U2
Zooropa

THE REVIEW

I have never used the word "masterpiece" for any U2 album. This is because, beyond the care and skill with which each one has been crafted, they are works that draw heavily from the past and offer little innovation. The musicians who make up the group, Paul "Bono Vox" Hewson on vocals, Dave "The Edge" Evans on guitar, Adam Clayton on bass, and Larry Mullen on drums, have a relatively marginal role in the success of their albums when compared to that of the more significant role played by the producers who, throughout their career, have participated in the making of their albums: the ambient electronic wizard Brian Eno, their first producer Steve Lillywhite, responsible for the psychedelic reminiscences of "Boy" and "October", the pyrotechnic Howie B and Flood, creators of the colorful and sizzling sounds of the controversial "Pop". To varying degrees, each of them has shaped the sound of U2 according to their own sensibilities while the group, in all cases, has limited itself to composing and playing its own material. Therefore, it can be deduced that we are faced with a production effort, more than a composition effort, and this transforms the group into a classic pop band that pays a lot of attention to the packaging without caring much about the content it protects, which is why it seems really excessive and misplaced to label any of their albums as a "masterpiece", and "Zooropa" is no exception.

I apologize to the readers, but I considered this introduction a dutiful act. I simply wanted to clarify my position regarding the group and its actual validity as a "masterpiece-producing" group, which as I have already pointed out is practically non-existent. This is to say that "Zooropa" has all the faults attributed to it, but at the same time to affirm that, with all the controversies it has brought along, it remains for me one of the best albums by the Irish band. Not recognizing a "golden period" for U2, I don't mind making a comparison between the U2 of "The Joshua Tree" and those of "Zooropa", for which I can appreciate this album based on what it actually has to offer, without suffering too much for what, according to many fans, "has been lost".

"Zooropa" is an album of multiple influences. The distorted and sometimes almost industrial noise that permeated the tracks of "Achtung Baby" has almost entirely disappeared here, replaced by Brian Eno's ambient-psychedelic textures, capable of giving the album a nocturnal and often melancholic tone, colored with delicate shades between blue and black, just to play with the mental associations that this album develops. The psychedelia of the softer and more graceful Pink Floyd, the rhythmic charge of the Talking Heads, the band's own musical past are all blended here to obtain a decidedly captivating and well-achieved mix of sounds and moods: thus we go from the ambient-pop laden with effects and bizarre sounds of the title track (with a long and claustrophobic introduction of piano and electronics) to the dance-industrial ambitions of "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car", in which the influence of the aforementioned Talking Heads is very strong, to reach the dark and tormented beauty of "Dirty Day" (in my opinion, unfairly underestimated) and the electro-piano ballad "The First Time", one of the peaks of the entire album. I am not convinced, however, by the sentimental ballad "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)", which I find too insistent in its desire to replicate "One". The psychedelic disco-funky of "Lemon" is also successful, with The Edge’s guitar electronically transformed into an organ, and slightly less but still suggestive is the concluding "The Wanderer", a bizarre number of country deviated by electronic sounds sung by the late Johnny Cash.

Not a masterpiece, I repeat. In the case of U2, in my opinion, such a word is absolutely to be avoided. Nonetheless, an album that does not disappoint, and that offers some interesting new nuances. I do not dare ask more from the band, which in the past did not offer anything other than this, good music with excellent sounds painted by illustrious producers. I am happy to know how to be content.