1. Well, I figured it was time to start my first thread as a member of this forum, so I decided to pay tribute to a minor (or maybe major) U2 masterpiece: the beautiful, slightly avant-garde and hugely important career milestone known as The Unforgettable Fire.

    I remember when this album was new. "Pride (In the Name of Love)" was an instant classic and was all over MTV. The sound of that song very much carried over the sound from the prior album, War. A lot of us expected the entire new album to sound like the first single. Boy, were we in for a surprise! While the trademark chiming guitar of The Edge was very much a focal point, there was new lushness to the songs courtesy of Eno and Lanois.

    This new album rewarded the listener who took the time to get used to the new sound. It really took a lot of balls for U2 to release this album. They very easily could have made another War and become arena rock gods, but they chose to expand their sound instead and pretty much built the bridge that led to the Joshua Tree.

    I have plenty of opinions about the individual songs on this album, but I thought I would throw it out there for discussion first and see what everybody else's thoughts are on this seminal U2 classic!
  2. Very well-said, first of all. UF is my second favorite U2 album after Zooropa. The albums is unique in that, for me at least, tracks like The Unforgettable Fire, Promenade, and Elvis Presley and America are both haunting and beautiful to listen to. Wire was also one of the first U2 songs I heard so it holds a bit of a special place for me as well.
  3. What's not to love about this album?
    I'd like to point out that not only U2's music went to new places with Eno and Lanois, Bono's lyrics also improved quite a lot. From the direct, "in your face" and full of anger lyrics of War we have more subtle, "impressionistic" lyrics. With a few words, Bono painted us vivid pictures of scenes, states of mind, ideas, such as in Promenade.
    Slide show seaside town
    Coca-Cola, football radio
  4. I've always loved "Promenade." It's very short and doesn't really have a traditional song structure, but it's beautiful, with Bono vocals and Edge guitars that are just ear candy to me! Bono's lyrics did change from the personal to the poetic on this album. Then there's the gorgeous, epic title track, and we haven't even gotten to "Bad" yet!
  5. Originally posted by cesar_garza01:What's not to love about this album?
    I'd like to point out that not only U2's music went to new places with Eno and Lanois, Bono's lyrics also improved quite a lot. From the direct, "in your face" and full of anger lyrics of War we have more subtle, "impressionistic" lyrics. With a few words, Bono painted us vivid pictures of scenes, states of mind, ideas, such as in Promenade.
    [..]
    Promenade is perfection
  6. UF is where it all started, after Live Aid. Watched them as a 9 year old loved their performance, brought the album, didn't like Bad on the record, preferred the Live Aid version, but loved ASOH, Pride, UF, Wire, Indian Summer... Brought War a few weeks later, same again, didn't like the studio version of SBS.
  7. Originally posted by cesar_garza01:What's not to love about this album?
    I'd like to point out that not only U2's music went to new places with Eno and Lanois, Bono's lyrics also improved quite a lot. From the direct, "in your face" and full of anger lyrics of War we have more subtle, "impressionistic" lyrics. With a few words, Bono painted us vivid pictures of scenes, states of mind, ideas, such as in Promenade.
    [..]
  8. Originally posted by cesar_garza01:What's not to love about this album?
    I'd like to point out that not only U2's music went to new places with Eno and Lanois, Bono's lyrics also improved quite a lot. From the direct, "in your face" and full of anger lyrics of War we have more subtle, "impressionistic" lyrics. With a few words, Bono painted us vivid pictures of scenes, states of mind, ideas, such as in Promenade.
    [..]
    UF was the first official left turn for them. Reinvention, Phase One. A complete departure from where they were (sound familiar?)

    I knew when I first heard Pride on the radio a few weeks before the LP came out that this would catapult them beyond being "my" band to becoming "everybody's" band. I was more than happy to share but lamented the fact that I'd never see them in a 2,500 seat venue anymore...
  9. It was a departure for sure, but they kept the elements of their sound that they had from the beginning: the chiming delay from the Edge, soaring Bono vocals, and added the Eno/Lanois "sonic landscapes." Like I mentioned before, it really set them up for The Joshua Tree.
  10. My all time favorite song TUF is on that record. Very lucky to seen it live on my 15th Birthday at the Rose Bowl
  11. in my top 5
  12. This record (and Live Aid) made me a U2 fan. I remember going to a local shop with a friend repeatedly, just because they had television sets playing music videos all the time in their clothes department. And they had a three hours long video tape they played repeatedly. On there were Pride and The Unforgettable Fire, one after the other - twice, once at the beginning of the tape and then an hour and a half later. So we went there, watched those to videos and came back 90 minutes later to watch them again. And sometimes we would sneak behind the curtain and rewind the tape to the start to watch U2. Never got caught. But then, one day late 1985, they changed the tape and played a video of Xmas-songs instead.

    Anyway, I still love those sonic landscapes und the experimental aspects of that record. I always play it start to finish, not just single tracks. It's still a great listening experience and one of my ten desert island discs.