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Passengers - Original Soundtracks 1 (1995)

Introduction :

Members : Brian Eno, Paul Hewson (Bono), David Howell Evans (The Edge), Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen & guest singer Luciano Pavarotti

Passengers is the name of a collaboration project between Brian Eno and the members of U2. Neither artist nor group should need an introduction, but if you for some reason haven't heard about them, Brian Eno rose to fame first and foremost with the band Roxy Music. He's sometimes called the father of ambient music had a successful solo career as well as numerous (and I mean numerous) collaborations with other artists over the years. U2 with leadman Paul Hewson, stage name Bono, is a four-man pop-rock monster band that came out of Dublin in the early 1980s. They are frequently found on the charts.

The passengers collaboration has so far only released one album, Original Soundtracks 1. It is a highly experimental album of concept songs where every song belongs in the soundtrack of a movie. Some of these movies are real, but most are imaginary, though complete with fictious descriptions in the album sleeve. Original Soundtracks 1 produced one hit, Miss Sarajevo, which features vocals by the somewhat recently diseased Luciano Pavarotti, world renowned italian tenor. Larry Mullen, U2's drummer, openly dislikes this album and says that it's self-indulgent. Bono jokingly says it's because they didn't let him play the drums.


Song for Song Review :

The album starts off with the strange United Colours. It's a instrumental song with a lot of synth and various pseudoalien noises. There's a steady conventional beat and an industrial feel. The song is not very melodic and some of the sounds are almost ugly. Still, the overall impression is enjoyable. It's not a great song, but it's different and should make you curious enough to check out the next couple of tracks. Both Slug and Your Blue Room inherit some of the sound of Brian Eno's more relaxed works (sometimes in collaborations) with added vocals by Bono. Both tracks are mellow and enjoyable, particularly Your Blue Room which is one of the gems from this album. Always Forever Now is a weird drum and base synth thing that has a drive behind it. It ends up with a vocal part repeating the title of the song over and over again. It's a bit weird, slightly more good than bad, but not anything to be excited about. A Different Kind of Blue is just some pretentious dribble that would never work outside this album, but is thankfully rather short. More soothing sounds follow on the Beach Sequence, a rather enjoyable piano piece. When that's over, it's time for the album's star, Miss Sarajevo. This is the only song that qualifies for the pop label on the album and I think it's a good one. Like many of the other songs on the first half, it is soothing and warm and combines the strength of both Brian Eno and U2, particularly Bono's singing. Luciano Pavarotti's contribution, while slightly cheesy, adds to the song and it just works for me without being over the top. The song charted in Norway when this album came out. There's a video which I would post here had I found it on youtube .. Oh well.

Ito Okashi (which means Something Beautiful, I think) is a bunch of random tinkly sounds and some strange japanese vocals following a melody which is not immediately coherent. It's not awful, but it doesn't entirely work as a song. Overall impression is self-indulgent and somewhat pretentious. One Minute Warning is another minor gem and was made for the anime movie Ghost in the Shell that you might be familiar with. The song has a rather good, steady beat and a lot of tin-cannish distorted vocals that are impossible to make out. Associations of grinding metal and vast metallic space and acoustics add to that robotic feeling. Not a classic, but an interesting song and that I think manages everything it attempts. Corpse and Elvis Ate America with Bono singing go for a trip back to self-indulgent land and are frankly boring. Plot 180 is a repetitive, boring Eno-esque piece who's only strength is that it sounds a bit like it could be background music for something out of Shadowrun. Theme from the Swan are more boring drawn out sounds and Theme From Let's Go Native's return to a steady beat is refreshing, but ultimately sounds too much like background music to interest anyone. Sorry for not being very descriptive, but most of these songs are just not worth your time.


Review Summary :

First of all, let's establish that this is not a U2 album. If anything, it sounds much more like Brian Eno's earlier works. Furthermore, Larry Mullen is right when he says the album is not just experimental, but downright self-indulgent. The last half contains some of the most pretentious music I think I've ever heard. However, it's not all done entirely without charm. The first half of the album up to and including Miss Sarajevo has a lot of soothing sounds and some enjoyable moments. The last half is all pretentious crap save for One Minute warning. I'd say the first half deserves a 3 out of 6 (mediocre) while the second half deserves a 2 (bad). The overall impression is :

Toretorden's Treasure Trove score : 3/6

Remember that these songs are all very concepty. It's probably not music you'd listen to in your car or in a pub, but if you want something that borders on background music without being quite as soundscapish as Eno's ambient albums, the first half may be an okay listen. Although the album can be safely skipped, some might want to pick this up out of curiosity. If you don't want to struggle with the whole thing, check out my favourite tracks first.

Favourite tracks : Slug, Your Blue Room, Miss Sarajevo, One Minute Warning

Added Trivia : The album pamphlet or what you call it had descriptions for all the movies, including the fake ones. Among these descriptions are lots of easter eggs that might be of interest to die-hard fans of U2. You can read about them on the album's wikipedia article.

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