Did anyone else 'discover'/'fall for' U2 in the mid-late 90s?

[namkcuR]

I'm just wondering, because I see old-timers(those who have been devoted to U2 since the 80s) and those who got into U2 with 'Beautiful Day' and the like(usually a few years younger than me - I'm about to turn 22) all the time, but I just don't feel like I see all that many people who first got into U2 in the 90s. I suppose there are a fair number who got into it with AB, but I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about the mid-late 90s...1994-1999.

My first exposure to U2 was 'Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me' on the Batman Forever soundtrack in 1996 or 1997, and then I caught WOWY, SBS, and Angel Of Harlem on TV while on vacation in Turkey in July of 1998, after which I delved into the entire back catalog. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Popmart had JUST ended three months before I got deep into U2 in 1998. Anyway, by August of 1999 I had every LP released to that point and I was loving them all.

The point is, I got into U2 during that period of time where they were as far from the mainstream as they've ever been(which in reality may not have been that far, but you get my point).

Now, this may sound weird, but for whatever reason, I've always taken pride(no pun intended) in the fact that I got big into U2 over two years before anyone had ever heard of 'Beautiful Day'(not that there's anything wrong with BD), that I became I die hard during a period where a lot of people were turning away from U2, and that I fell in love with U2 completely on my own(that is to say, with only the back catalog and the subsequent release of The Best Of 1980-1990) rather than falling in love with them with everyone in the whole damn world and their mother when BD hit in 2000. I feel like I kind of 'squeaked in' before U2 became 'everybody's band' again.

So I guess I'm asking two questions:

1.Is there anyone else here who first got into U2 during that time period - 1994-1999?

2.If you did first get into U2 during that time period, can you relate at all to what I'm saying about taking pride in the fact that you became a diehard during that particular period where people were turning off of U2 a lot, and that you got to become a diehard in a time when it wasn't the 'in' thing to do, when you got to fall in love with U2 as 'your band' instead of 'the band' that they are now? Or am I just weird?

 

[laol]

1. I became a fan in 95-96, when my brother gave me a copy of Achtung Baby (even if it took me some months to appreciate).

2. I think I know what you mean. I was the only U2-fan in my class at the time, and yes, I kind of liked that. There were other advantages as well, it was so easy to get tickets to the popmart tour!

To be totaly honest, I'm not so sure that I want to be a fan of the biggest band in the world. (This might be one of the reasons why I'm not to fond of ATYCLB/HTDAAB. Or maybe those albums just aren't my type of music. I honestly don't know. )

 

[If you shout...]

1) Yes. "Discotheque" starts playing on US (or at least Chicago) radio stations in Autumn of 1996. July of '96 saw me discovering the back catalogue a bit, but I loved this song and this image about a million times more than anything I'd previously encountered...well, except for "Bad."

2) Yes. Absolutely. I was and am, to this day, the only person I know who spent his/her life savings on PopMart tickets, transportation to the show, and all the good stuff that goes along with it. I was like 13 and neither I nor my family ever had any money while I was growing up, so give me a break--I was broke as a joke, yo.

 

[bathiu]

1) 1995 with HMTMKMKM... after hearing this song and liking it alot I just started to buy their albums... the first one was BOY... a perfect album to start, especialy when you're 12
It's still my 2nd favorite album (after AB).
By the time POP was released I already had everything exept R&H and probably October, I don't remember... of course I had no idea about Passengers at the time

(BTW - HMTMKMKM is to this day my favorite U2 song )


2) not really... I know what you mean though, because I was the only one listening to U2 in my group of friends (in fact still am the only one).... but at the time I didn't know they were far from the mainstream, in fact I got the impression from the radio, from TV that they are HUUUUGE.
POP was released, reviews from a couple of newspapers were very possitive or at least "OK"... then PopMart came and literally every TV channel went crazy about U2 and about the whole show...
So, you know, until the whole ATYCLB era when all those quotes about POP era came from the band, I thought U2 were even bigger than around the time of Achtung Baby...

 

[ozeeko]

First video I remember seeing in its entirety was "Numb". And my reaction was "WTF? Isn't this that bloody sunday band? Is this bandana wearing dude the lead singer? Why's Kenny G doin falsetto in this video?" It was later on that I realized that wasn't Kenny G, but the actual lead singer! But you could imagine why I was so confused. So I guess this is around 1993 or some shit. Watching late night VH1, I caught glimpses of Lemon, With Or Without You, I Still Haven't Found, and Stay Faraway So Close. I was suitably impressed with the band's range. Watched ZooTV live at Sydney on PPV. Definitely needed the albums. This band was good.

First got Joshua Tree, then Zooropa, and then Achtung Baby(which I had previously ignored cuz i was listening to Vanilla Ice at the time).

I guess you can say my first experience with U2 was a healthy mix of their straightforward early days(JT) with their whacked-out weird years (AB, Zooropa). By the time POP came out I had every album.

Know what you mean about being a die-hard fan, watching the Walmart masses lap up their two latest albums. But what r u gonna do? Life's too short. Let them buy those albums. We'll just cross our fingers and hope U2's next offering is completely fucked up, sending the BestBuy crowd further down the shopping aisle. They can buy some UB40 instead. (I am in no means knocking UB40. They are quite good.)

 

[Bonochick]

I became a fan in 1995 after getting a copy of the Joshua Tree...so it wasn't something in that time period that initially grabbed my attention.

 

[ponkine]

I was wondering who became U2 fan during Rattle & Hum era?

 

[U2Man]

I became a fan in 1993, in seventh grade. That was around the time that Metallica and Guns'n'Roses ruled the planet. I got tired of pop-heavy and sought a new direction. I believe I was the only one in my class/circle of friends, that was into U2. Stay was probably the 1st song ever to grab my attention, while Zoo-TV sealed the deal. I was a fan of a perfect band.

 

[allbecauseofme]

I remember hearing Staring at the sun on the radio in'97 and I had my mom get me the maxi cd single( i was 11 at the time). then I got the best of 80-90 a couple years later, and I couldn't believe all the songs on there were U2 songs(desire, bad, wtshnn, etc.) After that i got all there albums and they became my favorite band.

 

[AtomicBono]

1. word homie, it was in 1997 with a little song called Discotheque

2. Looking back on it I have to say, yeah, I was definitely the only third grader singing Mofo to myself while everyone else was like "OMG BACKSTREET BOYS!!!" of course, the next year I got into all that pop music stuff (as opposed to Pop Muzik ), but at the same time I was going through all of U2's back catalouge. my parents were concerned because they thought I didn't listen to enough variety of music, just U2 (dude I was like 10, how much variety am I supposed to have? U2 has more variety than most bands...)

I've never really cared what the public thought about U2. That is, I'll still love them no matter what and I won't be shy about expressing it. But I really loved when BD came out because it felt like U2 was on top of the world and finally everyone knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean, most people my age didn't know who U2 was at all before that. At least in 2000 people acknowledged that U2 existed, though really not a lot of 6th graders were listening to them.

 

[Screwtape2]

1. Yes, in 1998.
2. Not really, because most of my 90's exposure was with U2 in the 80's.

 

[Ifeelnumb84]

I became a fan some time in 1997. I was 13, knew nothing about music, and started watching a lot of VH1.
I borrowed my sister's cassette of The Joshua Tree and listened to the first side a lot, the second side not so much.
I think POP was the first U2 album that I bought, but I'm not really sure.
By 2000, I owned every album to date, including Wide Awake In America, which I inexplicably purchased in a Paris airport.

In some way I do feel proud that I discovered U2 before the ATYCLB era, because I was able to listen to their earlier albums and sort of get a sense of history to the whole thing. But I don't think it makes me a "better" fan.

 

[Stefan]

I became a die-hard U2 fan in the mid 90s. It was not because I liked the music they were currently into (Zooropa, Passengers) but because I discovered their back catalog. I was thinking that U2 were getting "too weird" and I was hoping for them to become more mainstream again. Considering the kind of music they are making today it's kind of strange to look back at how I felt back then! When Pop came out many thought U2 had "gone to far" but I actually saw it more as a return to their roots since it brought back what I had been missing in their music: the guitarplay!

When I fell in love with their early work it felt like I had discovered something extraordinary that nobody else knew about (this was before the Best of release) which I guess made it even more special.

 

[thrillme]

Well "Hold me, thrill me...."was the first U2 I really liked, but I didn't really act on it more than just liking the song. It was this guitar bit, about 1 minute into the song that hooked me but it took a few more years down the road to really, "get into" their music.

Though once I did that, I realised how many songs I've known and liked, just didn't put the band+song together.

Beautiful Day was the song that got me...again, but this time I acted on it and started getting into their other songs.

However, I did get into them on my own, honestly, at the time, I had no idea how big a band U2 were, I remember seeing Bono induct Chris Blackwell into the R&R hall of fame, and was thinking, hmm cool, why is Bono doing it though? Had no idea the connection, or just how big a band U2 were.

I discovered U2's music on my own, no one in my family were big fans, my sister was like me, knew a few songs but couldn't name the members in the band.

For about a year, I got to form my own opinions on U2's music without any bias one way or another affecting it. I joined this forum in late 2001, but I really just lurked for the longest time. Then I joined U2.com's forum around the same time, and sorta "forgot" about this place.

Even nowadays, if I start to like a band, I try to avoid internet forums about them, until I've had a chance to get to know their songs, before hearing other opinions.

 

[Bug]

My answer is exactly the same as Screwtape's.

 

[Hallucination]

Yup. I'm a 90's baby. I fell for them durring the whole POP era. As for taking pride in the fact that I fell for U2 durring a "low" period... not really. Actually not at all. I don't have hang ups about stuff like that. I like the bands I like to be as popular as possible. Why wouldn't I want my bands on the radio and stuff. I take no more pride in this than I would in being a Garbage fan before they were popular. It's not a big deal to me if the bands I like are popular or unpopular. I like what I like and that's it. I feel sorry for people who don't get U2 though.

 

[RavenBlue]

I became a fan around 96-97 after watching the Rattle and Hum video and hearing Van Diemans Land. Pop was my main cassette that I listened to in highschool.

 

[greenlight7-11]

I got into them in the 90s as well. I'd heard them all throughout the 80s while I was growing up, but it didn't really click with me until I was a teenager in the 90s and I was really getting into music in general.

During that time, I had some cassettes that were hand-me-downs from my brother and there were a few U2 albums among them. Those albums (esp. Achtung Baby) had me in their grip right away. I think I was a full-on fan by 1996.

 

[coolian2]

Hell, i'm a BD era fan and i take pride in being a U2 fan - feels as though we're few and far between.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

I was wondering who became U2 fan during Rattle & Hum era?

Yes. Me. I did like it and own it, but it didn't make me fall head over heals in love with U2. A few years later The Fly kicked me between the legs and started that little affair.

 

[scottyT]

oddly enough Numb was the first U2 song i remember hearing and that made me get Zooropa, and a friend gave me the Joshua Tree. I was hooked after that.