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Zooropa

Begun as a four-song EP between legs of Zoo TV, finished on 14 May 1993 and released in July.
U2, 1993

Released
5 July 1993
Recorded
February to May 1993
Studio
The Factory, Windmill Lane and Westland, Dublin
Label
Island
Producer
Flood, Brian Eno and the Edge
Length
51:15

Zooropa began as a four-song EP and grew into a full album, recorded between February and mid-May 1993 and finished on 14 May. It went to number one in the United States and United Kingdom, won the 1994 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album and has sold over 7 million copies. The closing track, The Wanderer, is a Johnny Cash song. Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone called it a daring, imaginative coda to Achtung Baby.

Loops and samples

Peyton Thomas reviewed the album for Pitchfork in 2020 and gave it 8.4. The review says the EP was meant to help sell tickets for the second year of Zoo TV. Robbie Adams built loops from Zoo TV soundchecks, and with Flood and Eno the band turned them into the songs. On Numb the Edge reads a list in a monotone, Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car opens with a brass sample from the 1978 Soviet compilation Lenin's Favourite Songs, and Johnny Cash takes the lead vocal on The Wanderer. The tour's stage character MacPhisto, played by Bono, was in the same spirit.

Track listing

  1. Zooropa6:31
  2. Babyface4:01
  3. Numb4:20
  4. Lemon6:58
  5. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)4:58
  6. Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car5:20
  7. Some Days Are Better Than Others4:17
  8. The First Time3:45
  9. Dirty Day5:24
  10. The Wanderer5:41

More from U2

Boy (1980), October (1981), War (1983), Under a Blood Red Sky (1983), The Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), Rattle and Hum (1988), Achtung Baby (1991), All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)

Sources

  1. Zooropa, Wikipedia
  2. U2: Zooropa, Pitchfork (2020-12-20)
  3. Robbie Adams: recording U2's Achtung Baby and Zooropa, Sound On Sound