Discothèque

By the mid-1990s, U2 had spent the decade moving away from the rock sound that had made their name, and the Irish band's 1997 album Pop pushed that shift further than any record before it. "Discothèque" opened the album and carried strong influences from electronic dance music, a direction the group had been exploring throughout the 1990s. Island Records released it as the lead single on 3 February 1997.

The track found a wide audience. It reached number one in Finland, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom, and it also topped the American and Canadian dance and alternative charts. For a band that had formed in Dublin in 1976 as teenagers at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, with what the members themselves admitted was limited musical proficiency, the reception confirmed how far their style had traveled since their post-punk beginnings.

The song's visual side proved just as striking as its sound. Director Stéphane Sednaoui filmed the music video inside a mirrorball, dressing Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. as members of the disco group the Village People. The image of four rock musicians in disco costume became one of the most talked-about visuals of the band's career, arriving just as Pop prepared to take U2 on another of the elaborate tours for which they had become known.