90's Guilty Pleasures #35: U2 "Lemon" (1993)

As far as aging rockstars go, U2 in the early 90's did a decent job of it. After Achtung Baby, I remember seeing MTV reports about the "Zoo TV" Tour and how bizarre it all sounded. There was also that one time they had Garth Algar play drums with them via satellite hookup at the MTV Awards. Huge band + huge risks = exciting! Yay! But then it didn't take long before the risk taking actually wasn't risky at all. Because let's face it: They were U2 and by this point they could eat their own shit on stage and it would be called artistic. The risks ended up effecting their music in a big way on the albums Zooropa and Popmart. The singles from Zooropa specifically were rarely played on the radio because songs like "Lemon" did not fit at all with what was fashionable at the time. With the exception of "Numb," it is probably their weirdest single, as it's essentially a 7-minute ballad with a disco drumbeat and mostly falsetto vocals. That's really all there is to it: a very bland description in writing, but I have to admit I always thought this song was pretty fucking awesome. This period of unpredictability was the only time U2 truly grabbed my attention.

Edit: Confirmed by wikipedia... Co-written, co-produced, & backing vocals from Brian Eno. This totally makes sense.



Edit: I would imagine Beavis & Butthead probably hated this video because of all the words. It's not their best, but I'll take it...