Zooropa＜Blue Vinyl/限定盤＞

Rolling Stone (8/5/93, p.63) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...startling....a daring, imaginative coda to ACHTUNG BABY....it works brilliantly..." Spin (9/93, p.116) - Highly Recommended - "...U2 is bidding to up the ante on its new freedom....ZOOROPA indicates U2 might be worthy of whatever absurd mutations the '90s throw our way..." Entertainment Weekly (12/31/93, p.115) - Ranked #1 in Entertainment Weekly's list of 'The Best & Worst Records Of 1993' - "...[U2's] attempt to make sense of their place in pop and the world at large is downright heroic...." Entertainment Weekly (7/9/93, p.46) - "...a harried, spontaneous-sounding, and ultimately exhilarating album on which the world's greatest arena guitar band rarely sounds like itself...For an album that wasn't meant to be an album, it's quite an album..." - Rating: A Q (1/94, p.86) - Included in Q's list of 'The 50 Best Albums Of 1993' - "...U2's most adventurous outing yet...." Q (8/93, p.99) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...here is U2, the foremost rock 'n' roll band on the planet, seeing if rock can be fashioned from sonic technology....ZOOROPA refines the first steps in this attempt that ACHTUNG BABY took....the results transcend the merely experimental..." Q (8/94, p.115) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...It's stronger than its parent ACHTUNG BABY..." Melody Maker (7/3/93, p.28) - "...after a decade of intermittently looking and sounding crap they've got both the image and the music right...." Musician (9/93, p.76) - "...by no means a stopgap project, ZOOROPA ranks among the band's best work to date..." Village Voice (3/1/94, p.5) - Ranked #9 in the Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll. NME (Magazine) (7/3/93, p.32) - 6 - Good.

U2 planned to record a new EP before launching the European leg of their ambitious Zoo TV tour in 1993, but the EP quickly turned into the full-length album Zooropa. Picking up where Achtung Baby left off, Zooropa delves heavily into U2's newfound affection for experimental music and dance clubs. While the title track marries those inclinations to the anthems of The Joshua Tree, most of the record is far more daring than its predecessor. While that occasionally means it's unfocused and meandering, it also results in a number of wonderful moments, like the quiet menace of "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car," and the space-age German disco of "Lemon," the Edge's droning mantra "Numb," and the gentle, heartbroken "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)," one of U2's very best love songs. As the album winds to a close, it drifts off track, yet the best moments of Zooropa rank among U2's most inspired and rewarding music. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine