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Rating: You insert the CD into the player, press Play, and listen: the beginning, with the piano (sampled? played? it doesn't matter) barely perceptible but growing, sounds like a long instrumental intro. The notes are vaguely unsettling and almost sinister, almost (to repeat the game of synesthetic associations) like the tolling of a bell in the desert, or the crescendo of "All Tomorrow's Parties"... however, the cinematic crossfade scene-change is tangible, and here come the stylized/sampled background noises mixed with voices making their appearance on the scene. After a sort of "counter-climax," a relaxing pause, where one senses a "scene change in the fade" from the mists of these sampled melodies with post-industrial noises, music emerges, the same music as always, from the band with Bonovox and The Edge: the guitar, liquid and spatial, the bass counterpoint, and finally the beginning of the percussion: "Zooropa". The references mentioned above are thus explainable: the attitude towards writing in a cinematic modus is due to the long collaboration with Wenders (and not only), the echoes of the Velvet Underground reveal more than elective affinities, the real encounter (Lou Reed and Co. were supporters at the 1993 Naples dates of the... "Zooropa Tour") which apparently left its mark. In this track, which sounds like "Until The End Of The World" in an apocalyptic presage version, it seems the meaning of the entire work is concentrated. An unexpected work, an album bizarrely released while the group is engaged in the tour initially named "Zoo Tv". So unexpected (and little announced) that it arrives in stores without (in fact) the Dublin band including even a track in the setlist (for now), and yet it makes a "course change" of the tour's name. Thematically, the title of the opening track is explicit: Europe, a continent (willingly or unwillingly) open to infinite contaminations, traffic of peoples and cultures, scarred by two world wars and now a fragile area of peace surrounded by a world-universe shattered by irresolvable conflicts of every kind, by unspeakable horrors and the forerunners of a desired/feared globalization, and while maintaining a certain (unstable) "order", it at least feels the seismic shocks, and loses sight of its own center. As P. Negri has astutely pointed out "there is a key verse in the title track, which reveals the sense of the entire work": this verse, in the reprise placed almost at the end of the song, says "and I have no compass", meaning "I have lost the compass", the guiding line of viewing the complexity of the contemporary world. It is understandable how this song gives a sense of a "manifesto of an era", that of the post-contemporaneity towards which we are heading, and it captures in its musical poetry the subtle unease. Monumental and (at the same time) splendid, to make a comparison with another work set "at the antipodes" of this album, namely "The Joshua Tree", if in that album the opening song, the epochal "Where The Streets Have No Name", was worked on and refined so much that it absorbed half of the album's entire production time, here "Zooropa" represents the perfect counterpoint, while being something that "goes beyond" the boundaries of a simple pop-rock song (contaminated), and of a "simple" album.
The rest of the album is partly a reaffirmation of The Edge's musical talent and Bonovox's lyrical and vocal talent, partly a (deliberately) surprising opening to fields of experimentation never before "dared". The first category includes "The Wanderer", a Bonovox-Jonny Cash duet, "Babyface", a rock song dressed as a pop song (or vice versa), where (again) echoes of the Velvet Underground are heard, and "Stay (Faraway So Close)", a romantic old-style ballad perfect for entering the landscape of images and music of Wim Wenders' "Faraway, So Close".
The second category includes the most atypical episodes of (perhaps) the group's entire future career ("Zooropa" is the first of 5 albums the band is committed to recording after renewing their contract with Island): "Numb", the leading single, where the monotone voice is that of The Edge, with Bonovox's backing vocals, placed in the background, and an electro-(indefinable) soundscape where, between the lines, one "feels" a subtle melodic line; "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Cars", bears the industrial imprint of Flood, producer of the album, who from Nodes (one of the ultra-experimental groups he was part of in the first person) to Nine Inch Nails has established himself as one of the "super producers" (here alongside Brian Eno); and especially "Lemon", theoretically something that might not excite everyone, practically (perhaps) upon closer inspection, a traditional (and inspired) U2 song reprocessed more than simply "dressed up" in techno-pop form that mimics certain disco music of the '80s. If I may venture an image, I would say that here the circle closes: that of a work, "Zooropa", which between classicism staged in the disorienting light of post-contemporaneity (think of De Chirico's Metaphysical Painting, or Derek Jarman's films) and more apparent than real modernity, offers a portrait of the world as realistic as possible: elusive, "zoomed", grainy in individual pixels, dreamlike and finally poetic, as every (possible) historical era is, and will be (according to the writer, of course) always; and closes another cycle: that of U2, who besides always having been authors of great songs, here combine their (indisputable) lyrical talent with the awareness of "projecting themselves" into a dimension unknown to them. That of a (not yet known) "Brave New World".
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Zooropa (06:31)
Zooropa... Vorsprung durch Technik
Zooropa... be all that you can be
Be a winner
Eat to get slimmer
Zooropa... a bluer kind of white
Zooropa... it could be yours tonight
We're mild and green
And squeaky clean
Zooropa... better by design
Zooropa... fly the friendly skies
Through appliance of science
We've got that ring of confidence...
And I have no compass
And I have no map
And I have no reasons
No reasons to get back
And I have no religion
And I don't know what's what
And I don't know the limit
The limit of what we've got
Zooropa... Don't worry baby, it'll be alright
Zooropa... You got the right shoes
Zooropa... To get you through the night
Zooropa... It's cold outside, but brightly lit
Zooropa... Skip the subway
Zooropa... Let's go to the overground
Get your head out of the mud baby
Put flowers in the mud baby
Overground
No particular place names
No particular song
I've been hiding
What am I hiding from?
Zooropa... Don't worry baby, it's gonna be alright
Zooropa... Uncertainty... can be a guiding light
Zooropa... I hear voices, ridiculous voices
Zooropa... In the slipstream
Zooropa... Let's go, let's go... overground
Zooropa... Take your head out of the mud baby
She's gonna dream up
The world she wants to live in
She's gonna dream out loud
02 Babyface (04:01)
Catching your bright blue eyes in the freeze frame
I've seen them so many times
I feel like I must be your best friend.
You're looking fine, so fine
Dressed up like a lovely day.
Babyface, Babyface
Slow down child, let me untie your lace.
Babyface, Babyface
Cover girl with natural grace.
How could beauty be so kind
To an ordinary guy?
Comin' home late at night to turn you on
Checkin' out every frame,
I've got slow motion on my side.
Turnin' around and around
With the sound and colour under my control
Round and around, goin' down,
Dressed up like a lovely day.
Babyface, Babyface
Slow down child, let me untie your lace
Babyface, Babyface
Tinfoil hair all tied up in lace
Babyface, Babyface
Bitter-sweet girl, won't you give me a taste
How could beauty be so kind
To an ordinary guy?
Babyface, Babyface
Slow down child, let me untie your lace.
Babyface, Babyface
Open that door, let me unpack my case.
Babyface, Babyface
You're everywhere, child, you're all over the place.
Babyface, Babyface
You're comin' to me from outer space.
How could beauty be so kind
To an ordinary guy?
03 Numb (04:20)
Don't move
Don't talk out of time
Don't think
Don't worry
Everything's just fine
Just fine
Don't grab
Don't clutch
Don't hope for too much
Don't breathe
Don't achieve
Or grieve without leave
Don't check
Just balance on the fence
Don't answer
Don't ask
Don't try and make sense
Don't whisper
Don't talk
Don't run if you can walk
Don't cheat, compete
Don't miss the one beat
Don't travel by train
Don't eat
Don't spill
Don't piss in the drain
Don't make a will
Don't fill out any forms
Don't compensate
Don't cower
Don't crawl
Don't come around late
Don't hover at the gate
Don't take it on board
Don't fall on your sword
Just play another chord
If you feel you're getting bored
I feel numb
I feel numb
Too much is not enough
I feel numb
Don't change your brand Gimme what you got
Don't listen to the band
Don't gape Gimme what I don't get
Don't ape
Don't change your shape Gimme some more
Have another grape
Too much is not enough
I feel numb
I feel numb
Gimme some more
A piece of me, baby
I feel numb
Don't plead
Don't bridle
Don't shackle
Don't grind Gimme some more
Don't curve
Don't swerve I feel numb
Lie, die, serve Gimme some more
Don't theorize, realise, polarise I feel numb
Chance, dance,dismiss, apologise Gimme what you got
Gimme what I don't get
Gimme what you got
Too much is not enough
Don't spy I feel numb
Don't lie
Don't try
Imply
Detain
Explain
Start again I feel numb
I feel numb
Don't triumph
Don't coax
Don't cling
Don't hoax
Don't freak
Peak
Don't leak
Don't speak I feel numb
I feel numb
Don't project
Don't connect
Protect
Don't expect
Suggest
I feel numb
Don't project
Don't connect
Protect
Don't expect
Suggest
I feel numb
Don't struggle
Don't jerk
Don't collar
Don't work
Don't wish
Don't fish
Don't teach
Don't reach
I feel numb
Don't borrow Too much is not enough
Don't break I feel numb
Don't fence
Don't steal
Don't pass
Don't press
try
Don't feel
Gimme some more
Don't touch I feel numb
Don't dive
Don't suffer
Don't rhyme
Don't fantasize
Don't rise
Don't lie
I feel numb
Don't project
Don't connect
Protect I feel numb
Don't expect
Suggest
Don't project
Don't connect
Protect I feel numb
Don't expect
Suggest
04 Lemon (06:58)
Lemon, see-through in the sunlight.
She wore lemon, see-through in the daylight.
She's gonna make you cry, she's gonna make you whisper and moan.
When you're dry she draws water from a stone.
I feel like I'm slowly, slowly, slowly slippin' under.
I feel like I'm holding on to nothing.
She wore lemon to colour in the cold grey night.
She had heaven and she held on so tight.
A man makes a picture, a moving picture
through the light projected, he can see himself up close.
A man captures colour, a man likes to stare.
He turns his money into light to look for her.
And I feel like I'm drifting, drifting, drifting from the shore.
And I feel like I'm swimming out to her.
Midnight is where the day begins.
Midnight is where the day begins.
Lemon, see-through in the sunlight.
A man builds a city, with banks and cathedrals.
A man melts the sand so he can see the world outside.
A man makes a car, and builds a road to run (them) on.
A man dreams of leaving, but he always stays behind.
You’re gonna meet her there
She’s your destination
You gotta get to her
She’s imagination
And these are the days when our work has come asunder.
And these are the days when we look for something other.
Midnight is where the day begins.
Midnight is where the day begins.
Midnight is where the day begins.
Midnight is where the day begins.
A man makes a picture, a moving picture;
Through light projected, he can see himself up close.
A man captures colour, a man likes to stare.
He turns his money into light to look for her.
Gotta meet her there
She’s your destination
There’s no sleeping there
She’s imagination
She is the dreamer, she's imagination.
Through the light projected, he can see himself up close.
05 Stay (Faraway, So Close!) (04:58)
Green light, 7-Eleven
You stop in for a pack of cigarettes
You don't smoke, don't even want to
Hey now, check your change
Dressed up like a car crash
The wheels are turning but you're upside down
You say when he hits you you don't mind
Because when he hurts you you feel alive
Oh now, is that what it is
Red light, grey morning
You stumble out of a hole in the ground
A vampire or a victim
It depends on who's around
You used to stay up to watch the adverts
You could lip-synch to the talk shows
And if you look, you look through me
And when you talk it's not to me
And when I touch you, you don't feel a thing
If I could stay, then the night would give you up
Stay, and the day would keep its trust
Stay, and the night would be enough
Faraway, so close up with the static and the radio
With satellite television you can go anywhere
Miami, New Orleans, London, Belfast and Berlin
And if you listen I can't call
And if you jump, you just might fall
And if you shout, I'll only hear you
If I could stay then the night would give you up
Stay then the day would keep its trust
Stay with the demons you drowned
Stay with the spirit I found
Stay and the night would be enough
Three o'clock in the morning
It's quiet and there's no one around
Just the bang and the clatter as an angel runs to ground
Just the bang and the clatter as an angel hits the ground
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Other reviews
By Jy
NUMB is indeed the sonic manifesto of the band’s new direction.
‘Stay’ is the song where electronics take a back seat for once, in favor of a superb performance by the entire band.
By Bleak
"With all the controversies it has brought along, it remains for me one of the best albums by the Irish band."
"Not a masterpiece, I repeat. In the case of U2, in my opinion, such a word is absolutely to be avoided."
By Rax
"'Zooropa' is a series of songs of an idea dressed in elegant electronics."
"Pass marks for the production and the decency of the songs. U2 never engaged in the bravado that fills REM albums."
