Hollow Island
New Yorker
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2011
- Messages
- 2,947
Passengers Original Soundtacks 1 was released 25 years ago today. I didn't hear it until Christmas - I saw the Miss Sarajevo video a few times, but never heard it on the radio or heard much about this album. I knew it was a low-key largely ambient side project with Brian Eno as a full collaborator, but I didn't really know what that meant because I only knew him as the guy that produced U2 and played with David Bowie. I found the lack of profile of it strange - it was new U2, even if it wasn't U2 in name (I would learn later that the decision to use another name was contentious). It was like people were keeping this album secret, and it increased my already considerable curiosity.
When I finally heard it on Christmas 1995, I was baffled. It was the mid 90s, I was in my mid teens, so you can imagine what I was into.
United Colours was without a doubt the strangest and most jarring piece of music that I'd ever heard. The guitar the explodes in the back half of the song and is then swallowed by its aftershocks reminded me of Neil Young but frighteningly insane. I hated that song and rarely listened to it for years.
Slug hypnotized me - the synths and organ were so pretty and lush, and Bono's voice...the whole thing seemed adult. Mature. Achtung Baby was definitely adult in content, but I didn't really get the lyrics, and it was still fun and rockin'. Zooropa was blast. OST 1 was a different thing entirely. The list style lyrics called back to Numb, but seemed to mean something more, even if I didn't know what it was. Really, I think it was just Bono's voice than imparted the meaning.
The organ continued into Your Blue Room, which was immediately one of my favorite U2 songs, and it's still in top 10. I was sucked i by the world created by organ riff, brushed drums and spacious bass. I had never heard anything like it. I can't stress that enough: this album was my introduction to electronic music (beyond pop), to ambient music, to music that wasn't rock (or pop, or rap). I was a NIN fan, and I was into Bowie - Outside had just come out - but they were still pretty full-on. Passengers was vague, as Eno would likely say.
Always Forever Now confused me again - it was just the same thing over and over and over again. It was a study of momentum and restraint, but more that is was weird! A mantra? What the fuck? But man, it got me. Over the years its become another favorite. It wasn't a favorite at the time - this album wasn't a favorite - but it grew on me as I grew up and understood it better and was able to place it in context.
I could go on about every song but I won't. The sequencing is excellent - going from Always Forever Now to Miss Sarajevo is like traveling down a steep hill into a valley with a lake, and then back up again...but it's on a different planet. It loses its way towards the end - Elvis Ate America is an atrocity, Corpse is disruptive, Let's Go Native is underdeveloped (and fun as hell!)- but I'd stack the stretch from Slug to One Minute Warning up with any sequence of songs in their catalog.
As I became more familiar with ambient music - ambient, jazz, and rock are my favorite genres, and I don't listen to that much rock any more - I became more and more confused by the accusations of dilettantism leveled at this album, because to my ears it sounds as good, interesting and original as any album of its kind. I wish U2 had reissued it on vinyl and with some outtakes, but it's fitting that the 25th anniversary of the secret album in their catalog will pass unnoticed. I think it's a key album in their career, and would completely change how the band is perceived, but it's ok. We know how far out they went.
When I finally heard it on Christmas 1995, I was baffled. It was the mid 90s, I was in my mid teens, so you can imagine what I was into.
United Colours was without a doubt the strangest and most jarring piece of music that I'd ever heard. The guitar the explodes in the back half of the song and is then swallowed by its aftershocks reminded me of Neil Young but frighteningly insane. I hated that song and rarely listened to it for years.
Slug hypnotized me - the synths and organ were so pretty and lush, and Bono's voice...the whole thing seemed adult. Mature. Achtung Baby was definitely adult in content, but I didn't really get the lyrics, and it was still fun and rockin'. Zooropa was blast. OST 1 was a different thing entirely. The list style lyrics called back to Numb, but seemed to mean something more, even if I didn't know what it was. Really, I think it was just Bono's voice than imparted the meaning.
The organ continued into Your Blue Room, which was immediately one of my favorite U2 songs, and it's still in top 10. I was sucked i by the world created by organ riff, brushed drums and spacious bass. I had never heard anything like it. I can't stress that enough: this album was my introduction to electronic music (beyond pop), to ambient music, to music that wasn't rock (or pop, or rap). I was a NIN fan, and I was into Bowie - Outside had just come out - but they were still pretty full-on. Passengers was vague, as Eno would likely say.
Always Forever Now confused me again - it was just the same thing over and over and over again. It was a study of momentum and restraint, but more that is was weird! A mantra? What the fuck? But man, it got me. Over the years its become another favorite. It wasn't a favorite at the time - this album wasn't a favorite - but it grew on me as I grew up and understood it better and was able to place it in context.
I could go on about every song but I won't. The sequencing is excellent - going from Always Forever Now to Miss Sarajevo is like traveling down a steep hill into a valley with a lake, and then back up again...but it's on a different planet. It loses its way towards the end - Elvis Ate America is an atrocity, Corpse is disruptive, Let's Go Native is underdeveloped (and fun as hell!)- but I'd stack the stretch from Slug to One Minute Warning up with any sequence of songs in their catalog.
As I became more familiar with ambient music - ambient, jazz, and rock are my favorite genres, and I don't listen to that much rock any more - I became more and more confused by the accusations of dilettantism leveled at this album, because to my ears it sounds as good, interesting and original as any album of its kind. I wish U2 had reissued it on vinyl and with some outtakes, but it's fitting that the 25th anniversary of the secret album in their catalog will pass unnoticed. I think it's a key album in their career, and would completely change how the band is perceived, but it's ok. We know how far out they went.
