Favourite 90s albums: 1st of a series

Every now and again I'm going to go back in time and post about some of my favourite albums. A while ago I compiled a list of my favourite albums of the 00's - there were 49 in total. While I dig that up, I can post a few about my favourite 90s albums (doing my favourite 80s albums will be very short. 60s and 70s may go on forever).

So, the first of an ongoing series, is....

 

U2 go too far. Or not far enough! The 90s were great for U2, even though they are now trying to convince us that it wasn’t (and everything they do now is about how great they were in the 80s). But the 90s is where U2 really took the concept of being a rock band right to the very edge, and made some fantastic, barmy albums – this, Pop, Zooropa, Achtung Baby – they are all sonically challenging, taking the (at the time) groundbreaking dance music ethos and applying it to their music, not really caring if anyone liked it or not. All they wanted to be was NOT U2.

What a great thing to do – the only other band who have challenged their listeners like this, successfully, was the Beatles (don't mention the R****h**d word to me). "Original Soundtracks Vol 1" really went out there, but contains some really beautiful moments that U2 should be proud of. "Your Blue Room", "Slug", "Always Forever Now", and of course "Miss Sarajevo". How un-U2 like these songs are; small, intimate, dark, like taking a car journey with someone you don't know and being slightly scared but at the same time thrilled.

Of course, not all of the tracks here are actually proper U2 tracks - some, like "Ito Okashi", have very little to do with U2. But then you'll get something like "Corpse (These Chains Are Way To Long)", which features the Edge singing and playing guitar but no more sounds like "Van Diemen's Land" then a car alarm does. But at the same time, its brilliant.

Of course, they bottled it at the last minute and didn't put it out under the U2 name - that would've been it really, but still, its there, they made it, and for that I'm thankful. I have so many memories associated with this album, and I wish U2 had gone even further, and I hold out hope that they do a Vol 2. Although they’d probably have to kick Larry out first.