Successful reinvention is hard to shake. What U2 had managed with The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby is a revival of their sound and a permanent spot in contemporary music. A band big enough to cruise through headline shows, no matter the quality of their studio work. Just look at their most recent decade of music. It cannot compare to the glory days. U2 found themselves wanting to continue the head-spinning success of the Zoo TV tour. Not because they had intended on capturing that energy, but because they could not shake it. Zooropa is an attempt by the band to lay down a sincerity which not even the best can grasp and keep in place long enough for a record to be finished. But they try anyway, and the result is an amalgamation of all those genre choices and instrumental changes the band carried out on their wild and madly successful tour.
This is a chance for the band to prove they had not been spoiled by the luxuries of success. An album which gets back to their roots of punk-adjacent sound and spirited displays of heartfelt writing. There’s a creative spirit and urgency to Zooropa which would lead to such an excess of material that Pop would comprise a selection of these recordings. Crucial to the success of this album is how the tour has affected Bono and the band. A lengthy instrumental introduction to the title song, a signature guitar spot to precede the vocal work, it’s as nice a blur of live and studio magic as you can get from the band. U2 offers a strong statement of intent here. Babyface and Numb are magnificent examples of those new and energised tones. U2 is a band adapting to a wave of criticism, not the first they would receive and certainly not the last. Zooropa is a chance for the band to prove they are comfortable with the grit necessary to make great music, and a song like Numb proves it.
An eventful song with monotone vocal delivery, it’s the state of contrast U2 brings about best of all. Every song on Zooropa stands as proof of the band being capable and ready to revive the roots of their sound. This would, ironically, be the last time they did that. Zooropa is the final outing of Bono as a frontman, with moments of his life to reflect on, rather than mirroring the causes and catastrophes the world over. It’s a cliché to say Bono is an activist first, a frontman second, but his studio work after Zooropa does little to disprove that. Gone are the likes of Stay (Faraway, So Close), a wonderful and challenging song of love and faith. There are some inevitably underwhelming moments. Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car is an underwhelming knock at wealth and power, but at least U2 has tried to tackle it. Not well, but an honest effort.
Crucial to even the lowest moments of Zooropa is a return to the rock and roll sound. They had lost their way somewhat on the revolutionary purposes of Achtung Baby and the tour to follow. Every artist walks a fine line between repeating a popular sound and heading too far into a new genre. U2 were at risk of following the pop scene and decimating their integrity. Their image as innovative artists could have crumbled. But Zooropa revives it by returning to those rock and roll tones. After the shock return of rock and roll in the first half of the album, Zooropa does lose its way a little. Strong instrumental purpose and a broader lyrical touch are what make it an all-time high for the band. Songs like The First Time and Dirty Day blur the spirit of The Joshua Tree with the value of energy felt on the Zoo TV tour. It’s a strong adaptation with a surprise Johnny Cash feature at the end for The Wanderer, a perfect end song.
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An insightful and fair review. I’m an outlier among U2 fans in that Zooropa is not only my favorite U2 album, but one of my favorite albums of all. U2 could have played it safe (which inevitably they would go on to do later in their career) by trotting out an Achtung Baby clone to capitalize on the success of the Zoo TV tour. Instead, they took another left turn and indulged their creative and experimental instincts to produce this brilliant, overlooked gem. On a side note, this is the only album ever coproduced by legendary producers Brian Eno and Flood.