Tired of rocking: Why U2 are gone to Zooropa

It's been many years since rock music was still important and extremely relevant. Artists were not pop bunnies who sang with computer voices, but stars with guitars, poets, explainers of the world.

Today we're listening to "Zooropa", the album with which U2 tried to free themselves from the image of an anthemic rock band.

Anyone who thought the dancefloor beats on "Achtung Baby" were too daring needed a while to digest "Zooropa". Everyone else who had always been annoyed by the guitar-heavy pathos of the megastars from Dublin breathed a sigh of relief. U2 had been cleared out. The aging heroes who had helped save the electric guitar as an instrument for rock music in the 80s had grown tired of rocking.

On "Achtung Baby", The Edge had toned down his effects-laden guitars and let off steam at the mixing desk as a co-producer alongside Brian Eno and Flood. With "Zooropa" the band now tackles the LSD sounds of the 60s, the glam rock of the 70s, disco, dance floor and country under the motto "Anything goes". Old fans were shocked by the not so sudden turnaround. Was that still our U2?

But the mixed bag of remnants of the old U2 rock and electronic tinkering worked because there were strong songs behind the colorful facade. So "Baby Face" could easily pass as a homage to T. Rex. In "Some Days Are Better Than Others", however, Bono & Co. sound like the Beatles at their psychedelic peak. "First" shines as a fragile ballad, and in "Wanderer" the Irish let their US colleague Johnny Cash moan to a country song with an electronic dance beat.

U2's simple message: Follow us, we don't know where we're going either, but gladly! Because riding through pop history at full gallop with the once so staid brotherhood is simply fun.