U2
The Unforgettable Fire

Ehm, boring but necessary introduction.

I love U2 very much, and I decided to review this album because, besides wanting to pay homage to it, the other review honestly didn't appeal to me. Moreover, I would like to add this. Nowadays, it's not so difficult to write a review about U2. The hard part is finding people willing to talk about them with coherence and objectivity without falling into banal or vulgar statements. So please, if you need to have your usual moment of glory by mindlessly insulting things or people, look for it elsewhere.

It's known that today U2 is not going through their best artistic period (because commercially, it would seem the opposite). They have emerged from two albums that are not exactly memorable and a third collection with added singles that could easily be described as infamous. Bono also seems increasingly determined to pursue a political path, which has its negative as well as positive sides, but whether you like it or not, that's how it is. While waiting for the new album, these are the U2 of 2000. But this shouldn't lead us to deny the beautiful pages that this Irish band has been able to write in the history of music.

One of their most beautiful pages is called "The Unforgettable Fire." And just as the title suggests, with this album, U2 have left an indelible mark in the memory of many of us. U2 had a fire burning inside them. It burned in Bono's voice, now silenced. It can be felt burning in "Bad" with that shouted and shouted phrase "I'm wide awake! I'm wide awake" among the fumes and ruins of a Dublin corroded by heroin, it can be felt exploding in "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and so on throughout the album. Why take "Pride" as an example? A rare case where an extraordinary commercial success is combined with a real quality of making music. Simple music, because yes, U2 (at least in this period) are anything but a complex band, but also honest and true music. Music that is never banal and always carries a message, whether big or small.

"The Unforgettable Fire" almost seems like a movie. It is a fascinating epic painting with blurred shades of a confused and chaotic world.

Emblematic in this sense is the opening track: "A Sort of Homecoming." Fields, snow, wind, and sea; a homecoming, but from where? Perhaps from a conflict in distant lands, a hero or maybe just a man crosses the world to return home, where salvation lies. A melancholic landscape but illuminated by Bono's beautiful voice in his prime years but above all by the message of hope (See the sky, the burning rain\She will die and live again) that amidst fire and ruins the band never fails to deliver. Comparable to it is the fourth track and title track, the beautiful "The Unforgettable Fire" where the victims of that fire, which no one will ever forget, the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are remembered. Here too, images of a dark and cold world devastated by conflicts.

The conflicts that U2 talk about in this album are not only political in nature. Above all, there is the conflict of a personal nature, the conflict with oneself. The drug problem in this period is and will be a very dear theme to the band. Dublin is now largely subjected to the cocaine and heroin racket. Out of this situation, the band produces one of its most beautiful songs ever, "Bad." Preceded by the instrumental introduction "4th July," it's a piece so intense and spiritual that any description would be pure heresy. Certainly, the highest moment of the album, and without exaggeration, perhaps also of the band's entire career. The plague of drugs is also addressed in the third track of the album, "Wire" where the cry takes on decidedly more angry and dramatic tones.

Right in the middle of the album, there is the stroke of genius, the hidden gem you don't expect. The tones calm down, the lights dim, and there appears "Promenade." A song on which I would like to spend a few more words since probably few will know it.

"Promenade," which literally means "seaside walk," is a fascinating impressionist sketch where sensations and figures that a landscape can offer are painted, just like in a photographic snapshot. Simple and natural figures. But precisely in their simplicity lies their essence. Earth, sky, sea, rain, and sand, are all elements that merge to create perfect harmony in the natural landscape, thereby creating a beautiful condition of fusion of man with it. Man, so calm, is ready to explode at any moment for the greatness he feels burning inside him, and almost hypnotized by this magnificence, he doesn't even seem to realize it. Emotions take and leave him continually.

And finally, there appears the beautiful image of the woman and the seduction. "Charity" is an almost angelic girl, dancing all night from dusk to dawn just for you. She captures your most intimate passions and is chased all night by your desires, but she does not grant herself, or maybe she does... She is a flower to be handled with care because you know you must not lose her. She can come, touch you, graze you, or fly away like a petal carried by the wind. Either way, with "Promenade", the night will be a moment as long as a dream. A dream to let yourself go. A beautiful dream.

After "Promenade," "4th July" and "Bad", the album enters its final part. "Indian Summer Sky" tells of a piece of America. The America that is no more, that of the Native Americans. An exterminated civilization that cries out under the ground of major cities, but few seem to hear. Then it moves on to "Elvis and America", perhaps the only track that still doesn't captivate me in this album.

Closing with "MLK" which, once again after "Pride" commemorates Reverend King, wishing him rest in peace and serenity. Bono's delicate and gentle voice, singing almost a cappella, a sort of sweet lullaby. The album ends, the dream ends, but surely this will be one I will never forget.

A special thank you, of course, to Saint Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who, working for the first time with U2, will help them forever soar into the musical world Olympus.

With this album, the field is already sown for the definitive consecration. Very soon, the Joshua Tree will come, and the fate of the band will change forever. But as they say in movies, this is another story.

I'm sorry if I was too long, but I couldn't hold back. Next time, I'll try to do better.

See you soon, and long live U2, but above all the Good Music, no matter which group it comes from!

Track list:

1- A sort of Homecoming

2- Pride (In the Name of Love)

3- Wire

4- The Unforgettable Fire

5- Promenade

6 - 4 th July

7- Bad

8- Indian Summer Sky

9- Elvis and America

10 - MLK