U2 goes Pop with its latest single 'Discotheque'

By Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

JAKARTA (JP): Fans have been clamoring about it for the past six months, and though the official commercial release of U2's latest single, Discotheque, is not for another week, it is already being played by several radio stations worldwide.

From the opening sounds, listeners could be excused for mistaking the song for something by one of the more contemporary techno groups currently ravaging the music scene.

However, a few bars later, the hard-driving beat of drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and steady bass lines of Adam Clayton soon become recognizable as they mesh with the pulsating electronic rhythms.

Soon the familiar guitar riffs of the Edge confirm our suspicions that it is U2 playing here, as Bono's voice crackles through.

"You can reach but you can't grab it, You can hold it, control it Lord, but you can't bag it. You know you're chewing bubble gum."

Discotheque continues in the very same evolutionary path embarked upon with U2's first single of the 1990s, The Fly, which was a very dark dance track. Will fans dance to it is another question.

However, whether or not it will sell is probably a redundant question, given the immense anticipation. Such was the interest in this new single that Island Records, the band's record company, have decided to move up its release to Feb. 3.

Some lucky fans were already able to hear it in December when the single was supposedly leaked to a local radio station in Los Angeles. In fact, the song has been a hot commodity on the Internet as portions of it were available for downloading from various U2 fan websites.

Discotheque is the band's first real single since 1995's Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me from the Batman Forever soundtrack.

It bears the new interests the four band members have attained since releasing Zooropa in July 1993. The strong influence of techno-pop and listening to noisemakers Chemical Brothers and Prodigy are readily present.

Those who worshiped the band for songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday and Where the Streets Have No Name will probably listen in disdain. However, those who took a liking to previous singles like Lemon and Even Better Then The Real Thing will most likely be able to accept this raucous song.

However, there is a significant difference. While many songs on 1991's Achtung Baby and the subsequent Zooropa album were high-tech, this one promises to be high-techno.

The obvious question is: Is this a sign of U2 to come? The answer is "yes" and "no".

The power and musical prowess of U2 is that they have been able to continuously evolve, absorbing new influences and combining them with their vision in the most genuine manner.

Their excursions into a new musical frontier have in fact allowed the four Irish lads to continuously work on a musical canvass which is fresh to new audiences, yet familiar to their legions of fans that have loyally followed the band's work since their first album, Boy, in 1980.

Given this constant evolution, it is only natural that techno, the sound of the 1990s, would be an increasing feature in the band's music and their newest album Pop, which is slated for a March release.

During a recent interview on the radio program The Net on BBC Radio 1, Bono described the coming album: "It's a noisy record, and, you know, our job is to make every other rock and roll band on earth sound like folk outfits. You know, its louder, funkier, popier, heavier."

Albeit the popier techno tendencies U2 have shown in the last two albums, they have also maintained the more "traditional" dark and hypnotic numbers which catapulted them to sacred proportions in the music world.

And oddly enough, the hypnotic sounds of One and So Close Far Away certainly don't seem out of place amid the wild sounding dance-techno-pop sounds which became increasingly dominant in their last two records.

"We're trying to make the great rock and roll record, what can I tell you? Something for all the family," quipped Bono in the radio interview when asked about U2's coming album.

Reportedly, 12 tracks have been prepared for the record, with titles like Mofo, Miami, Do You Feel Loved, The Playboy Mansion and Wake Up Dead Man.

Even this early on without knowing how the single will do, music industry experts predict Pop could sell up to 10 million copies.

Island Records have reason to be optimistic. U2's last four albums went to number one in the U.S. charts and their biggest seller to date, 1987's The Joshua Tree, sold over 12 million copies.

Nevertheless, to quote album sales and profits isn't really what U2 are all about. If it was, they would not have ventured into projects like last year's experimental soundtrack Passengers with friend and producer Brian Eno. The project featured the single Miss Sarajevo in a duet with Luciano Pavarotti.

If they merely wanted to sell records, they certainly would not have jeopardized an easy sell by releasing a single like Discotheque, which is unlike any other song in their catalog of eight albums.

The key to U2 has been the honesty in their music, which ultimately keeps winning back the fans. Just as Bono sings in Discotheque: "You just can't get enough of that lovey-dovey stuff".