Zooropa is almost perverse in the way it subverts every expectation we’ve ever had of U2. Theworld’s most serious rock band releases an album of advertising parodies, Prince imitations, girlgroup tributes, taunts of rich girls and straightforward love songs. The album opens with the titletune, a vision of a near-future Europe that finds its common culture in advertising slogans and synthprograms. As Bob Dylan once did with “Like a Rolling Stone”, U2 takes aim on “Daddy’s Gonna Pay for
Your Crashed Car” at a spoiled rich girl who discovers her life of privilege has sapped all her strength.Bono’s vocal has a Dylanesque sneer, but the Edge’s guitar and Mullen’s percussion create thesounds of a snarled traffic jam and Clayton’s in-your-face bass line throbs like a migraine headache. By contrast, “The First Time” is the most genuinely romantic track U2 has ever recorded. The mostsurprising and most pleasurable tracks on the album, though, are a pair of R&B infatuation numbers,
“Babyface” and “Lemon”. Nothing better serves overextended rock stars than a return to the music’sorigins at the sock hop. The results aren’t always fully satisfying, but they do reveal an unglimpsed,unexpected side to one of the world’s most celebrated, most ambitious pop acts. – Geoffrey Himes

Disc 1

1. Zooropa
2. Babyface
3. Numb
4. Lemon
5. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
6. Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car

Disc 2

1. Some Days Are Better Than Others
2. The First Time
3. Dirty Day
4. The Wanderer / The Mix Alert Siren U2, Johnny Cash
5. Lemon
6. Numb