U2 - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - Non-Album Tracks (1995-1997)

U2 released the album "Zooropa" in 1993, and then "Pop" in 1997. In between was the experimental album with Brian Eno, technically under the "Passengers" name, called "Original Soundtracks 1." I've posted my alternate version of that album here. You'd think that was all they did between "Zooropa" and "Pop." But no, there's another entire album's worth of stray tracks. That's what I'm posting here. I think it holds up pretty well as an album of its own.

The key song, which I've made the title song, is the 1995 single "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me." It was a number 2 hit in Britain, and a number 1 hit in seven other countries. Most bands would have released an album around such a big hit, but the song was merely put on the "Batman Forever" soundtrack.

Instead of a new album, after the "Original Soundtracks 1" album, the band members pursued a variety of projects, including some minor solo work. For instance, band members Bono and the Edge wrote the song "GoldenEye" for Tina Turner to sing as the theme song to the latest James Bond movie. They never released a U2 version, but luckily they did an unreleased well developed demo that I've included here.

The rest of the songs have all been officially released. There are two more songs from movie soundtracks, and two songs from tribute albums. Four of the songs are B-sides to singles related to the "Pop" album. One of those, "Holy Joe," has also been a bonus track on some versions of that album.

All in all, in my opinion, the songs have a fairly consistent sound that's different from the experimental "Original Soundtracks 1" and is closely related to the sound of the controversial "Pop" album. That album has been seen as a disappointment. For my next U2 post, I'm going to share an alternate version of that that's somewhat better.

01 Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (U2)
02 Hallelujah (Bono)
03 GoldenEye [Demo] (Bono & The Edge)
04 Theme from Mission Impossible [Instrumental] (Larry Mullen & Adam Clayton)
05 North and South of the River (U2)
06 Holy Joe [Garage Mix] (U2)
07 I'm Not Your Baby (Sinead O'Connor & U2)
08 Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad (U2)
09 Slow Dancing (Willie Nelson & U2)
10 Dreaming with Tears in My Eyes (Bono)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256878/UTwo_1995-1997_HldMeThrillMeKssMeKillMe_atse.zip.html

I didn't want to use the official cover of the "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" single, because it's mostly a picture of Batman, since it was associated with the "Batman Forever" movie. But luckily, there's a remix single with a totally different cover, so I used that. It's a typical compared to the usual moody U2 covers. But that's because the video of the song mixes clips from the movie with a cartoon version of U2. The cover art comes directly from that video. All I did was remove some small text at the bottom describing the remix details.