[music] Passengers, Original Soundtracks I (1995)

Island Records
Total Running Time - 58:02

Personnel
Brian Eno - Strategies, sequences, synthesizer, treatments, mixing, chorus voices, vocals; Bono - Vocals, guitar, piano; Adam Clayton - Bass, narration; The Edge - Guitars, chorus voices, vocals, organ; Larry Mullen, Jr. - Drums, percussion, electronic percussion; Luciano Pavarotti, Holi - Additional vocals; Howie B - Mixing, treatments, scratching; David Herbert - Saxophone; Des Broadbery, Holger Zschenderlein - Additional sequences, synthesizers

1. United Colors [From united Colours of Plutonium]
2. Slug [From Slug]
3. Your Blue Room [From Par-Delà Les Nuages]
4. Always Forever Now [From Always Forever Now]
5. Different Kind of Blue [From An Oridinary Day]
6. Beach Sequence [From Par-Delà Les Nuages]
7. Miss Sarajevo [From Miss Sarajevo]
8. Ito Okashi [From Ito Okashi]
9. One Minute Warning [From Ghost in the Shell]
10. Corpse (These Chains Are Way Too Long) [From Gibigiane]
11. Elvis Ate America [From Elvis Ate America]
12. Plot 180 [From Hypnotize Me (Love Me 'till Dawn)]
13. Theme from the Swan [From The Swan]
14. Theme from Let's Go Native [From let's Go Native]


As disillusioned as I've been with U2 since about, oh, The Joshua Tree, I have to say that I'm impressed with this album. I suspect it's more because of Brian Eno than anything contributed by Ireland's favorite egomaniacs. Synthesized textures define the terrain, from the electronic noodlings of "United Colours" to the tribal percussion of "Always Forever Now". Thankfully, there isn't as much of Bono's singing as on a 'normal' album, and his singing is actually quite good, as it doesn't seem to be weighted down with any sort of meaning to the lyrics. The "soundtracks" label is misleading; apparently, only four of the films credited actually exist. As an exercise, it's an interesting idea, though. In any event, it frees the band from normal song conventions, and lets them explore more than they could in a verse-chorus-verse format. This is hardly a normal U2 album, whatever that means. You can check out the "official" Passengers site for more information on the album.