation--only the "sparkly" pitch shift sound as used in HMTMKMKM, and on songs like Slug and When I Look At The World's solo)

01. Zooropa (not quite so muddled, still just as ethereal)
02. Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me (exactly as it is)*
03. Some Days Are Better Than Others (with all real drums which are both creative and solid and without the random digital shit going on in the background, but with a layer of All I Want Is You-esque keyboards, and a layer of Always Forever Now-esque keyboards--oh and better lyrics)
04. The First Time (exactly as it is except for better quality production--very Running To Stand Still)
05. Stay (like With Or Without You and One--with a much more grand, important, urgent sense to it)*
06. Where Did It All Go Wrong? (a refined, Lovetown'd version of what we have)
07. Even Better Than The Real Thing (straight up ballsy rock with another All Along The Watchtower beat)*
08. Numb (with both electronic drums and real drums, the real drums played furiously like in Race Against Time)
09. Lemon (sung in full voice, not falsetto, and with guitar added, both rhythm and lead)*
10. Dirty Day (exactly like how it was done on ZooTV)
11. Slow Dancing (darker than the two versions we've heard--a sinister bit of Exit involved)
12. The Wanderer (the darkest song yet done by U2, musically more similar to Mothers Of The Disappeared and Love Is Blindness)

*singles
This would probably be in my top 4 U2 albums.

 

[LemonMelon]

Now, I fully understand if most of you are ready to draw and quarter me after I post this.

You're much brighter than your tastes indicate.

But what if U2 hadn't decided to go and completely dream it up again?

U2 probably wouldn't be here anymore, and McGuinne$$ would have released a specially-made U2 jukebox to make up for the lack of new albums.

What if they had just taken the sound of Lovetown and pushed it one step toward where Achtung Baby went, and not gone the whole way?

I'm not much for compromise, so the idea seems rather blah to me.

What if Achtung Baby was a natural seque from Lovetown with bits of electronic added in, instead of something completely different?

Compared to real electronica, that's precisely what Achtung Baby already is.

all with a bit more poetic/Lovetown'd lyrics

What are Lovetown'd lyrics?

 

[Screwtape2]

The thing is I already feel that Achtung Baby was a natural progression for the band and Zooropa a natural progression from that.

 

[BVS]

What if Bono was born a woman? Would Boy have been named Girl? The first two albums probably would have sounded the same...

Would she have written "I Kissed a Girl" decades before Katy Perry?

 

[LemonMelon]

What if interference had never existed?

Would this thread have been created?

 

[digitize]

I personally think that Achtung was a very natural progression from the Lovetown era already.

 

[the tourist]

The thing is I already feel that Achtung Baby was a natural progression for the band and Zooropa a natural progression from that.

Zooropa is a natural progression from Achtung Baby, yes. But you really think Achtung Baby is the natural progression from The Joshua Tree/Rattle & Hum? You do know The Fly is the sound that cut down the Joshua Tree, right?

I personally think that Achtung was a very natural progression from the Lovetown era already.

I could see it being a semi-natural progression from God Part II, but that's all.

 

[the tourist]

What are Lovetown'd lyrics?

Lyrics which come from a less direct, more poetic Bono.

 

[LemonMelon]

Lyrics which come from a less direct, more poetic Bono.

If I wanted cryptic ambiguity at all times, I would listen to Radiohead 24/7. Achtung Baby is far from my favorite U2 album, but the lyrics are amazing.

 

[the tourist]

If I wanted cryptic ambiguity at all times, I would listen to Radiohead 24/7. Achtung Baby is far from my favorite U2 album, but the lyrics are amazing.

So.... You don't like the lyrics from Rattle & Hum or The Joshua Tree? Or lines from their subsequent tours like the "fiberless roman candles" line from Streets or the "shine like stars" lines from With Or Without You? Because yes, Achtung Baby has some good lyrics, yes, but they're part of a progression which leads us to where we are now: intellectual tortoise.

 

[Screwtape2]

Zooropa is a natural progression from Achtung Baby, yes. But you really think Achtung Baby is the natural progression from The Joshua Tree/Rattle & Hum? You do know The Fly is the sound that cut down the Joshua Tree, right?

Read my posts in the Zoo World Order thread.

 

[the tourist]

Read my posts in the Zoo World Order thread.

After reading your post, I can agree that the themes of the songs are a natural progression. I can't, however, agree that the music was a natural progression. And that's what this whole thread really gets down to, mostly. An Achtung Baby and a Zooropa mixed with the pounding drums of the 80s, a little bit more poetic lyrics (but virtually the same on most songs except for maybe SDABTO and Ultraviolet), and without some of the dated keyboards or warbling guitar effects. I think the darkness would have stood out more with the desperate sounds of The Joshua Tree mixed in instead of the dance/remixability musical themes of Achtung Baby and Zooropa.

 

[LemonMelon]

So.... You don't like the lyrics from Rattle & Hum or The Joshua Tree? Or lines from their subsequent tours like the "fiberless roman candles" line from Streets or the "shine like stars" lines from With Or Without You? Because yes, Achtung Baby has some good lyrics, yes, but they're part of a progression which leads us to where we are now: intellectual tortoise.

You got that from what I said? There's a place for everything. Your post screams "blunt lyrical statements are always a bad thing" (as if Achtung's lyrics are fully and completely heart-on-sleeve), plus you're punishing Achtung for "spawning" lyrics you don't really care for on future albums. I don't really understand where you're coming from here.

 

[digitize]

I could see it being a semi-natural progression from God Part II, but that's all.

No, God Part II was just the first time that Achtung Baby-esque themes were actually appearing in their work, but I'd argue that the roots of Achtung Baby stretch well into the JT era, and musically to TUF.

TUF proved that U2 are not tied to one musical idea. TUF brought us Brian and Danny, and that is really where the 'experimentation' began. Lyrically, I see both JT and AB in TUF... you get some of the poetic beauty that is (most of) JT, but you also get a lot of the intra-personalism that AB and Pop had (Bad, anyone?). The Eno-esque 'weirdness' was tapped into strongly in Zooropa... I'd argue that the two most Eno-esque U2 albums (other than OS1) are Zooropa and TUF. They are two different realizations of the same basic principle.

Thematically, the AB era began around the time when TUF tour ended. Why did the band choose to abandon its old sound? Because their lives were getting more complex and dark. Similarly to what happened between War and TUF, the naïveté of the past began to give way to a much more dark realization of the present. Simply put, the band was going through a bit of personal hell, and put that into the album. Bono was really at his best; he wrote the lyrics poetically and beautifully, but realistically. And somewhat philosophically. Zooropa continued this in some places (Lemon, especially), and was somewhere between AB and just a big satire of pop culture by the end. Pop took this sort of lyric writing to the extreme, and is one of their biggest lyrical gyms forever, even though it started out trying to be Zooropa. However, even I, an ardent critic of ATYCLB, realize that they couldn't survive on the sort of cynicism that was omnipresent in Pop, so ATYCLB is a much more light-hearted, less dark, less deep, and much less philosophical record than Pop. Bomb continued this, although, thematically, it is easily the weakest in the U2 cannon. It is a collection of songs with some gems... the only connecting theme at all is youth and innocence, but it doesn't flow nearly as well as... anything. R&H is the only album that I would say might be thematically weaker than Bomb.

 

[ahittle]

We really need some new material to discuss.

 

[marik]

you guys are giving him a hard time. do you really want to chase away all creative thought from here?

the original post actually has alot of thought to it, and propmts me to think of something i've never considered before. I quite like posts like this. Wish there was more like it,

the room gets pretty boring when you surround yourself with those that share the same opinions as you

 

[digitize]

you guys are giving him a hard time. do you really want to chase away all creative thought from here?

Not at all. I'm glad this was posted. It was interesting to read. Now, I'm challenging it with my own thoughts - a little debate of utterly pointless and overly-geeky ideas?

 

[the tourist]

you guys are giving him a hard time. do you really want to chase away all creative thought from here?

the original post actually has alot of thought to it, and propmts me to think of something i've never considered before. I quite like posts like this. Wish there was more like it,

the room gets pretty boring when you surround yourself with those that share the same opinions as you

Well thank you very much. Glad to see someone else dreams outloud and at high volume.

 

[LemonMelon]

Well thank you very much. Glad to see someone else dreams outloud and at high volume.

You can't dream "out loud". Look it up in the dictionary.

 

[the tourist]

No, God Part II was just the first time that Achtung Baby-esque themes were actually appearing in their work, but I'd argue that the roots of Achtung Baby stretch well into the JT era, and musically to TUF.

TUF proved that U2 are not tied to one musical idea. TUF brought us Brian and Danny, and that is really where the 'experimentation' began. Lyrically, I see both JT and AB in TUF... you get some of the poetic beauty that is (most of) JT, but you also get a lot of the intra-personalism that AB and Pop had (Bad, anyone?). The Eno-esque 'weirdness' was tapped into strongly in Zooropa... I'd argue that the two most Eno-esque U2 albums (other than OS1) are Zooropa and TUF. They are two different realizations of the same basic principle.

Thematically, the AB era began around the time when TUF tour ended. Why did the band choose to abandon its old sound? Because their lives were getting more complex and dark. Similarly to what happened between War and TUF, the naïveté of the past began to give way to a much more dark realization of the present. Simply put, the band was going through a bit of personal hell, and put that into the album. Bono was really at his best; he wrote the lyrics poetically and beautifully, but realistically. And somewhat philosophically. Zooropa continued this in some places (Lemon, especially), and was somewhere between AB and just a big satire of pop culture by the end. Pop took this sort of lyric writing to the extreme, and is one of their biggest lyrical gyms forever, even though it started out trying to be Zooropa. However, even I, an ardent critic of ATYCLB, realize that they couldn't survive on the sort of cynicism that was omnipresent in Pop, so ATYCLB is a much more light-hearted, less dark, less deep, and much less philosophical record than Pop. Bomb continued this, although, thematically, it is easily the weakest in the U2 cannon. It is a collection of songs with some gems... the only connecting theme at all is youth and innocence, but it doesn't flow nearly as well as... anything. R&H is the only album that I would say might be thematically weaker than Bomb.

First of all, I'd like to say that this post is very well-thought out and I applaud you on that.

The peak of my thought-process is in the music itself. Essentially, what if Achtung Baby and Zooropa had the more earthy-yet-epic feel of songs like Streets, All I Want Is You, and Heartland, but had more-ballsy-than-dancy rock songs like Desire, All Along The Watchtower, etc., and the darkness of Exit and Mothers. I'm not really talking about the lyrics much at all except the blunders of SDABTO and the teenie-bopper chorus lyrcis of Ultraviolet. Otherwise, I'd say I'm mostly talking music.

 

[the tourist]

You can't dream "out loud". Look it up in the dictionary.

You can if you talk in your sleep.

 

[the tourist]

You got that from what I said? There's a place for everything. Your post screams "blunt lyrical statements are always a bad thing" (as if Achtung's lyrics are fully and completely heart-on-sleeve), plus you're punishing Achtung for "spawning" lyrics you don't really care for on future albums. I don't really understand where you're coming from here.

Lyrics for future albums aside, I enjoy much of Achtung Baby's lyrics. I enjoy many of the lyrics of the songs I put into my proposed possible Zooropa. I didn't say I thought the whole album needed a Kid A overhaul, but instead of lines line "Some day's you wake up in the army and some days it's the enemy" could have been better and/or more poetic. That, and "baby, baby, baby" from Ultraviolet could've been less (for lack of a better description) teenie-bopper. You're the one who brought up Radiohead. How Radiohead has to do with U2's Lovetown era I really don't grasp at all, so I guess I don't really understand where you were coming from there.

 

[LemonMelon]

Lyrics for future albums aside, I enjoy much of Achtung Baby's lyrics. I enjoy many of the lyrics of the songs I put into my proposed possible Zooropa. I didn't say I thought the whole album needed a Kid A overhaul, but instead of lines line "Some day's you wake up in the army and some days it's the enemy" could have been better and/or more poetic. That, and "baby, baby, baby" from Ultraviolet could've been less (for lack of a better description) teenie-bopper. You're the one who brought up Radiohead. How Radiohead has to do with U2's Lovetown era I really don't grasp at all, so I guess I don't really understand where you were coming from there.

Well, if you're generally fine with the lyrics, I'm not sure why you mentioned them. Every album has a few lyrical wrinkles that could be ironed out. I just feel that's taking "what if?" to an extreme.

I brought up Radiohead as an example of what Bono's recent lyrics would sound like in Bizarro world.

 

[the tourist]

Well, if you're generally fine with the lyrics, I'm not sure why you mentioned them. Every album has a few lyrical wrinkles that could be ironed out. I just feel that's taking "what if?" to an extreme.

I brought up Radiohead as an example of what Bono's recent lyrics would sound like in Bizarro world.

That's why I said a bit. Perhaps I should've just given the examples of SDABTO and Ultraviolet and left it that that?

 

[LemonMelon]

That's why I said a bit. Perhaps I should've just given the examples of SDABTO and Ultraviolet and left it that that?

Maybe, but pretty much everybody here hates SDABTO's lyrics, so that would be like beating up the slow kid in class.

 

[The John Tree]

This thread shocks me. I thought the lyrics to Achtung were universally loved.

Personally, I think the lyrics to both "One", "So Cruel", "Love Is Blindness", and "Acrobat" especially are the best in rock history.

I stand by that 100% all the way. In my humble opinion, the greatest album ever recorded.

 

[The John Tree]

and the darkness of Exit and Mothers.

I dunno. I think Achtung is pretty damn dark. It starts out as a party that quickly turns into the mother of all lover's quarrels and it definitely includes some violence, specifically in "Love Is Blindness". That guitar solo is as violent and emotionally dark as they come.

"Acrobat", too, is pretty dark.

 

[the tourist]

Maybe, but pretty much everybody here hates SDABTO's lyrics, so that would be like beating up the slow kid in class.

Not beating up--helping.

This thread shocks me. I thought the lyrics to Achtung were universally loved.

Personally, I think the lyrics to both "One", "So Cruel", "Love Is Blindness", and "Acrobat" especially are the best in rock history.

I stand by that 100% all the way. In my humble opinion, the greatest album ever recorded.

Some of the Achtung Baby lyrics are universally loved. I'm surprised still when people are shocked that some people are fans of U2 from the 80s and have a mild appreciation for U2 post-80s. That's me, I suppose.

While I tend to agree with you on Love Is Blindness and Acrobat, I can't say I necessarily agree on One (the outro needs its live verse with the "do you hear me coming?" bit) and So Cruel. As for them being the best in rock history, I can't agree at all.

I dunno. I think Achtung is pretty damn dark. It starts out as a party that quickly turns into the mother of all lover's quarrels and it definitely includes some violence, specifically in "Love Is Blindness". That guitar solo is as violent and emotionally dark as they come.

"Acrobat", too, is pretty dark.

But it's a different kind of dark. One is a rootsy/epic dark. The other is an electronica dark. The same exact notes would be being played. The guitar would just sound like the guitar from the Lovetown tour. A different kind of distortion. And without the electronic drums, but with more creative drums in their place.

 

[gareth brown]

11. Acrobat (just as it is, but with better production)

explain.

 

[the tourist]

explain.

When it comes to the mixing, the album's a bit muddled. Also, the reverb on Bono's voice is really overdone on most of Achtung Baby. As it is with that song on this fictitious version of these albums, it's the one that I really didn't opt to "make a change" on. Just clean it up (a bit more musical seperation like on previous albums, so it's not just a wall of sound, but you can pick out the guitar parts a bit more clearly).