lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
U2girl said:Then we agree they were into dance/Manchester/industrial sounds. I also remember an article that said Bono was imitating one of the Brit singers of the time on Mysterious ways verses (the name escapes me).
What I'm getting at is that with Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum (even the movie alone) you could sense the honest soaking up and admiration/respect of American culture and music. With AB/Pop/ATYCLB it feels more like "ok, this is the hot music now in Europe/UK, let's sound like that". It's not they were doing that to make money, it' feels more like they were hopping onto the latest sounds of the time, to be hip. In contrast, there seems to be a more genuine desire in moving into Morocco for Arabic/African sounds.
The problem with that line of thinking is that Manchester and Industrial European sound nothing alike! That's the distinction I tried to make in my last post. And if there's one thing that Manchester wasn't about, it was metallic and abrasive, and that's exactly what comes scratching and crawling out of the speakers when Zoo Station comes on. Not the sound of a band trying to hop onto any kind of popular sound. If they had led the album with Mysterious Ways, or released it first, or written several more songs like it, then you'd have a point.
But as it was pointed out by StoneRoses, anyone into Manchester would have hated this stuff when it came out. It was taking a pinch (A PINCH) of the Manchester sound and combining it with this hard-edged Eastern European-style, something UNPOPULAR in terms of the mainstream, that gives AB its signature, hybrid style.