Don't project. Don't connect. Protect. Don't expect. Suggest.

July 15, 2024 4:27 PM

Thirty-one freaking summers ago, U2 released the debut single from their album Zooropa. Numb (yt) was a strange, uncharacteristically dark and despairing track for the band, featuring guitarist the Edge on lead vocals with Bono's falsetto backing vocals credited to "the Fat Lady."

The song was not a commercial success but the unforgettable music video (directed by Kevin Godley of 10cc and Godley and Creeme) was parodied by everyone from Weird Al to the cast of WKRP (Yes, really.)

Originally written as a ballad, U2 wasn't happy with the song until it came together at the last moment thanks to the sampling genius of producer Brian Eno and some hastily-written lyrics by the Edge. As the Edge described it, Numb was meant to tap into "the sense that we were being bombarded by so much information that you find yourself shutting down and unable to respond."

If you hate U2 (and I know many of you do) please go do something else instead of snarking here. This one is for my fellow graying Gen-Xers who find themselves feeling a lot like the Edge lately, staring off into the darkness while life climbs all over their faces.

posted by Ursula Hitler (38 comments total)

Well I know what I'm listening to on my way home from work today but then it'll be on to something more recent because in the words of the man himself "You glorify the past when the future dries up".
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:40 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

Probably my favourite U2 song, to be honest.
posted by ashbury at 4:52 PM on July 15 [5 favorites]

Well I generally like U2 okay, but I absolutely love Numb.
posted by aubilenon at 4:52 PM on July 15 [5 favorites]

Wow, I just listened to Zooropa for no discernible reason today. Such a weird album, tonally pretty dark, sonically completely all over the goddamn place. Really interesting, and "Numb" is one of the weirdest tracks and also one of the highlights. Admittedly I pretty much lost interest after ...Atomic Bomb so maybe there's something I don't know about their more recent stuff, but I miss the U2 that was willing to do risky, uncharacteristically bizarre stuff like this.
posted by valrus at 4:53 PM on July 15 [2 favorites]

on my drive from the Bay Area last weekend I asked the car to play U2 and this one came up. Sounded nice, as U2 songs tend to do
posted by torokunai at 4:53 PM on July 15

Me and U2 broke up, but Zooropa is my second favorite U2 album (after Pop), so thanks for this :)
posted by toodleydoodley at 4:55 PM on July 15 [6 favorites]

This is my favorite U2 era (the Achtung Baby/Zooropa/Pop path). Like you could be one of the biggest rock bands in the world and just be like "nah, we're going to be weird now, thanks."

(I want to see more artists do that!)

The video for "Discothèque" is one of my favorite things ever. Partially because I'm a big fan of the director, Stéphane Sednaoui, but also because it's basically 1997 in a nutshell. It's optimistic and weird and I miss that.

(I didn't hate All That You Can't Leave Behind but weird U2 is the better U2. Anything after that ... uh ...)
posted by edencosmic at 5:45 PM on July 15 [11 favorites]

Yeah, it's a great, uncharacteristic track, and this is also my favorite era of U2's (very varied) oeuvre. I wouldn't call myself a U2 fan in general, but Achtung Baby and Zooropa, in particular, are great, and also the stuff they did with Eno under the name "The Passengers" around the same time (which has the also great track "One Minute Warning", recorded for the end credits of the English language release of Ghost in the Shell, of all things). They're boring now, but they were great there for a while.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:16 PM on July 15 [6 favorites]

Zooropa is my favorite U2 album. None of their albums before or since have managed this perfect mix of polish, experimentation, and hubris.
posted by exolstice at 6:21 PM on July 15 [3 favorites]

Even if you didn't like U2, if you're an industrial / EBM or music video awards fan of a certain age, you might be more familiar with the EBN's "cover" of it.
posted by Kyol at 6:23 PM on July 15 [6 favorites]

Even if you didn't like U2, if you're an industrial / EBM or music video awards fan of a certain age, you might be more familiar with the EBN's "cover" yt of it.

Oh, I fit those categories, but had somehow not heard this, this is really great.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:29 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

Numb and The Wanderer mark this as U2's best album, imo. Incredible works, weird and dark and fun. Stay's poignancy helps a lot too.
posted by NoahTheDuke at 6:38 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

Is there anywhere for those of us that love and hate u2 in equal measure to go and sit? Hipster Nickelback?
posted by Keith Talent at 6:40 PM on July 15 [2 favorites]

I remember buying this and thinking the title track (Zooropa) sounded like the future. Very thrilling!
posted by lefty lucky cat at 6:47 PM on July 15 [4 favorites]

I only discovered U2 when Achtung Baby had been out about a year. Thanks to Columbia House and BMG I quickly amassed their back catalog on CD, but Zooropa was their first album I got to buy at the mall the day it came out.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb was the last one. I don't think I ever listened to it all the way through. But it was a fun ten years!
posted by Sophocles at 7:06 PM on July 15

When Zooropa was released I asked a coworker who was a known U2 fan what he thought of it. He said (paraphrasing from poor memory), "If it was any other band's first album I'd say it's phenomenal. But as a U2 album, it's okay." Generally speaking, I've always pretty much liked it and will still throw it on occasionally.

I'm sure I've seen this video before, although I have no recollection of it at all, but watching it now all I could think about was Yoko Ono's performance art piece (or pieces, she did it twice iirc) as recently documented/described in Lindsay Ellis' video essay, where she sits still and lets the audience do whatever they want to her. I expect U2 and Yoko know each other.
posted by Pedantzilla at 7:35 PM on July 15 [5 favorites]

The video for "Discothèque" is one of my favorite things ever.

I hadn't seen it until now, but I just watched and now I'm freshly cheesed off again about the fact that disco balls turn the opposite direction as records. Thanks a lot!
posted by aubilenon at 7:45 PM on July 15

I liked the Mike Hedges Remix. Though, skimming the internet's opinion, I may be wrong.
posted by PresidentOfDinosaurs at 10:09 PM on July 15

Unforgettable Fire 4 eva
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:50 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

Maybe it makes me basic, but it's The Joshua Tree era for me. When I picture peak U2 they're all bundled up in big winter coats and they're in black and white.

I'm surprised nobody commented on the thing where Les Nessman is singing the WKRP theme to the tune of Numb while Tawny Kitaen licks his face. I mean, that is literally a thing that happens in that clip.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 11:05 PM on July 15 [3 favorites]

Man, Zooropa. "Numb" was great but as an aging Gen Xer I am absolutely unable to simply say the word "lemon." I have to sing it like Bono does.on the Zooropa track of that name.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:37 PM on July 15 [19 favorites]

Ha ha ha. Me to on the Lemon thing. Glad to hear someone else does that.
posted by grumblemf at 11:42 PM on July 15 [3 favorites]

The early 90s were a weird time for music. In the uk, rave music was clearly the future, and in the US rap was clearly the future. Grunge/indie was destroying the rock area that U2 had previously moved in. Making a bunch of weird albums that used the visual style of mondo 2000 for their stadium tour (rather than the Americana that previously defined the band) was a good call for them.
posted by The River Ivel at 11:50 PM on July 15 [2 favorites]

I'm surprised nobody commented on the thing where Les Nessman is singing the WKRP theme to the tune of Numb while Tawny Kitaen licks his face.
He's very clean.
posted by pracowity at 2:09 AM on July 16

Love Zooropa. As an R.E.M. fan I'm sad, though, that all of this stuff pushed that other band to think they had to stay relevant through electronica too, and then not be very good at it.
posted by johngoren at 3:49 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

Early 90s was a good time to be a young U2 fan. IHad always been listening to Joshua Tree a lot (but was about 8 when it first came out) but got to be excited to hear Achtung Baby and Zooropa (having not yet got into anything electronic yet) for the first time. Anything after Pop, well... I just finally got the earlier albums and listened to those instead. :shrug:
posted by thefool at 6:04 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

It is a shame that the REM/U2 collab never happened beyond a single performance of One.
posted by interogative mood at 6:11 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

If you stopped listening to U2 for reasons, but like their weird atmospheric stuff, there is much to discover on their 2009 album "No Line on the Horizon" if you ignore the singles.

Signed, possible one of the biggest U2 fans in the world. Used to run a fan site. Even wrote some books.
posted by prolific at 6:28 AM on July 16 [8 favorites]

I endorse this comment from six years ago:

"Dirty Day" is low key the best song U2 ever made.
posted by jscalzi at 11:03 PM on September 2, 2018 [6 favorites −] [⚑]

posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:41 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

I guess you could say that I stopped listening to U2 for reasons, many of them having to do with Rattle and Hum, even though I liked most of the songs in the film, and I'd generally liked the band before that. So, I completely missed this song when it came out, and that's a shame, because it speaks very well to the present moment and the relentless demand on everyone's attention via the internet; there's even a selfie-taker near the end.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:49 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

It “one note Samba” but Irish no?
In terms of Edge driven songs, for me, it’s right up there with Wire.
posted by rongorongo at 7:31 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

I did a video production class at some afterschool thing in elementary school. The teacher had us more or less do a shot for shot remake of this video (but without all the disrobing/licking/etc.).
posted by Xoder at 8:26 AM on July 16 [2 favorites]

There were so many giant bands in the 90s that even though I was an avid CD collector (thanks Best Buy!) there was a lot of stuff I didn't pick up because it was on the radio and TV all the time. Most of U2's albums fit this category and to this day I don't own a single one. I always enjoyed their music, though I got a bit burned out of hearing them after my Irish Pub phase in and after college. So effectively I've never listened to this album at all.

It's good!
posted by Captaintripps at 10:42 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

OMG I needed this. Forgot how much I loved this album.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 11:18 AM on July 16

The one time Bono's "we have enough songs for another album" resulted in another album.
posted by jocelmeow at 11:23 AM on July 16

U2... I'm sure I liked them a long time ago. Maybe 1983? I'll try them again.
posted by pracowity at 12:22 PM on July 16

I was a big U2 fan from the time I was about 12 years old and I first heard "New Year's Day" on a cassette my cousin made for me. This song came out the summer I graduated from college. It was not a great time for me. When I heard "Numb" I thought, this is exactly the way I feel right now.
posted by vibrotronica at 3:04 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

I never much liked Numb, but Lemon is dumb fun, and I used to like 'Some Days are Better than Others' as a song I heard on the radio, but I just listened to it and didn't think much of it. Overall, I like U2 kind of off and on, track by track.

Also the guitar part of Numb for some reason reminds me of Warm Leatherette by by The Normal, which is such an odd song.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:26 AM on July 17