Original release
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The Austin Chronicle
Chicago Tribune
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Entertainment Weekly	B+
Hot Press	12/12
Q
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
The Village Voice	B+

2009 reissue (deluxe edition)
Review scores
Source	Rating
Pitchfork Media	9.3/10
Q
Rolling Stone

The Unforgettable Fire Collection

Video by U2

Released

1985

Recorded

1984–1985

Genre

Rock, post-punk

Length

51:00

Label

Island, PolyGram, Columbia

Director

Meiert Avis, Barry Deviln, Donald Cammell

Producer

James Morris

U2 chronology

Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky
(1983)

The Unforgettable Fire Collection
(1985)

Rattle and Hum
(1988)

The Unforgettable Fire is the fourth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was released on 1 October 1984. The band wanted a different musical direction following the harder-hitting rock of their 1983 album War. They employed Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois to produce and assist in experimenting with a more ambient and abstract sound. The resulting change in direction was at the time the band's most dramatic.

Recording began in May 1984 at Slane Castle, where the band lived, wrote, and recorded to find new inspiration. The album was completed in August 1984 at Windmill Lane Studios. It features atmospheric sounds and lyrics that lead vocalist Bono describes as "sketches". Two songs feature lyrical tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. The Unforgettable Fire received generally favourable reviews from critics and produced the band's biggest hit at the time, "Pride (In the Name of Love)", as well as the live favourite "Bad", a song about heroin addiction. A 25th Anniversary edition of the album was released in October 2009.

The title is a reference to "The Unforgettable Fire"—an art exhibit about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The band saw the exhibit in November 1983 in Japan while on the War Tour.

"We knew the world was ready to receive the heirs to The Who. All we had to do was to keep doing what we were doing and we would become the biggest band since Led Zeppelin, without a doubt. But something just didn't feel right. We felt we had more dimension than just the next big anything, we had something unique to offer. The innovation was what would suffer if we went down the standard rock route. We were looking for another feeling."

...
Wikipedia