90's U2 - Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop

Achtung Baby was their take on welcoming former soviet block nations after the wall opened to the world, especially East Germany. The title says it all. U2 ended up writing/recording in Berlin for a new fresh reset from the American folksy blues of Joshua Tree/Rattle Hum.

That electro pop sounds was pretty fresh and big at the time in Germany. Electronic music in a whole was gaining in popularity and it continued through the 90's. The Edge was starting to listen to it and make no mistake about it, the album was engineered by Flood even though he was more in a producer role. He's had a massive influence on being an engineer/producer in that sound(NIN, Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb, Ministry). I would say he was a big influence on it.

Lanois and Eno may have producing credits but I think even they took a step back and let the band experiment away from previous albums. Each song off Achtung baby was mixed by Eno, Lanois, Flood, and a former U2 producer. The band ended up selecting their favorite versions to put on the album.

Achtung is great and Zooropa is OK. Pop, I'm not sure what happened with that. It's ok I suppose. I only say that because it's Chicken's favorite U2 album.

I loved them at the time, but haven't listened to one of them in over a decade or two.

I think what has really hurt the way I listen to U2 is that a friend described to me how they write songs. He worked in a studio they were recording in at the time, and said that they seemed to piece cool sounding parts together. That, coupled with The Edge's exchange with Jimmy Page (This Might Get Loud) regarding the chords of I Will Follow, and the fact that I can't imagine many U2 songs performed a capella or unplugged, with just the chords and melody carrying the song, have made it harder for me to like what I'm hearing. That probably sounds a bit unfair, but that's where I am.

The Joshua Tree was a huge album for me. I was 16 when it came out and it just opened up a lot for me - before that, I listened to top 40 radio. Because of U2, I started getting into classic rock bands, alternative bands like R.E.M.

I have a soft sport for Rattle and Hum. Yeah, it's bloated and pretentious, but you're the biggest band in the world - that's when you make a bloated and pretentious record! There are some great deep cuts on the album - Hawkmoon 269, God Part II.

I liked Achtung Baby a lot. It sounded a little different than what was popular at the time, but you could see where they were influenced by My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, trip hop. I listened to that album just as much as the stuff I was really in: grunge, Sonic Youth, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Public Enemy. "Until the End of the World" may be my favorite U2 song of all time. "Ultraviolet" is great too.

I enjoyed Zooropa and listened to it a lot the summer it came out. It didn't seem as much of a statement as Achtung Baby, or them coming up with a new sound. But there was some great stuff on there "Numb", "Lemon" "Stay", "Zooropa", "The First Time".

To me, Pop was just a massive misfire. I never even bought the album - the night before it came out, they played the whole record on the Lafayette alternative station. I recorded it onto a cassette and said "meh". By then, I was really into Radiohead and the Smashing Pumpkins and U2 felt like a relic from high school. It just seemed like they were chasing trends and being silly about it.

Pop was so bad that I didn't buy All That You Can't Leave Behind until it had been out for a long time. (Matter of fact, I don't even think I bought the album. I took an office computer on a work trip to Houston and a copy of the CD was in the bag. I ended up keeping it.) Of course, like a dummy, I bought How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb the day it came out, because I liked Vertigo so much and that album was worse than Pop.

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Perhaps I'm partial because I saw the ZooTV tour which is my favorite concert all time.

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Same. The show, the stages, the intro, etc. were incredible.

I owned all their records from Boy through Joshua Tree, which was my jumping off point.

As I recall, Bono started to annoy me.

I honestly love that era of U2, but I am a DJ and Electronic music aficionado, so I'm pretty far from the majority of people on here.