U2 / Frank Sinatra & Bono: "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" / "I've Got You Under My Skin"

24 November 1993

"U2 are always willing to experiment, unlike many other rock bands."

— Tania

"Like Bono said, they're just four jerks with a police escort, haha."

— Jay

I was just eight years old in the summer of 1985 when Live Aid took place. To say I had better things to do was pretty much on the money. Music was fine but my life revolved around comic books, Lego, street hockey, wrestling and cartoons; I wasn't about to spend a whole day watching an over-long music festival which took place in two cities on separate sides of the Atlantic. One member of my family who did watch was my mum. Rather than appreciating the many stars from her younger days that performed (McCartney wasn't all that good, the Stones were boring, Dylan was self-serving and she's never been a fan of Queen) her fondest memories of Live Aid were of a handful of the newer acts on the bill. Paul Young and U2 are the two she always mentions being especially impressed by. In the case of the former, it was his silky-smooth voice that won her over, with the latter it was their memorable renditions of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)".

Yeah, about that. U2 didn't play "Pride" at Live Aid. I'm sure they considered it and probably would have had (a) they'd done a set of four songs like many of the groups that day rather than two or (b) the tune Mum mistook for it had not gone on for so damn long. It was with a stirring twelve minute rendition of Unforgettable Fire deep cut "Bad" that U2 set themselves up for superstardom; it's just a pity that the song itself fell through the cracks along the way. Nevertheless, it managed to set a standard for what U2 songs were supposed to sound like. Not every one of their numbers sounded the same but they all seemed a bit like "Bad".

It has also been the one I've been singing to myself over the last several days as I've been gearing up to write this piece. "Bad" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" (as an aside, what the hell is that exclamation point doing in there?!?) aren't terribly similar beyond both having those unmissable U2 stamps of that heartbeat rhythm, those clipped chords that The Edge has made a career out of and Bono's distinctive wail. On an emotional level, "Stay" strays because it doesn't lift me up the way a song like "Bad" does so effortlessly. I keep expecting true inspiration such as when Bono screams "I'm wide awake!"; "Stay" just pulls me along and then passes me by. It's nice to have on but when it comes to a close I forget all about it. I didn't know it was possible to listen to a U2 song this much and it not make the slightest impression; even their songs that I don't care for have melodies I can hum, even if I choose not to do so.

U2 becoming weird was something everyone had accepted by 1993. It no doubt helped that they were happy to remind people that they were still U2 every so often. After the genuine shock of "The Fly" near the end of '91, follow-up "Mysterious Ways" proved to be a welcome way to ease back into normal while maintaining their new found funk sound and overall sexiness. "One" neither harked back to the "2" of old nor suggested anything particularly new but it was so brilliant that it hardly mattered. Very justly, the remix of "Even Better Than the Real Thing" outperformed the standard version as the two competed with each other on the UK singles charts. Finally, their run of singles from Achtung Baby! ended with "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" a song that was horribly, painfully U2.

Achtung Baby! had been so hyped that it was one of those early nineties CD releases that people lined up for at midnight to purchase. This wasn't the case two years later with the more low key Zooropa. Videos for the first two singles were played a lot but there didn't appear to be the same degree of chart action involved. Unbeknownst to me, "Numb" was a video single and didn't qualify for the US and UK hit parades, though it did all right in my native Canada; "Lemon" wasn't readily available either. I wasn't exactly tickled by them at first but the two did grow on me but there was a sense that maybe the public had had enough of them. Luckily, there was "Stay" to put them back in the good graces of their fans. The only trouble was, it was at the expense of something truly memorable.

With records such as "Wild Horses" and "Stay", U2 managed to appease their longstanding cult base while at the same time drifting off into sonic adventurism elsewhere. (The blowback from their 1997 Pop project prompted a wholescale rethink with greater emphasis on retreating to their old sound which resulted in the highly popular and highly successful All That You Can't Leave Behind but as an on the fence listener this was where I pretty much gave up on them) While it ticks the boxes of how one of their singles ought to sound, it's an unsatisfying listen, particularly over time. It isn't so much a return to form as a reminder of how they used to be so much better.

Finally, unremarked and possibly unnoticed by Tania and Jay of Eurodance sensation Culture Beat is that "Stay" was a split single or double A side (depending on how you choose to classify it). It shared the spotlight with "I've Got You Under My Skin", Bono's contribution to the popular Frank Sinatra Duets album that came out for that year's Christmas rush. U2 had already done an outstanding cover of "Night and Day" for the 1990 Red, Hot + Blue AIDS benefit charity album — a recording which anticipates their new European/indie-influenced sound a year later — so clearly the former Paul Hewson knew a thing or two about Cole Porter's songbook. Still, this one isn't nearly as good. While Bono is the perfect singer for U2, he sounds completely out of his league when paired with Sinatra; his once powerful vocal chords now reduced to sounding like a croaky old whimper. The recording is also harmed by some pointless production touches that try to add a faint tinge of current "2" to the jazz arrangement. It's as if they wished to add some of the current U2 sound to one song while trying to add some of what they used to do on to another. Perhaps they go together better than I ever would've thought.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Pet Shop Boys: "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing"

"They don't express themselves," reports the rapper from a group whose creative shots were being called by German studio boffins. Ironically, "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" is meant to be about a reserved individual being open with their feelings for the first time but how can that hold up alongside years of pop in inverted commas? There's a fair amount of Pet Shops backlash in the Hits by this point though it's worth noting that Tania considers it to be one of their better efforts of late. I can't help but feel that people were getting sick of Tennant and Lowe and this affected the critical standing of their early nineties releases. That said, this one isn't a big favourite of mine. Tennant has subsequently complained that the album version is much cleaner and he's absolutely right. Plus, the Very album isn't all that well served by its 45's: I'll happily take the likes of "The Theatre", "Dreaming of the Queen" and "One in a Million" (not to mention some choice B sides from the same time) over the stuff they had in the charts. Yet, even when they were coasting — and apparently not expressing themselves — the Pet Shop Boys were still way above the competition.

Stakka Bo: "Here We Go"

29 September 1993

"Breezier than a string vest on Ben Nevis."

— Mike Soutar

"Love Will Tear Us Apart"; "There She Goes"; "Personal Jesus"; "Union City Blue"; "Born of Frustration"; "Girlfriend in a Coma"; "DJ Culture"; "Mysterious Ways"; "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth"; "Is She Really Going Out with Him?"; "I Know You Got Soul"; "I'm Coming Out"; "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style"; "Waterfront"; "Glory Box"; "Violently Happy": good to great singles that all somehow stiffed at the unlucky number thirteen spot.

There's no hard and fast rule as to where a single will peak. Great singles have ended up finished well out of the Top 40 while everyone can name a handful of number ones that they consider to be irredeemable. But some inferences can be made from peaking in the upper part of the teens. For indie groups with sizable cult followings such as Depeche Mode, James and The Smiths, thirteen was a pretty standard chart placement. But when it comes to Joy Division, The La's and Dream Warriors it was more a case of bands hitting one out of the park but to only a modest reception. You could say that "Love Will Tear Us Apart" could have and should have performed better but it could just as easily have done a lot worse.

Sweden's Stakka Bo was sort of group/sort of collective/sort of solo project for multi-talented frontman Johan Renck. Nowadays he is best know for directing all five episodes of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl but in the early nineties he was a struggling musician. Had he been British or American Renck would have become a DJ or he would have formed a band. But what am I saying? Most Swedes who aspired to a career in music back then would have either become DJ's or formed bands as well. This Renck fellow was a different sort — and not simply because he looked closer to forty-seven than twenty-seven (though like many who age young, he now looks like a relatively youthful fifty-seven). His incompetence and lack of know-how led to him putting out one of the most remarkable one off pop hits of the decade.

It was in around 1993 that everyone just assumed that everything on techno dance records was sampled, even to a naive listener such as myself. There was a reason every drum sound seemed the same. Plus, why would penny-pinching producers bother hiring sessioners to perform on their work when they could just get someone to pinch from hit records of the past?The flute part on "Here We Go" must have surely been taken from some old Herbie Mann tune from the seventies while those vocals in the chorus ("here we go again" / "get your gear and start to spend...") sound like they came from an obscure eighties club hit by Bobby O or Jellybean. Yet, they were both made in house by colleagues of Mr. Bo.

The tag-teamed raps of Stakka Bo and chum Oscar bring to mind the Stereo MC's and their skeletal frontman Rob Birch but "Here We Go" is otherwise unconnected to, er, "Connected". Musically, it's more reminiscent of the trendy acid jazz of Brand New Heavies and Jamiroquai albeit with less of a blatantly retro sound. Maybe it's just the presence of David Wilczewski's flute but it also vaguely suggests trip hop. Eurobeat aside, it's as if they were plundering all the dominant early nineties' variants of dance music just to put together the best pop record possible. It shouldn't have worked out for them but somehow or other it does.

Not to knock them too much but the other thing Stakka Bo had over the Stereo MC's was their message was much less preachy. Coming from an educated, middle-class Swedish family, Renck's business degree shouldn't lend itself to good pop lyrics but, once again, he proved to be a master of making chicken salad out of chicken shit. Assuming audiences even cared what he had to say in the first place, it's possible to interpret "Here We Go" as either extolling the virtues of a hedonistic, live-for-today lifestyle or as a warning not to get caught up in all this consumption. Other Swedes involved in pop were often prone to composing word salad lyrics but Renck put a surprising amount of care into the words here — even if the message may be rather unclear.

As the intro no doubt gives away, "Here We Go" only managed to get to number thirteen in the UK. We could knock the British for their crappy taste — I mean, what the hell business did bloody Haddaway or a three-year-old reissued and more-useless-than-ever Roxette ballad have finishing above it? — but it performed no better in much of the rest of Europe. Plenty of people clearly liked it just not nearly enough to make it the mega-hit it deserved to be. And we should be careful what we wish for: had it done better, Stakka Bo might have gone on to have further hits and he would have been able to afford to pay others to direct their videos and he wouldn't have gone on to direct promos for The Cardigans and Suede and All Saints and he wouldn't have been behind the series Chernobyl. Plus, "Here We Go" is brilliant enough that it never needed another hit.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Culture Beat: "Got to Get It"

Stakka Bo and pals may not have known what they were doing in crafting some fabulous dance-pop but German producer/DJ Torsten Fenslau knew exactly how to come up with catchy and danceable Euro techno for a mass audience. Mike Soutar isn't over fond of breakthrough global smash "Mr. Vain" but he finds himself enjoying follow-up "Got to Get It" almost in spite of himself. I, on the other hand, reckon both records are pretty great. This one doesn't have the hooks of its predecessor but it's probably a little more durable. ("Mr. Vain", for all of its many good qualities, is the sort of thing that is very easy to tire of) Not quite bursting at the seems with pop energy like "Here We Go" but plenty wonderful all the same. Tragically, Fenslau would pass away in a car accident while "Got to Get It" was in the UK Top 10.