U2 - “The Unforgettable Fire”
Tracks:
- A Sort of Homecoming
- Pride
- Wire
- The Unforgettable Fire
- Promenade
- 4th of July
- Bad
- Indian Summer Sky
- Elvis Presley and America
- MLK
This is U2’s fourth studio album, and the one that grabbed my attention. Sure, the album before, “War”, was seeing a lot of air-time, especially the songs “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day”. I like those tunes, but just didn’t really see what all the huge fuss was about. Then one day at cross country camp (no smart ass “American Pie” jokes please) before my sophomore year of high school, one of the guys put this in his tape player. The opening track really grabbed me.
(From left): Dave “The Edge” Evans (guitar), Adam Clayton (bass), Larry Mullen Jr. (drums), and Paul “Bono” Hewson (vocals).
This was at a time when I was starting to listen to a lot of the classic progressive rock of the late 60’s and early 70’s. So what turned my head on this album? The sound. It was not your typical hook heavy pop album. This one had mood and ambience. There is even the very ambient like instrumental “4th of July” to begin the second half of the album.
Major credit for the sound of the album goes to Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who co-produced and co-engineered the album. They also played added instrumentation. (When listening is very obvious, since none of the Irish boys played keys.) I can’t remember where I read this, but whoever it was said that they contributed to the “high weirdness factor” on the album. And that I agree. Because if you compare this album with “The Joshua Tree” (the band’s 5th album) you hear the difference in songwriting. “TJT” has better overall songwriting. But the music on “The Unforgettable Fire” is much more, well, weird. And if Brian Eno isn’t the “King of Weird”, then he certainly is a high Duke or Lord.
Of course the album still has it’s hooks and hits. If you listened to rock or top 40 radio during the 80’s for ten minutes, you heard “Pride” (subtitled “In the Name of Love”). The song is a nice tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. as is “MLK”, though on a much spacier plane. Also “Bad” became another hit, especially after U2’s performance at Live Aid. But my favorite tracks are the stranger ones, like “A Sort of Homecoming”, “Wire”, “Indian Summer Sky”, and the title track.
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