I remember all those years ago now putting on Achtung Baby and hearing Zoo Station and feeling ohmygod what the hell is this sound?! It's so ...weird! But I liked it immediately too... the effect was very trippy, I recall distinctly, like mind-altering for me who didn't listen to music at the fringe and for whom this really was very "different" sounding for the time.
Zoo Station also felt to me very much like Bono calling from some other place he'd gone to, aesthetically, artistically, physically too...it really did feel like he was calling in on some new device Edge made from maybe that newly freed Berlin.
It totally worked, it was perfect.
Beautiful Day, which I didn't really hear until a long time after the rest of the world did, had a similar effect on me at first listen, in that it also felt like a big statement of place and purpose. But now it was a different world, bigger and more intimate at once. Bittersweet and reaching out, vulnerable but resilient. Where Zoo Station felt like slick patent leather kicking at the subway doors, Beautiful Day felt like roughed up buck walking along and finding that bloom in the stony ground and finding hope in that sight. Hit me in the shoulders heading upward, while Zoo Station hit around the waist and heading downward.
So, it wasn't getting 'wowed' by the sound or difference in feel with BD compared to ZS, but I thought BD was very beautiful and reflective of a new 'theme' as it were for U2. It somehow felt like a new direction was conveyed very subtly, almost subconsciously. Lovely on its own, and then listening to the rest of ATYCLB and seeing/hearing the whole vibe of the elevation tour, very perfect introduction to it all.
cheers all...
edit: or, to put it much more succinctly, kinda what kingofsorrow said above lol!