Track Listing

1. United Colors
2. Slug
3. Your Blue Room
4. Always Forever Now
5. Different Kind of Blue
6. Beach Sequence
7. Miss Sarajevo
8. Ito Okashi
9. One Minute Warning
10. Corpse (These Chains Are Way Too Long)
11. Elvis Ate America
12. Plot 180
13. Theme from the Swan
14. Theme from Let's Go Native

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49039 in Music
• Released on: 1995-11-07
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.com
U2 should be celebrated for doing what so few major rock bands have managed: They broke the chains of their own stardom. For a while it looked like they'd carry the "monsters of rock" banner into institutionalized and calcified dotage like the Who and Pink Floyd before them. But with 1991's Achtung Baby--and even more so on '93's Zooropa--U2 made clear they'd not become so alienated from artistic motivation that they believed more in their own importance than in their continued ability to create. Thus they stopped waving flags and learned to laugh at their fame. The change, in effect, released U2 from its own image and allowed the band more creative elbowroom than ever before. Only in this context could U2 now allow their producer Brian Eno to assume virtual membership in the band, adopt the pseudonym Passengers, and immerse themselves in the anonymity of film music.

With Original Soundtracks 1, a collection of 14 compositions for imagined movies (and one performance piece), U2 accentuate the visual sense. Eno, who's done this sort of thing for decades, plays a defining role. Tracks like "United Colours" and "One Minute Warning," with their electronic pulsations and organic atmospherics, clearly fall onto his ambient/techno terrain. Even tracks more recognizably the band's are enriched by collaboration: The hilarious "Elvis Ate America" is even more absurd with Howie B's scratching and vocal calls, and the touching "Miss Sarajevo" is made infinitely more profound by Luciano Pavarotti's tenor. Passengers is more likely an inspired tangent than an indication of U2's direction, but it adds to the band's impressive--and constantly progressive--body of work. --Roni Sarig

Customer Reviews

Amazing is what it is
I've owned this album for over 8 years and I continually come back to it as my favorite U2 album. I find the individual songs and the album as a complete experience grow on me with each listening. When I first listened to it I enjoyed a few songs but now I can appreciate the entire album.

I enjoy all of U2's other albums but this one really moves me more than any of the others. Its music is more cerebral and experimental than the rest. Want to hear Brian Eno singing, Bono playing the piano, Edge singing and playing the organ, and Adam Clayton narrating? Then you want this album. I can understand not issuing this album as a "U2" album. If they had released it just like an ordinary album then many U2 fans would have been angry/confused by what they heard.

I like to think of U2 as an artistic band, especially as a counter balance to their popular face. I'm sure Eno had a strong influence over this album but I'm also confident that U2's members contributed a great deal of material. This album combined with the DVD "Classic Albums - U2: The Joshua Tree" gives you a very different picture of U2 than might come across while listening to their pop corpus. More than any of their B-Sides, this album is major departure from what one would expect from U2.

All that said, many people that like U2 would probably dislike this album, however if you own all their other albums you should really add this one to your collection.

Not U2, good techno, but not U2.
My favorite band in the world is U2. That said, this album is not a U2 album. It is a Brian Eno album, with help from many other musicians including Luciano Pavoratti (though I do admit most of the assistance comes from Bono, Edge, Larry, and Adam). It's a good, strong techno album,easy to relax to. However, it is not the long lost step between ZOOROPA and POP. It is the opposite of the 3 U2 1990's albums. Instead of Eno assisting U2, they assist his vision. It's all techno here folks, no memorable pop songs that you'll be hummin to yourself on the way back from lunch. However, if you want to see what U2 are capable of when they relinquish control and serve another creative light, go ahead. Anyone looking for the next "One" "Lemon" or "Gone" or "Discotheque" or should stay far away from Passengers. We can only hope Larry Mullen comes around to this album in a couple years so we can see a Passengers 2.

PASSENGERS-THE BEST U2 ALBUM OF THE 90'S
One can't help but wonder if the public reaction to this album would have been greater if this had been credited as a U2 album instead of a Passengers album. It may as well have been because everyone knows Brian Eno is practically the band's fifth member. In my opinion this is U2's finest album of the nineties- the zenith of their electronica experiments. "united Colors" and "One Minute Warning" are remenicent of the type of experiments industrial bands like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle did in late seventies.Are they paying homage? "Your Blue Room" sounds taylor made for Lou Reed. Imitation or flattery? Pavoratti's appearance on "Miss Sarajevo" shows that the band that has done everything continues to find ways to be innovative. One thing's for sure, u2 know how to display their influences and stay fresh. And sometimes,like on this album, their imitations are even better than the real thing.