Thru Shadows Alternative Dark Culture & Art: #1 Accidentally Goth: 80's U2

Diehard goths play it cool! Some of the musical choices in this series of posts may offend you for not being what is traditionally considered goth, still they are maybe the only really good moments these guys ever had, so be tolerant and open-minded!

They were chosen first because they are good songs (or so I think), second because they have some dark, gloomy feeling to them.

For this 1st post, I've chosen good ol' U2. The notorious band began as an alternative group in Ireland in 1976, and slowly morphed into the Pop heavy-weight it is now. Below are some moments of its long-gone past when they used to release introspective songs, probably inspired by the high crags and cold winter of their homeland.

I've chosen three singles: Another Time Another Place, from their first album Boy, released in 1980; The Unforgettable Fire, from the 1984's album of the same name, and the Cole Porter classic Night and Day, recorded for the album Red Hot + Blue, which raised money for AIDS victims in 1990.

In an interview at the time of the release of The Unforgettable Fire given at a radio station, Edge described how was the process of making the album:

"Well, we started out with some songs which we finished to the best of our own abilities, then Brian and Danny arrived. I suppose we had 15 pieces before they arrived, none of them really finished, but they were certainly well on the way.

"Instead of finishing those 15, we wrote other 15, so immediately, instead of having the usual kind of LPs with the material list, two or three, which we weren't sure about, we had doubled the amount of stuff that we needed.

"Maybe these were just ideas that hadn't really been developed, so the record immediately changed in identity from what we had envisaged at first, and because of that I think we weren't really quite sure quite where it was going to end up.

"That was a really positive thing, I think, in many ways, but because of that, I think it took us a lot longer to finish the songs to get the finished amount of lyrics, and finished performances of the voice and final takes down.

"So in that respect, the fact that it did take us three months to finish meant that it was a very difficult record to finally knock on the head, but it was an intensely gratifying session, you know, it was very inspiring, very challenging.

"And it seems like a couple of weeks, when we look back on it, it really doesn't seem like it was three months at all." Listen to the full interview here: U2 In Their Own Words, Manchester Radio

Now sit back and enjoy the songs!