40 years ago U2 released “The Unforgettable Fire” — Rolling Stone

Hardly any band fits the rampant boxing better than U2. In the cardinal red slipcase with gold ribbon, “The Unforgettable Fire” looks even more impressive than it was already designed to be. Anton Corbijn’s iconographic black and white postcards show four serious guys who are always looking into the distance – as if they already see their future there as the biggest band in the world.

The enclosed booklet acts like a little bible, the producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois fondly remember the year 1984, Bert van de Kamp and Niall Stokes provide the background information on the recordings, The Edge commented on the bonus tracks.

Above all, they show how much material U2 obviously still had left: “Love Comes Tumbling” only made it onto a B-side, and Edge is still a bit sorry about the ethereal “The Three Sunrises” today, it just didn’t fit Relax.

There are also numerous remixes, including the early single “11 O’Clock Tick Tock”, and some incomplete sketches, which are interesting, but of course cannot hold a candle to the ten masterful tracks from “The Unforgettable Fire”.

U2’s fourth album was an early triumph, after “War” had already paved the way to worldwide fame. Even if Bono now claims that he sang too much “like a girl” back then: the urgency of “Pride”, the (historically not entirely accurate) hymn to Martin Luther King, the nervousness of “Wire”, the desperate “Bad” , the lullaby “MLK” – every song pierces the heart, especially because U2 and all their ambitions sometimes come to a halt. Then the battle of expression fights with the still somewhat limited musical possibilities, and in the process – of course, especially thanks to Bono’s voice and the threatening guitar of The Edge – something truly unique emerges. A “concept” that stayed.

“They built from strength and limitation.”

In addition to excerpts from “Live Aid” and the “Conspiracy Of Hope” performance, the DVD contains the well-known “The Unforgettable Fire Collection”: four video clips and the album making-of documentary, which was filmed at Slane Castle and Mindmill Lane – at a time when U2 wasn’t yet so consciously playing with the cameras. Bono muses on lyrics and themes, making sure he sounds “too spiritual.”

Together with Eno and Lanois, the band struggles with “Pride” until you can quickly feel the tension in the studio – and then Eno succinctly summarizes U2’s secret: “They built from strength and limitations.” They know what they can and can’t do, and then they try the impossible. They reach every few years.