Easily the least rock-oriented of U2's albums (excepting PASSENGERS: ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKS 1), ZOOROPA is one big sonic sprawl, influenced heavily by everything from Europop to William Gibson's cyberpunk novels (Your humble webmaster is a big fan). In fact, Bono has said that the title track is the band's attempt to craft a sonic equivalent to Gibson's futuristic Manhattan, The Sprawl. (Your webmaster again, pointing out that Gibson's 1996 novel IDORU smacks of his experiences with the ZooTV tour and is more than worth a read). The atmosphere of Europe at the dawn of the millennium infuses the album; the ZOOROPA tour ran only through Europe, and every song smacks heavily of the progressive feeling that the European community hoped to inspire heading into the year 2000 -- superspeed communications, bullet trains, commercial iconography and ideological politics (Including the darkening stain of the New Right) are all vital elements in ZOOROPA's cultural collage. U2 hoped to market ZOOROPA as a part of this forward-looking media culture; the single for "Numb" was released only in an audiovisual VHS capacity, and the ZooTV stop in Sydney that promoted the album was also recorded. Ironically (and sadly) enough, U2 seems to be lagging behind in the 21st century when it comes to new, innovative marketing to the visual audience (Only RATTLE AND HUM is available on DVD, and it arrived long after after music DVDs revealed themselves to be commercially viable); this is rumored to be a key reason why the band split from Island Records in early 1999, and it was the principal factor that made U2 friend Chris Blackwell abandon Island (which he founded) in favor of a new startup, Palm Pictures. But I digress.

     Spawning the singles "Numb", "Lemon", and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)", the latter of which appeared in the Wim Wenders film FARAWAY, SO CLOSE!, ZOOROPA is an album that is either loved or hated by most U2 fans. It was recorded during breaks in the ZooTV Tour, and was supported by the European Zooropa Tour.