Search - U2 :: The Unforgettable Fire (Super Deluxe Edition 2CD+DVD)

Finally A Good Unforgettable Fire CD Release

Jeffrey Rickel | Palm Harbor, FL | 10/27/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've never been very happy with U2's 1980s work on CD. The mastering was not done well for the format and it really took some life out of it. Now that has mostly been corrected (Rattle and Hum is the lone 80s album yet to be remastered).



This box set is fantastic, in the tradition of The Joshua Tree box set from 2007. You get a beautiful book with pictures and comments from Eno, Lanois, and others reminiscing. The lyrics are there as well, something excluded for the CD release. Also some nice black and white photographs on textured parchment that are frame worthy.



The first disc is the album, sounding better than ever. Adam's bass is more pronounced here and the dynamic range of the CD is finally put to good use, giving as a better feel for each song. Very well done. There's stuff in there that I had not heard before, only ever hearing the old CD version.



The second disc is full of extras. Only a few songs had not been released in the past. Most of it is remastered stuff that appeared as b-sides for the singles or on the Wide Awake In America EP, making that EP obsolete. Disappearing Act is a great song, featuring recently added vocals by Bono, much like Wave Of Sorrow on Joshua Tree. Yoshino Blossom is a good instrumental that had not been officially released. Then there are two remixes of Wire and an excellent Sort of Homecoming remix done by Daniel Lanois as he was working with Peter Gabriel on So. And because of that you can hear Gabriel on this quite excellent version of the song.



Everything else on this disc was released before but it sounds better than ever, just like the album itself. It also compiles all the releases that occurred surrounding The Unforgettable Fire into one set.



Now onto the DVD. It features music videos from this album. Two for Pride and "live" videos for Bad and A Sort Of Homecoming as they were released to MTV. We also get The Unforgettable Fire documentary - so it is basically the old Unforgettable Fire Collection that was released on video cassette back in the 80s (and it is called that on the box set). So that's the first time it has been released on DVD.



The second bit on the DVD is live material. A couple of songs from the 1986 Conspiracy of Hope Tour and U2's Live Aid performance. The second Pride music video (Sepia version) is found here as is a bootleg video of 11 O'Clock Tick Tock. I'm not sure why the bootleg is on there as the quality is not all that good.



Overall the set is great. The one complaint could be that they didn't include the concert from Dortmund that was recorded for this tour, but I can also understand why it was not included. Much of that music was covered in the restored DVD release of Under A Blood Red Sky that featured the full concert outside of Fire as that footage was unusable. However, it would have been nice to have a live version of The Unforgettable Fire, a live version of Wire, and a live version of A Sort of Homecoming. Indian Summer Sky was only played a few times and it didn't come off well. Promenade, 4th of July, and Elvis Presley and America were never played. So ultimately the only critique I'd levy would be the lack of performances for those three songs (the performance video for Sort of Homecoming wasn't a real performance video nor was that concert performance a real concert performance - it was a soundcheck recording with audience reaction thrown in).



I'd guess that U2 either doesn't have the rights to the Dortmund show, they don't like it, or they're saving it for a release at some later date (a boxed set of U2 live shows on DVD would be nice).



But that is really a minor complaint. This great album sounds better than ever. The DVD gives you some good stuff and the extras CD is full of goodies, old and new.



A must buy for any fan."

The Heart and Soul of U2

J Reston | 10/31/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE was the album that forever changed my taste in music. I was not a U2 fan before this album was released; I didn't dislike their previous music but it never inspired me to buy one of their albums. But when my college roommate first played this album in 1984 it struck me like a lightning bolt, or a revelation. It was haunting, beautiful, soaring music, like nothing I had ever heard before. It instantly transformed me into a lifelong U2 fan.



After the WAR album, U2 felt that they had reached the creative limit of their post-punk sound, so they decided to explore new musical territory. This was the riskiest move they had made in their career to that point. The safe move would have been to release WAR Part II rather than to risk alienating their growing fan base with an experimental album. But they felt that they had more artistic potential than post-punk would allow, so they sought to expand their sonic palette. With the help of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, they were able to shed their prior musical influences and explore uncharted territory. They all achieved new levels of musicianship on this album. The Edge developed more complex, layered guitar work, Adam and Larry developed more sophisticated rhythms, and Bono's vocals soared to heights they had never reached before. To me, this album represents U2 in their purest form, unencumbered by other musical influences and discovering their own unique sound. After this album they began assimilating American musical influences, and in the 1990s they moved on to assimilate Europop. All of these phases led to some great music, but their sound was never quite as original or unique as it was during the UF era.



My anticipation went through the roof when I first heard that U2 would be releasing a super deluxe package of UF with a remastered CD, a bonus audio CD and a DVD. High expectations are usually a prescription for disappointment, but in this case I found that the final product actually exceeded my expectations. The album itself has never sounded better, and the bonus CD is phenomenal, in my opinion the best one that they've put together so far. Packed with 16 tracks (69 minutes of music), it has every track from the Wide Awake in America EP (including my all-time favorite U2 track, their incredible live version of "Bad"), all of the hard-to-find B-sides from their "Pride" and Unforgettable Fire" singles, and best of all, 4 previously unreleased tracks (2 original songs and 2 remixes). All of the previously unreleased tracks are great. "Disappearing Act" (a former instrumental track to which they recently added vocals) is an epic U2 song which is more inspired than most of their recent work, and "Yoshino Blossom" is one of their best instrumental tracks. The 2 never before released remixes of "Wire" (Kervorkian remix) and "A Sort of Homecoming" (Daniel Lanois remix) are also inspired, particularly the latter, which features background vocals by Peter Gabriel. You know it's a great song when a band can record 3 radically different versions and they all sound great. The DVD has all of the music videos derived from this album, the "Making of UF" documentary, and best of all, great concert footage from their Live Aid and Conspiracy of Hope concerts. The Live Aid performance (with their phenomenal 12 minute rendition of "Bad") was the one that changed their status forever, showing the world that they were superstars. After this concert everyone knew who Bono was. My only quibble is that it would have been nice to see live versions of "Wire" and "The Unforgettable Fire", but that's a minor quibble. Overall, this package is a dream come true.



If you liked the original UF album, I would recommend that you at least buy the deluxe package with the remastered album plus the bonus CD, as the latter has some inspired tracks. This was one of their most creative periods, and it's the first time that all of the musical ideas from this phase of their career have been made available. But if you are a big fan of this album, then I would suggest you splurge and get the super deluxe package with the bonus DVD. It's definitely worth it."

Simply Unforgettable

Brad Payne | Spanaway, WA | 10/28/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I will first start out with saying that I was just turning a mere four years young when this album first debuted in Oct. of 1984, but even then the classic song 'The Unforgettable Fire' resonated through my head, capturing me in its swirling carnival of colors. It would in fact define what I considered 80's music, which is, in a sense, what the Unforgettable Fire is for U2, their most 80's sounding album. It wasn't until much later (2001 to be exact) that I knew whom it was this song belonged to, that I've since have been trying to emulate with my own music.



With U2's previous works they had shaped their sound, dynamics, and stage shows. As one can hear on the later half of the war album (excluding 40, a most beautiful song), however, this sound was becoming limited, and unable to quench the thirst of U2's ever yearning growth. It seemed in fact they couldn't- or shouldn't- sing that song again. In order to explore new sonic arenas they turned to Brian Eno, who brought along his good friend and fellow co-worker Daniel Lanois (both of whom's workings I was aware of long before I was of U2). Through them, and the absence of the dreary studio environment, ideas began to form, and songs became more than songs, but landscapes of sounds, or soundscapes. Orderliness was juxtaposed with random, raw, emotional, gut driven playing and singing.



What we got from that is the Unforgettable Fire. A mix of pure pop genius, architectured poetry of both music and words, and the feeling of suspended free fall. Most of this is endured by Eno's love for flawed, raw takes, and in-completed ideas. So much so that the most popular song, and radio friendly of the bunch, 'Pride', sounds almost out of placed with its well crafted sound. This is not to say there was no deliberateness on U2s part. If this new remastering does anything, it brings out the wonderfully crafted sound that U2 brings to the album. This in no way sounds like a band with whom in 83 (a year and 8 months earlier), put out the raw sound of rock/punk that was War. Maybe it wouldn't be their most well crafted of attempts to refurbish themselves, but it would definitely lay the ground works for future endeavors such as The Joshua Tree (the newly re-hashed 'Disappearing Act' (featured on the bonus audio CD) is fairly safe to say the start of what would become 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm looking For'), Achtung Baby and even their newest No Line On the Horizon, which touches upon the Unforgettable Fire regularly (ie Fez-Being Born).



So is it worth revisiting this album, in which would corner stone U2's career? (Live Aid would have meant nothing if 'Bad' had not been written.) The answer is an unquestionable yes. This newly remastered album brings to life the layers of sound interwoven amongst the cinematic pictures that these songs create. The bonus material is great, and it's wonderful to see the small barren stages of U2's earlier career, and thus putting more importance on the songs and the performances to sell the audience. It is also wonderful to see the 80's style they paraded, and to have some music videos from the era, as it is still beyond me why the 1980-1990 collection of videos has yet to be put on DVD.



So a five star rating to the album that, to me, defined the 80's, and in a 'leap', defined the career of what we now know U2 is, simply unforgettable!"