Original Soundtracks 1 is a studio album recorded by the Irish rock band U2 and English producer Brian Eno as a side project under the pseudonym Passengers. Released on 6 November 1995, the album is a collection of songs written for mostly imaginary films (the exceptions being songs for Ghost in the Shell, Miss Sarajevo, and Beyond the Clouds). Owing to Eno's involvement as a full songwriting partner and the album's experimental nature, the moniker "Passengers" was chosen to distinguish it from U2's conventional albums, as it featured a far more electronic-heavy, stripped-back post-rock sound that contrasted heavily with the grander music they were usually known for. It was commercially unnoticed by the band's standards and received generally mixed reviews. Guest musicians on the record included Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti (on "Miss Sarajevo") and producer Howie B (on "Elvis Ate America"), who would co-produce U2's following album, Pop (1997). However, the art-pop single Miss Sarajevo, featuring Luciano Pavarotti, did rather successfully upon release.

Background

According to the producer Brian Eno, near the end of the recording sessions for U2's 1993 album Zooropa, the band hit "a stone wall" and were getting obsessive about small details. At that point, Eno suggested the group do some improvisation, "just turn the tape on and play, so we were working with a broad brush rather than the one-hair brushes we'd been using. It was designed to open us up a little". The resulting recording sessions were productive enough that Eno advocated the band undertake more.

Writing and recording

After U2 completed their Zoo TV Tour in December 1993, the band returned to the studio with no particular agenda or project on which to work. Although the plan did not come to fruition, Eno suggested they continue recording music suitable for film soundtracks, as he did with his Music for Films album series. At the time, the U.S. charts were dominated by movie soundtrack albums and singles. Once Eno pointed out that the project would not be a real ploy for radio airplay but rather a spoof of one, U2 agreed to the concept. U2 spent time in Shinjuku, Tokyo, at the end of the Zoo TV Tour in 1993, and their experience in the city influenced the recording sessions. Bono said, "It feels like it's been set on the bullet train in Tokyo. Every record has a location, a place where you enjoy listening to it, whether that be a bedroom or a club, well this record location is a fast train. It's slo-mo music though. But it has an odd sense of speed in the background." U2 had frequently improvised in the past, and for the Original Soundtracks 1 sessions, they jammed to video clips from various films. he had most of the artistic control during the sessions, limiting U2's creative input on the recordings.

The record was ultimately borne from about 25 hours of recorded experimentation.

The film descriptions contain many hidden references and in-jokes, beginning with the descriptions' supposed authors, "Ben O'Rian and C. S. J. Bofop", both references to Brian Eno. The first is a simple anagram of the name, while the second replaces each letter with the alphabetically following letter.

Release and promotion

"Miss Sarajevo" was released as a successful single, competing in the UK for the 1995 Christmas number 1 spot but ultimately losing to Michael Jackson's "Earth Song", however; it also later appeared on U2's The Best of 1990–2000 compilation in 2002. "Your Blue Room" was intended for the second single following "Miss Sarajevo," but was cancelled after poor album sales. The song was later released as a B-side on the "Staring at the Sun" single in 1997, and on the B-sides disc of The Best of 1990–2000.

The Japanese edition release include "Bottoms (Watashitachi No Ookina Yume) (Zoo Station Remix)" as a bonus track, which is also featured as B-side to the "Miss Sarajevo" single. The track is an instrumental version of the U2 song "Zoo Station", which appears on 1991's Achtung Baby. The Japanese subtitle "Watashitachi No Ookina Yume" translates to English as "our big dream." Some UK promo copies of the album list "Bottoms" as well but the track is not actually present on the compact disc.

For Record Store Day 2025, the album was reissued as a two-disc vinyl LP for its 30th anniversary.

Reception

Because of the nature of the music and the decision to release it under another name, the album is easily the least-known and poorest-selling in the U2 catalogue. Further, critical reaction from the fans and even the band members has been mixed. Spin wrote that the album came as a "treat to Brian Eno fans" and as a "shock to U2 fans", only furthering the experimentation that was present on Zooropa into something that was U2's "most ambient and minimalistic work to date". Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. stated: "There's a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence. We crossed it on the Passengers record." Later reflecting on the album in 2002, Mullen stated, "It hasn't grown on me. However, 'Miss Sarajevo' is a classic." Bono objected to Mullen's statement in the same documentary, claiming that "Larry just didn't like [Passengers] because we didn't let him play the drums."

However, despite the poor commercial performance of the album, it quickly became a cult classic, with many appreciating the ambient, ethereal sound of the album. Lonk Lainesse of AllMusic stated that although the album "went under the radar", it was "highly experimental at the time and should be considered as a prelude to Radiohead's future experimentations, with delicate, spacious guitar work from the Edge" and is "very much U2's post-rock moment", comparing the album to Wah Wah (1994) by James, as well as Pygmalion (1995) by Slowdive, both bands that Eno had previously worked with; all three albums featured electronic experimentation and a very minimalistic, ambient sound, all three albums were closely related to the first wave of post-rock, and all three albums underperformed commercially. According to Chris Vrenna, Original Soundtracks 1 was very influential to Guns N' Roses vocalist Axl Rose during the writing and recording of the sessions for what became Chinese Democracy (2008).

Track listing

Personnel

Passengers

  • Bono – vocals, rhythm guitar, piano on "Beach Sequence"
  • Adam Clayton – bass guitar, additional guitar, percussion, narration on "Your Blue Room"
  • The Edge – lead guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Corpse," church organ on "Your Blue Room"
  • Brian Eno – strategies, sequencers, keyboards, guitar, treatments, mixing, backing and chorus vocals, vocals on "A Different Kind of Blue", production
  • Larry Mullen Jr. – drums, percussion, rhythm sequence on "One Minute Warning," rhythm synthesizer on "United Colours"

Additional personnel

  • Luciano Pavarotti – tenor voice on "Miss Sarajevo"
  • Holi – vocals on "Ito Okashi," voices on "One Minute Warning"
  • Howie B – mixing, treatments, scratching, and rhythm track on "Elvis Ate America"
  • Craig Armstrong – string arrangement on "Miss Sarajevo"
  • Paul Barrett – string arrangement on "Always Forever Now"
  • Des Broadbery – sequencer on "Always Forever Now"
  • David Herbert – saxophone on "United Colours" and "Corpse"
  • Holger Zschenderlein – additional synthesizer on "One Minute Warning"

Charts

{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|+ Chart performance for Original Soundtracks 1

! Chart (1995)

! Peak<br/>position

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! scope="row"| Canadian Albums (RPM)

|15

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! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)

|12

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! scope="row"| US Billboard 200

|76

|}

Certifications

See also

  • Music for Films – A similar concept album series by Eno solo

References

  • Original Soundtracks 1 on U2.com