10 Hated '90s Rock Songs That Are Actually Really Good
6. U2 - Numb
The Dublin quartet has a remarkable ability to hop between genres, and to do something a little bit embarrassing in each one. By 1993, they had fully embraced dance music on the underrated Zooropa album, whose first single was the buzzing, stripped back “Numb”.
U2 caught flack from several angles for this one. There’s the gnomic, faux-profundity of the muttered lyric, the bandwagon-jumping manoeuvre into fully electronic music, and the video, which comprises a shirtless Edge being messed with in various questionable fashions.
But despite U2’s zeitgeist-grabbing efforts, their early ‘90s output has aged remarkably well. The production by Flood, Brian Eno, and The Edge is deep and detailed, and Bono’s reserved, crooning vocals inject humanity into a track made up primarily of deadpan talk-singing and harsh synths.
As usual with U2, they’re judged harshly simply for trying something. Their ambition doesn’t always pay off, but on “Numb”, the bold step in a new direction pays dividends.