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Songs in A Minor

Songs in A Minor is the debut studio album by American singer and songwriter Alicia Keys, released on June 12, 2001, by J Records.

Keys began writing songs for the album in 1995 at age 14 and recording the album in 1998 for Columbia Records, but after they rejected it, she signed a recording contract with Clive Davis's Arista Records and eventually J Records. An accomplished, classically trained pianist, Keys wrote, arranged and produced the majority of the album herself. It is a neo soul album with elements of R&B, soul, jazz, hip hop, blues, classical, and gospel music. Lyrically, the songs explore the complexities and various stages of personal relationships. Despite the album's title, only one song, "Jane Doe," is actually written in the key of A minor. Songs in A Minor debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 236,000 copies in its first week. The album has since sold over 7 million copies in the United States and 12 million copies worldwide. It was also an immediate critical success and has since been regarded as a classic. The album earned Keys several accolades, including five Grammy Awards at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. To promote the album, Keys embarked on her first headlining concert tour, entitled Songs in A Minor Tour.

In 2022, the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

Recording and production
Keys began writing the songs that would constitute Songs in A Minor at age 14, "Butterflyz" being her first composition for the album. Keys had been accepted to Columbia University, which she attended after graduating from the Professional Performing Arts School at age 16. She dropped out after four weeks to pursue her music career full time. She signed a demo deal with Jermaine Dupri and his So So Def label. Keys co-wrote and recorded a song titled "Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. She also contributed to the So So Def Christmas recordings. Keys began producing and recording the album in 1998. She completed it that same year, but it was rejected by Columbia Records. Keys explained that the producers she was required to work with by the label would tell her to "just get in the booth and sing", which frustrated her. Her record contract with Columbia ended after a dispute with the label. Keys then performed for Clive Davis, who sensed a "special, unique" artist; he bought Keys' contract from Columbia and signed her to Arista Records, which later disbanded.

Following Davis to his newly formed J Records label, Keys rented an apartment and struggled to create an album. She began writing the song "Troubles" and came to a realization: "That's when the album started comin' together. Finally, I knew how to structure my feelings into something that made sense, something that can translate to people. That was a changing point. My confidence was up, way up." Keys learned how to produce by asking questions of the producers and engineers; she wrote, arranged and produced a majority of the album. She recorded the songs "Rock wit U" and "Rear View Mirror", which were featured on the soundtracks to the films Shaft (2000) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), respectively. One of the final songs Keys recorded was "Fallin". A total of 32 songs were recorded for the album. Originally titled Soul Stories in A Minor, the title of the album was changed over concerns that it would limit exposure only to black radio stations.

Music and lyrics
Songs in A Minor is a neo soul album with classical piano references and arpeggios. Keys incorporates classical piano with R&B, soul and jazz into the album's music. With influences of classical piano, classic soul and East Coast hip hop, Keys described the album as a "fusion of my classical training, meshed with what I grew up listening to [...] things I've been exposed to and drawn from and my life experiences". Jane Stevenson of Jam! described the music as "old-school urban sounds and attitude set against a backdrop of classical piano and sweet, warm vocals". USA Today's Steve Jones wrote that Keys "taps into the blues, soul, jazz and even classical music to propel haunting melodies and hard-driving funk". John Mulvey of Yahoo! Music called the album "a gorgeous and ambitious melding of classic soul structures and values to hyper-modern production technique".

The album's opening track, "Piano & I", begins with a rendition of Ludwig van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, combined with a hip hop beat. The introduction is followed by "Girlfriend", which was produced by Jermaine Dupri. Commended for its "crisp production", the song samples Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Brooklyn Zoo". Keys' cover of Prince's 1982 ballad "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?" (retitled "How Come You Don't Call Me") was inspired by a long-term relationship with a partner. The music critic for PopMatters felt that the song was credible, but fell short from the original and Stephanie Mills's 1980s cover. "Fallin", the gospel-driven lead single and often considered Keys' signature song, contains a sample of James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World". The song earned Keys comparisons to Aretha Franklin.

"A Woman's Worth", the second single released from the album, is a "gospel-tinged" song that recommends that men show respect to their female partners. "Jane Doe" is a funk-driven song, with backing vocals provided by Kandi Burruss. "The Life", which elicits Curtis Mayfield's "Gimmie Your Love", describes Keys' "philosophy of life and struggle". The song was compared to the work of the English band Sade. "Mr. Man" contains elements of Latin American music and was described as a "sexy and soulful duet", in which Jimmy Cozier "adds his spice". The album ends with the hidden track "Lovin' U", which Christian Ward of NME compared to works of the musical group the Supremes.

Release and promotion

In advance of Songs in A Minor, "Girlfriend" was serviced to urban contemporary radio as a promotional single in early 2001 to "introduce" Keys to the general public. In order to promote her, music executive Clive Davis booked Keys to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Davis also wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey, asking her to allow Keys, along with Jill Scott and India Arie, to perform on her show. The singers performed on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where Keys "wowed" the audience. This led to the album's pre-orders to double that night. From August to October 2001, Keys toured alongside recording artist Maxwell in promotion of the album. Soon after, she embarked on her Songs in A Minor Tour. A concert at KeyArena in Seattle was partly recorded and the live performances were included on the bonus disc of a European reissue of the album, titled Songs in A Minor: Remixed & Unplugged, which was released on October 28, 2002; the bonus disc also includes remixes to the songs from Songs in A Minor. The bonus disc was made available on its own exclusively in Japan, under the title Remixed & Unplugged in A Minor, on February 26, 2003.

On June 28, 2011, Songs in A Minor was re-released in two editions to commemorate its tenth anniversary of release. Both editions feature previously unreleased material and a documentary chronicling the making of Songs in A Minor. At the BET Awards 2011 on June 26, Keys performed a medley of songs, including "Typewriter", "A Woman's Worth" with Bruno Mars and "Maybach Music" with Rick Ross and "Fallin. On June 28, Keys performed "Fallin, "Butterflyz" and "Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down" on Good Morning America. BET aired The Story So Far... Alicia Keys special, highlighting Keys' ten-year career through her BET moments, on June 28. On June 30, Keys performed Songs in A Minor in its entirety and told stories of its recording in a show titled Piano & I: A One Night Only Event With Alicia Keys at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. In an interview for MTV, Keys called its tenth anniversary "incredibly surreal for me" and said of the album in retrospect: "This album is possibly the most precious to me as your first album only happens once, and so Songs in A Minor will always hold a special place in my life that's filled with amazing memories. I'm so proud the songs are still being enjoyed, and I'm crazy excited to share songs never heard before." To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Songs in A Minor, the album was yet again re-released on June 4, 2021 with four bonus tracks, including the previously unreleased "Foolish Heart" and "Crazy (Mi Corazon)".

Singles
Davis sent the music video of the album's lead single "Fallin" to MTV; "half the women had tears down their face" when the video finished playing. The song was serviced to rhythmic contemporary, urban adult contemporary and urban contemporary radio stations in April 2001. "Fallin" peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, remaining atop the charts for six and four weeks, respectively. It became the most played song in the United States at the time and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Internationally, "Fallin" peaked within the top ten in almost all countries it charted in, topping the charts in Flanders, the Netherlands and New Zealand, as well as the UK R&B Singles chart.

"A Woman's Worth" was released as the album's second single on October 2, 2001. It peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100. The single was certified gold by the RIAA. Internationally, the song reached number one in Croatia and top ten in Hungary and New Zealand. The single's accompanying music video was directed by Chris Robinson, who directed the video for "Fallin". Its plot continues from the video for "Fallin", which revolves around Keys' travel to her imprisoned boyfriend, and picks up where it left, depicting his release from prison and tries to acclimate to society.

The third single "How Come You Don't Call Me" was released on March 11, 2002. It peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100, failing to duplicate the commercial success of its predecessors. Elsewhere, the song peaked within the top ten in Hungary and within the top 40 in Australia, Ireland, Scotland and the United Kingdom.

"Girlfriend" peaked at number 82 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart upon its 2001 release as a promotional single. It was released as the album's fourth and final single outside the United States on November 25, 2002. The song reached top 20 in Australia and the Netherlands, while peaking at number 24 in the UK.

Critical reception
Songs in A Minor received positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, it received an average score of 78, based on 10 reviews.

Reviewing the album in NME, Sam Faulkner described the balance between contemporary music and retrospective as "an act of pure genius". Q magazine hailed it as "a prime candidate to head up the nu-soul revolution ... with a voice that challenges Mary J. Blige's". Steve Jones of USA Today said that "Keys already has a musical, artistic and thematic maturity that many more experienced artists never achieve". The Washington Post's Richard Harrington wrote favorably of Keys' musical influences on the album and expressed that she has "vocal maturity and writing instincts beyond her years". PopMatters critic Mark Anthony Neal praised Keys' performance on the album and called it "a distinct and oft-times brilliant debut from an artist who clearly has a fine sense of her creative talents". Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, said that the "grace and grit" of the first half warrant the "auspicious debut" label and that, after some "bores that threaten to sink the project midway through," Keys sustains the album with the songs at the end.

Keys' vocal performance was lauded; Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine declared that Keys' displayed a "powerful range, proving she can belt along with the best of them". Uncut called the album "frequently stunning" and said that Keys sings like "a young Aretha Franklin". However, some found her lyrics to be sub-par to her singing and musical ability. The New Zealand Herald's Russell Baillie stated that Keys "might indicate abundant talent aligned to neatly reverential vintage soul style", but expressed that the songs "don't add up to anything particularly memorable". Entertainment Weekly's Beth Johnson called the second half of the album slacked with "sad sack teen themes", but called it a promising album. Rolling Stone's Barry Walters perceived her singing as more mature than her songwriting, but commended Keys for her "commanding presence" on the album. Los Angeles Times writer Robert Hilburn said that it "makes a convincing case that's she's going far—in both a commercial and creative sense".

In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine perceived the album's music as "rich enough to compensate for some thinness in the writing" and called it "a startling assured, successful debut that deserved its immediate acclaim and is already aging nicely". Barry Walters wrote in a later article for Rolling Stone, "the album has aged well – excepting a drum-machine beat or two, it feels timeless." In the Encyclopedia of Popular Music (2011), Colin Larkin said Keys had fused urban R&B, hip hop, and blues on what he called "a minor classic of modern soul". Songs in A Minor is regarded as an influential and distinctive album of its era.

Accolades
Songs in A Minor led Keys to win five awards at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best R&B Song for "Fallin, Best New Artist, and Best R&B Album; "Fallin was also nominated for Record of the Year. Keys became the second female solo artist to win five Grammy Awards in a single night, following Lauryn Hill at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards (1999). The album also won a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Album. Keys was also named Best New Artist at the 2002 World Music Awards. "Fallin was ranked at number 37 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the Past 25 Years in 2003 and was ranked the 413th greatest song of all time by Blender magazine. The album was ranked at number two on the Rolling Stone magazine's Top 10 of 2001, number 18 on The Village Voice's 2001 Pazz & Jop list, number 27 on Mojo magazine's Best 40 Albums of 2001 and was also named one of Q magazine's 100 Greatest Albums Ever. Q also listed the album as one of the best 50 albums of 2001. In 2009, Rolling Stone named it the 95th best album of the past decade, while "Fallin ranked at number 62 on the magazine's "100 Best Songs of the Decade" list. In 2012, Entertainment Weekly ranked Songs in A Minor the 57th best album of all time.

Commercial performance
Songs in A Minor debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 236,000 copies in its first week. Through word of mouth and promotion, the album remained at number one on the chart, selling a further 221,000 copies in its fourth week. The album spent a total of three non-consecutive weeks at number one, and became one of the best-selling albums of 2001. As of June 2014, the album had sold 6,348,000 copies in the United States. Billboard ranked the album at number 32 on the Billboard 200 decade-end chart for the 2000s and at number 12 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums decade-end chart. In 2001 the album was the 7th best-selling album globally, selling 6.7 million copies. By March 2008, Songs in A Minor had sold over 12 million copies worldwide. On August 19, 2020, the album was certified septuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of seven million units in the United States.

Sample credits

 * "Girlfriend" contains an interpolation of "Brooklyn Zoo" by Ol' Dirty Bastard.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Songs in A Minor.

Musicians

 * Alicia Keys – vocals (all tracks); piano (tracks 1, 2, 6, 11–14, 16); vocal arrangement (tracks 1, 2, 9); keyboards (tracks 1, 6, 11, 16); background vocals (tracks 1–3, 5–10, 13, 14, 16); all instruments (tracks 3, 8); arrangement (tracks 4, 5, 7–13, 15, 16); all instruments except violin (track 4); all instruments except bass (track 5); digital programming (tracks 7, 10); piano concept (track 9); string arrangements (track 16)
 * Kerry "Krucial" Brothers – drum programming (tracks 1, 3); digital programming (tracks 4–6, 8, 10, 14, 16)
 * Brian Cox – keyboards (track 2)
 * Miri – violin (tracks 4, 11); keyboards (track 11); additional strings (track 16)
 * Cindy Mizelle – background vocals (track 4)
 * Tammy Saunders – background vocals (track 4)
 * Andricka Hall – background vocals (track 4)
 * Tim Shider – bass (track 5); bass concept (track 14)
 * Paul L. Green – background vocals (tracks 5, 7)
 * Isaac Hayes – string arrangements, flute arrangements, Rhodes piano (track 6)
 * The Isaac Hayes Orchestra – string arrangements, flute arrangements (track 6)
 * Norman Hedman – percussion (tracks 6, 10)
 * Gerald G. Flowers – guitar (tracks 6, 13, 14)
 * Vic Flowers – bass (tracks 6, 14)
 * Arty White – guitar (tracks 7, 10)
 * Kandi – background vocals (track 8)
 * Brian McKnight – all instruments (track 9)
 * Anthony Nance – drum programming (track 9)
 * Rufus Jackson – bass (track 10)
 * Jimmy Cozier – vocals (track 11)
 * Arden Altino – additional keyboards (track 11)
 * Cato – guitar concept (track 13)
 * Richie Goods – upright bass (track 13); bass (track 16)
 * Reggie Flowers – additional fills (track 14)
 * John Peters – organ (track 16)
 * A & C Productions – strings (track 16)

Technical

 * Alicia Keys – production (tracks 1–8, 10–16); executive production
 * Kerry "Krucial" Brothers – production (tracks 1, 3, 6, 14); recording (tracks 3–6, 10, 13–16); additional production concepts (track 5, 10)
 * Gerry Brown – recording (track 1); mixing (tracks 1, 5, 6, 13, 14)
 * Jermaine Dupri – production (track 2)
 * Brian Frye – recording (track 2)
 * Phil Tan – mixing (track 2)
 * Russ Elevado – mixing (tracks 3, 4, 16)
 * Manny Marroquin – mixing (tracks 7–10)
 * Kandi – production (track 8)
 * Ralph Cacciurri – recording (track 8)
 * Brian McKnight – production (track 9)
 * Chris Wood – recording (track 9)
 * Mary Ann Souza – recording assistance (track 9)
 * Jimmy Cozier – production (track 11)
 * Arden Altino – production (track 11)
 * Miri Ben-Ari – production (track 11)
 * Rick St. Hillaire – recording (track 11)
 * Tony Maserati – mixing (track 11)
 * Acar Key – recording (track 12)
 * Clive Davis – executive production
 * Peter Edge – executive production
 * Jeff Robinson – executive production
 * Herb Powers Jr. – mastering

Artwork

 * Tony Duran – photography
 * Alli – creative direction, art direction
 * Nowhere – design, logo design

title: Songs in A Minor


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Soviet submarine K-159

K-159 (Russian: К–159) was a Project 627A "Kit" (Russian: проект-627A кит, NATO reporting name November-class submarine) nuclear-powered submarine that served in the Northern Fleet of the Soviet Navy from 1963–89. Her keel was laid down on 15 August 1962 at the Severodvinsk "Sevmash" Shipyard No. 402. She was launched on 6 June 1963, and commissioned on 9 October 1963.

Radioactive discharge accident
On 2 March 1965, K-159 suffered an accident involving radioactive discharges into her steam generators, almost certainly primary coolant leaks from the tubes into the steam chest and thence into the turbines, contaminating her entire propulsion plant. If so, the leaking tubes were plugged, because she continued to operate for another two years before entering the shipyard from 1967 through 1968 for overhaul and to have her steam generators replaced. She returned to the shipyard from 1970 through 1972 for further repairs and refuelling, and then again from 1979 through 1980 for still more repairs.

Decommissioning and after-service life
K-159 was decommissioned on 30 May 1989 and laid up in Gremikha; her reactors were probably not defuelled. She remained in layup with little or no maintenance for 14 years. Her outer hull rusted until in many places it had "the strength of foil".

The poor condition of Russia's fleet of decommissioned nuclear submarines concerned the nearby Baltic and Scandinavian nations, and in mid-2003, five countries made a combined donation of more than US$200 million in support of decommission and disposal of the hulls. In anticipation of receiving those funds, Admiral Gennady Suchkov, Commander of the Northern Fleet, decided to tow all the 16 laid up submarines from Gremikha to shipyards where they would be dismantled. K-159 was the 13th hull to be towed.

Because K-159's hull was rusted through in so many places, it was kept afloat by spot-welding large empty tanks to her sides as pontoons. Those tanks, however, were manufactured in the 1940s, were not air-tight, and were no better maintained than the submarine's hull.

Foundering and sinking
On 28 August 2003, K-159 and her pontoons were manned by ten Russian sailors and taken under tow to Polyarny. That crew kept the pontoons pressurized and the submarine hull pumped out, but during the early morning hours of 30 August they encountered a squall that ripped away one of the pontoons. K-159 did not sink immediately, but was clearly in distress. Northern Fleet was notified at 01:20, and Admiral Suchkov arrived at headquarters 20 minutes later. By 03:00 the wreck had sunk in the Barents Sea, 200 metres down, with nine of her crew and most likely 800 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel containing some 5.3 gigabecquerels of radionuclides.

The Military Prosecutor General's office brought charges against Captain Second Class Sergei Zhemchuzhnov who was overseeing the towing operation. President of Russia Vladimir Putin removed Suchkov from service on the recommendation of Navy Chief of Staff Vladimir Kuroyedov. Putin appointed Vice Admiral Sergey Simonenko acting Commander of the Northern Fleet. Before that, he headed the headquarters of the Northern Fleet.

The Russian government considered plans to raise the wreck of K-159. Admiral Kuroyedov believed that "we should not leave nuclear objects lying on the seabed". Initial plans were to do so in August or September 2004, but they were postponed. In 2007, the British Ministry of Defence began preparations for a salvage operation. As part of that recovery planning, the Scottish company Adus was hired to evaluate the wreck. A high-resolution sonar generated image of K-159 was published on 1 April 2010.

In March 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a draft decree for an initiative to lift the K-159 and SOVIET SUBMARINE K-27 and four reactor compartments from the Barents Sea. It is likely that a special salvage vessel will need to be built increasing the estimated recovery cost of US$330m.

Legal actions
Shortly after the loss of the submarine, the widows of four of the nine deceased submariners filed a lawsuit against the Russian Defence Ministry demanding compensation of one million rubles (about $US37,500) each in moral damages, a lawyer acting for them said. The Ministry objected to the suit, saying that the widows should press charges against Suchkov, who was convicted by a court martial of criminal negligence leading to the submariners' deaths.

Two bodies were recovered immediately. Tsibul'skij was rescued alive and recovered in the Severomorsk Military Hospital. The other seven were presumably trapped in the wreck.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Soviet submarine K-159


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John Babbacombe Lee

John Henry George "Babbacombe" Lee (15 August 1864 – 19 March 1945) was an Englishman famous for surviving three attempts to hang him for murder. Born in Abbotskerswell, Devon, Lee served in the Royal Navy, and was a known thief.

In 1885, he was convicted of the murder of his employer, Emma Keyse, at her home at Babbacombe Bay near Torquay on 15 November 1884, with a knife. The evidence was weak and circumstantial, amounting to little more than Lee having been the only male in the house at the time of the murder, his previous criminal record, and being found with an unexplained cut on his arm. Despite this and his claim of innocence, he was sentenced to hang. After he survived three attempts at hanging, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He became popularly known as "the man they couldn't hang".

Attempted execution and aftermath
On 23 February 1885, three attempts were made to carry out Lee's execution at Exeter Prison. All ended in failure, as the trapdoor of the scaffold failed to open despite being carefully tested by the executioner, James Berry, beforehand. The medical officer refused to take any further part in the proceedings, and they were stopped.

Berry provides a detailed account of the failed execution in his memoirs, My Experiences as an Executioner, noting that the trapdoor was adjusted with a saw and axe between the attempted executions, although in Berry's memoirs and letter to the Under-Sheriff he only mentions two attempted executions.

As a result, home secretary Sir William Harcourt commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. The Home Office ordered an investigation into the failure of the apparatus, and it was discovered that when the gallows was moved from the old infirmary into the coach house, the draw bar was slightly misaligned. As a result the hinges of the trapdoor bound and did not drop cleanly through. Lee continued to petition successive Home Secretaries and was finally released in 1907.

The only other man in history known to have survived three hanging attempts was Joseph Samuel, in September 1803.

An alternative theory, raised by Ernest Bowen-Rowlands in his book In the Light of the Law, suggests that the trap was blocked by a wooden wedge that was inserted by a prisoner working on the scaffold, and removed when the apparatus was tested. Note that Bowen-Rowlands only cites an anonymous "well-known person", citing an equally anonymous prisoner's confession, and this would contrast with Berry's reputation (noted by prison governors and surgeons) as a meticulous professional.

Later years and identifications
After his release, Lee seems to have exploited his notoriety, supporting himself through lecturing on his life, even becoming the subject of a silent film. Accounts of his whereabouts after 1916 are somewhat confused, and one researcher even speculated that in later years there was more than one man claiming to be Lee. It was suspected that he died in the Tavistock workhouse sometime during the Second World War. However, more recent research concludes that he died in the United States under the name of "James Lee" in 1945. According to the book The Man They Could Not Hang, Lee's gravestone was located at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee in 2009.

Popular culture

 * The Life Story of John Lee, or The Man They Could Not Hang, a 1912 film
 * "Babbacombe" Lee, a 1971 album by Fairport Convention
 * The case was covered and examined in a 2021 episode of the BBC One series Murder, Mystery and My Family, in which the verdict originally reached by the jury was upheld.

title: John Babbacombe Lee


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Portal:Current events/April 2004

April 2004 was the fourth month of that leap year. The month, which began on a Thursday, ended on a Friday after 30 days.

Portal:Current events
This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from April 2004.

title: Portal:Current events/April 2004


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Pierre Prevost (physicist)

Pierre Prevost (3 March 1751 – 8 April 1839) was a Genevan philosopher and physicist. In 1791 he explained Pictet's experiment by arguing that all bodies radiate heat, no matter how hot or cold they are.

Life
Son of a Protestant clergyman in Geneva in the Republic of Geneva, he was born in that city and was educated for a clerical career. However, he abandoned it for law, and this too he quickly deserted to devote himself to education and to travelling. He became close friends with Jean Jacques Rousseau and, a little later, with Dugald Stewart, having previously distinguished himself as a translator of and commentator on Euripides.

Frederick II of Prussia secured him in 1780 as professor of philosophy and made him member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin. He there became acquainted with Joseph Louis Lagrange and was thus led to turn his attention to physical science.

After some years spent on political economy and on the principles of the fine arts (in connection with which he wrote, for the Berlin Memoirs, a remarkable dissertation on poetry) he returned to Geneva and began his work on magnetism and on heat. Interrupted occasionally in his studies by political duties in which he was often called to the front, he remained professor of philosophy at Geneva until he was called in 1810 to the chair of physics.

He died at Geneva in 1839.

Work
Prévost published much on philology, philosophy, and political economy, but he will be remembered mainly for having published, with additions of his own, the Traité de physique by Georges-Louis Le Sage, and for his enunciation of the law of exchange in radiation.

His scientific publications included De l'Origine des forces magnetiques, Mémoire sur l'Equilibre du feu, Recherches physico-mecaniques sur la chaleur, and Essai sur le calorique rayonnant.

title: Pierre Prevost (physicist)


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Zooropa

Zooropa is the eighth studio album by Irish rock band U2. Produced by Flood, Brian Eno, and the Edge, it was released on 5 July 1993 on Island Records. Inspired by the band's experiences on the Zoo TV Tour, Zooropa expanded on many of the tour's themes of technology and media oversaturation. The record was a continuation of the group's experimentation with alternative rock, electronic dance music, and electronic sound effects that began with their previous album, Achtung Baby, in 1991.

U2 began writing and recording Zooropa in Dublin in February 1993, during a six-month break between legs of the Zoo TV Tour. The record was originally intended as an EP to promote the "Zooropa" leg of the tour that was to begin in May 1993, but during the sessions, the group decided to extend the record to a full-length album. Pressed for time, U2 wrote and recorded at a rapid pace, with songs originating from many sources, including leftover material from the Achtung Baby sessions. The album was not completed in time for the tour's resumption, forcing the band to travel between Dublin and their tour destinations in May to complete mixing and recording.

Zooropa received generally favourable reviews from critics. Despite none of its three singles—"Numb", "Lemon", and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)"—being hits consistently across regions, the record sold well upon release, charting in the top ten of 26 countries. The album's charting duration and lifetime sales of 7 million copies, however, were less than those of Achtung Baby. In 1994, Zooropa won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. Although the record was a success and music journalists view it as one of the group's most creative works, the band regard it with mixed feelings.

Background
U2 regained critical favour with their commercially successful 1991 album Achtung Baby and the supporting Zoo TV Tour in 1992. The record was a musical reinvention for the group, incorporating influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. The tour was an elaborately staged multimedia event that satirised television and the viewing public's overstimulation by attempting to instill "sensory overload" in its audience. The band finished 1992 with one of their most successful years, selling 2.9 million concert tickets and reaching 10 million copies sold for Achtung Baby. Their 73 North American concerts from the year grossed US$67 million, easily the highest amount for any touring artist in 1992.

The group concluded the North American "Outside Broadcast" leg of the tour on 25 November 1992, leaving them with a six-month break before the tour resumed in Europe in May 1993 with the "Zooropa" leg. Rather than use the time to rest, lead vocalist Bono and guitarist the Edge were keen to record new material. Following a hectic year of touring, the two did not want to settle back into domestic life. Bono said, "We thought we could live a normal life and then go back on the road [in May 1993]. But it turns out that your whole way of thinking, your whole body has been geared toward the madness of Zoo TV... So we decided to put the madness on a record. Everybody's head was spinning, so we thought, why not keep that momentum going...?" The Edge also wished to distract himself from the emotions he was feeling after separating from his wife during the Achtung Baby sessions in 1991. The other members, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., ultimately agreed to join them for recording.

Recording and production
After handling audio engineering for the recording of Achtung Baby, Robbie Adams was invited by U2 to manage sound mixing on the Zoo TV Tour. Adams also recorded the group's tour soundchecks. In January 1993, the band asked him to compile these recordings and create loops of interesting parts that they could play to in the studio. After Adams spent a few weeks assembling loops, the group entered The Factory in Dublin that February to begin composing rough demos. Bono and the Edge were most involved during this initial demoing process, which lasted six weeks. Audio services company Audio Engineering installed recording equipment at the Factory that included a Soundcraft 6000 mixing console, an Otari MTR100 multi-track recorder, and four Neve console modules. The company also provided outboard gear such as a UREI 1176 Peak Limiter, a dbx 120X-DS subharmonic synthesizer, two Summit and two LA compressors, a Focusrite 115HD equaliser, a Yamaha SPX1000 multi-effects unit, Lexicon PCM-70 and AMS RMX-16 reverb units, and Yamaha NS-10 and EGV monitor speakers.

The group employed Brian Eno and his assisting partner Mark "Flood" Ellis—both of whom worked on Achtung Baby—to produce the sessions; long-time Eno collaborator Daniel Lanois was busy promoting his solo album and was unavailable. Similar to the Achtung Baby sessions, Eno worked two-week shifts. The group often gave him in-progress songs to adjust and to which he could add his own personality. Initially, the band did not have a clear plan for how they would release the material being written. At the time, Clayton said, "I don't know if what we're doing here is the next U2 album or a bunch of rough sketches that in two years will turn into the demos for the next U2 album." The Edge was a proponent of making an EP of new material to promote the upcoming leg of the tour, describing his mentality as thus: "We've got a bit of time off. We've got some ideas hanging around from the last record, let's do an EP, maybe four new songs to spice the next phase of the tour up a bit. It'll be a fan thing. It'll be cool."

Soon after the sessions commenced, Bono pushed for the band to work towards a full-length album. The Edge was initially hesitant, but saw the opportunity as a challenge to quickly record an album before returning to tour and prove the band had not become spoiled by the luxury of ample recording time. Additionally, Bono and the band's manager Paul McGuinness had discussed the possibility of releasing a "one-two punch" of records since the beginning of the Achtung Baby sessions. In early March, U2 reached a consensus to work towards a full-length album. Much like they had for the Achtung Baby sessions, the band split work between two studios at once; Adams operated a Soundtracs mixing console at The Factory, while Flood used an SSL console at the newly relocated Windmill Lane Studios.

Due to the time limit, U2 were forced to write and record songs at a more rapid pace. They continued their long-time practice of jamming in the studio. Eno used an eraseable whiteboard to give instructions and cues to the band while they jammed; he pointed at chords and various commands, such as "hold", "stop", "change", and "change back", to direct their performances. Flood recorded the material, while Eno alternated between performing with U2 and joining Flood in the control room. At the end of a given week, Eno and Flood compared their notes and compiled the week's best jams onto a cassette for the band to listen to. The producers edited together their favourite sections of the jams and then discussed the arrangements with the group. U2 suggested alterations and added lyrics and melodies, before performing to the edited arrangements. To record all of the band's material and test different arrangements, the engineers utilised a technique they called "fatting", which allowed them to achieve more than 48 tracks of audio by using a 24-track analogue recording, a Fostex D20 timecode-capable DAT recorder, and an Adams Smith Zeta Three synchroniser; Adams went through 180 two-hour DAT tapes during the recording sessions. The production crew faced issues with audio spill at The Factory, as all group members recorded in the same room as the mixing desk and Bono frequently sang in-progress lyrics that would need to be replaced. Gobos and wood booths were built to separate the performers' sounds as much as possible.

Songs originated from and were inspired by a variety of sources. "Zooropa" was the result of combining two separate pieces of music together, one of which the band discovered while reviewing recordings of tour soundchecks. The verse melody to "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" and an instrumental backing track that became "Numb" were originally from the Achtung Baby sessions. "Babyface", "Dirty Day", "Lemon", and "The Wanderer" were written during the Zooropa sessions. Country singer Johnny Cash recorded vocals for "The Wanderer" during a visit to Dublin, and although Bono recorded his own vocals for the song, he preferred Cash's version. The production crew and the band debated which version to include on the record. Throughout the sessions, U2 were undecided on a unifying musical style for the release, and as a result, they maintained three potential track listings—one for the best songs, one for "vibes", and one for a soundtrack album. Bono suggested editing the best segments of songs together to create a montage.

As May's "Zooropa" tour leg approached, U2 continued to record while simultaneously rehearsing for the tour. Their time limit prevented them from working on live arrangements for any of the new songs. Despite the sessions' rapid pace, the album was not completed by the time they had to resume touring. Moreover, Flood and Eno had to begin work on other projects. The Edge remembers everyone was telling the group, "Well, it's an EP. You did good but there's a lot more work needed to finish some of these songs." However, the band did not want to shelve the project, as they believed they were on a "creative roll" and that they would be in a completely different frame of mind if they revisited the material six months later.

The group's solution was to fly back and forth between Dublin and their concert destinations for about ten days to finish recording and mixing at night and during their off-days. Clayton called the process "about the craziest thing you could do to yourself", while Mullen said of it, "It was mad, but it was mad good, as opposed to mad bad." McGuinness later said the band had nearly wrecked themselves in the process. The group simultaneously used three separate rooms at Windmill Lane to mix, overdub, and edit. Adams said the hectic approach meant "there was never anybody sitting around waiting or doing nothing". Flood called the period one of "absolute lunacy". Eschewing console automation, the engineers adopted a "live performance" attitude to mixing, based on past experiences with Lanois. The band and production crew sat in on the mixing and offered encouragement, creating, as Adams put it, "a kind of cheerleader thing. It all induces a nervous energy in you and creates a lot of pressure, and gives the whole thing a performance feel." Flood had to depart about a week prior to the completion of mixing due to prior obligations to produce Nine Inch Nails in Los Angeles. The recording of Zooropa concluded on 14 May 1993.

In the final weeks, the band decided to exclude the traditional rock songs and guitar-driven tracks they had written in favour of an "album of disjointed, experimental pop". The Edge received a production credit—his first on a U2 record —for the extra level of responsibility he assumed for the album. Twenty songs were recorded during the sessions, but ultimately 10 were chosen for the final track listing. One piece that was left off the record was "In Cold Blood", which featured somber lyrics written by Bono in response to the Bosnian War and was previewed prior to the album's release. Other tracks that were left off the album included "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me", "If God Will Send His Angels", "If You Wear That Velvet Dress", and "Wake Up Dead Man". The first was later released as a single from the Batman Forever soundtrack in 1995, and the latter three were included on the band's following studio album, Pop, in 1997.

Music
With an even more "European" musical aesthetic than Achtung Baby, Zooropa is a further departure from the group's "rootsy" sound of the late 1980s. Much like how the group embraced technology for the Zoo TV Tour, they utilized technology as a musical resource to a greater extent on Zooropa. The record exhibits additional influences from alternative rock, electronic dance music, and industrial music—it is more synthesised than U2's past work, featuring various sound effects, audio loops, and use of synthesisers. In addition to the Edge playing synthesiser, Brian Eno received credit for the instrument on six tracks.

The Edge's guitar playing on Zooropa marks a further shift away from his trademark style, highlighted by a heavier reliance on guitar effects and the songs' reduced emphasis on his guitar parts. The danceable "Lemon", called a "space-age German disco" by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, features a gated guitar part. The distorted "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" was described by Bono as "industrial blues". The instrumentation of the closing song, "The Wanderer", consists primarily of a synthesised bassline and was described by the group as resembling the "ultimate Holiday Inn band from hell". The song was sequenced as the final track because U2 wanted to end the album on a "musical joke".

Similar to how the Zoo TV Tour display screens sampled video footage from television programming, a number of songs from Zooropa sample audio. The introduction to the title track, "Zooropa", contains a noisy collage of indecipherable human voices from radio signals—credited to the "advertising world" —played over sustained synthesiser chords. The industrial-influenced "Numb" features a noisy backdrop of sampled, rhythmic noises, including "arcade sounds", a Walkman rewinding, and a Hitler Youth boy banging a bass drum in the 1935 propaganda film Triumph of the Will. "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" begins with a snippet of fanfare from Lenin's Favourite Songs and samples MC 900 Ft. Jesus' song "The City Sleeps".

The vocals on Zooropa are a further departure from U2's previous style. As Jon Pareles described, Bono "underplays his lung power" throughout the record, in contrast to his impassioned, belting vocals from past work. Additionally, in songs such as "Lemon" and "Numb", Bono sings in an operatic falsetto he calls the "Fat Lady" voice. Two tracks feature other people on lead vocals: for "Numb", the Edge provides lead vocals in the form of a droning, monotonous list of "don't" commands; for "The Wanderer", country musician Johnny Cash sings lead vocals, juxtaposing the electronic nature of the song with his haggard voice.

Lyrics
Bono is credited as the sole lyricist for eight of the ten songs, while the Edge received sole credit for "Numb". The duo share credits for the lyrics to "Dirty Day". Technology is a common theme on Zooropa, inspired by the group's experiences on the Zoo TV Tour. Jon Pareles wrote that the songs are about how "media messages infect characters' souls", while music journalist David Browne said the songs are concerned with "emotional fracturing in the techno-tronic age". Critic Robert Hilburn interpreted the album as U2 probing into what they saw as the "disillusionment of the modern age".

"Zooropa" is set amongst neon signs of a brightly lit futuristic city. In the song's introduction, background voices ask, "What do you want?" In response to the question, the lyrics in the first three verses consist of various advertising slogans, including, "Better by design", "Be all that you can be", and "Vorsprung durch technik". Critic Parry Gettelman interpreted these lines as meaning to "signify the emptiness of modern, godless life". In the song's second half, the theme of moral confusion and uncertainty is introduced, particularly in the lines "I have no compass / And I have no map".

"Babyface" is about a man practicing his obsessive love for a celebrity by manipulating her image on a TV recording. "Lemon", inspired by an old video of Bono's late mother in a lemon-coloured dress, describes man's attempts to preserve time through technology. This is reflected in lines such as, "A man makes a picture / A moving picture / Through the light projected he can see himself up close". The lyrics to "Numb" are a series of "don't" commands, amidst a noisy backdrop of sounds. The Edge notes that the song was inspired by one of the themes of Zoo TV, "that sense that you were getting bombarded with so much that you actually were finding yourself shutting down and unable to respond because there was so much imagery and information being thrown at you".

In contrast to the technology-inspired lyrics of many songs, others had more domestic themes. "The First Time" was Bono's interpretation of the story of the Prodigal son, but in his version, the son decides not to return home. Similarly, "Dirty Day" was written about a character who abandons his family and returns years later to meet his son. Many of the track's lyrics are taken from phrases that Bono's father commonly used, such as "No blood is thicker than ink" and "It won't last kissing time". "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" is a love song written for an abused woman.

Bono based his lyrics to "The Wanderer" on the Old Testament's Book of Ecclesiastes, and he modeled the song's character after the book's narrator, "The Preacher". In the song, the narrator wanders through a post-apocalyptic world "in search of experience", sampling all facets of human culture and hoping to find meaning in life. Bono described the song as an "antidote to the Zooropa manifesto of uncertainty", and he believes it presents a possible solution to the uncertainty expressed earlier on the album.

Packaging and title
The sleeve was designed by Works Associates of Dublin under the direction of Steve Averill, who had created the majority of U2's album covers. Brian Williams was the graphic designer and created the digital images and layout. Inspired by the Zoo TV Tour's "highly charged electronic TV images in all of their saturated colours and fizz", Works Associates conceived a "kind of electronic flag" for Zooropa. The cover features a sketch of the circle of stars from the Flag of Europe with an "astrobaby" drawing in the center. The illustration, created by Shaughn McGrath, was an alteration of the "graffiti babyface" by Charlie Whisker that was originally on the face of the Achtung Baby compact disc/vinyl record. The cover's drawing was meant to represent an urban legend of a Soviet cosmonaut supposedly left floating in orbit for weeks after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the background is a montage of blurred images, similar to the arrangement of images on Achtung Baby's sleeve. The images include shots of a woman's face and mouth, as well as photographs of European leaders, including Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini, and Nicolae Ceauşescu. These images are obscured by distorted purple text comprising the names of songs planned for the record that were provided to Works Associates during the sleeve design process. However, the album's track listing was eventually changed and the titles of several songs withheld from the album were accidentally left in the cover image; the songs include "Wake Up Dead Man", "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me", and "If You Wear That Velvet Dress". Author Višnja Cogan described this text as giving the impression of a "torn veil".

Zooropa was named for the "Zooropa" leg of the Zoo TV Tour, which began in May 1993 while the band completed the record. The name is a portmanteau of "zoo" (from Zoo TV Tour and "Zoo Station") and "Europa". During the album's production, one of the proposed titles was Squeaky.

Release
Zooropa completed U2's contractual obligation to Island Records, and to PolyGram, the multinational that purchased Island in 1989. Although the group were free to sign a new contract elsewhere, their strong relationship with the label and its founder Chris Blackwell prompted the band to remain with Island/Polygram by signing a long-term, six-album deal in June 1993. The Los Angeles Times estimated that the deal was worth US$60 million to U2, making them the highest-paid rock group ever. At the time, the group were cognizant of several emerging technologies that would potentially impact the delivery and transmission of music to consumers in the following years. Author Bill Flanagan speculated, "Record stores could become obsolete as music is delivered over cable, telephone wires, or satellite transmissions directly into consumers' homes." With uncertainty over the future of these technologies and the implications of entertainment and telecommunications companies merging, the band negotiated with Island that the division of their earnings from future transmission systems would be flexible and decided upon at a relevant time. U2 toyed with the idea of releasing Zooropa as an interactive audio-video presentation in lieu of conventional physical formats, but the deadline imposed by the Zoo TV Tour prevented the band from realising this idea.

U2's delivery of Zooropa in late May caught PolyGram somewhat off-guard, because they were not expecting a new album by the group for several years. With Achtung Baby, PolyGram had approximately six months to market the record and plan its release strategy, but the sudden completion of Zooropa necessitated a more hurried promotional plan. PolyGram president/CEO Rick Dobbis explained: "For the last one, we prepared for six months. It was like a marathon. But this is like a sprint, and that is the spirit it was made in. The band was so excited about it, they sprinted to complete the album before the ... tour. We want to bring it to the street with that same spirit." Island/PolyGram's and U2's marketing for Zooropa was intended to focus less on singles and more on the record as a whole, and ultimately, only three singles were released, compared to Achtung Baby's five singles. The first single "Numb" was released in June 1993 exclusively on VHS as a "video single". The music video was directed by Kevin Godley. The song peaked at number seven in Australia and number nine in Canada, while reaching number two on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. However, it failed to chart on the singles charts in the UK or US.

Zooropa was released on 5 July 1993, during the Zooropa leg of the Zoo TV Tour. An initial shipment of 1.6 million copies was made available in stores at the time of release. Two additional commercial singles were released from the album. "Lemon" received a limited commercial release in North America, Australia, and Japan in September 1993. The single peaked at number six in Australia and number three on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The final commercial single was "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)", released worldwide on 22 November 1993. It was the album's most successful single, topping the Irish Singles Chart and peaking at number five in Australia, number six in New Zealand, number four in the UK, and number 61 in the US —making it the record's only single to chart on the UK Singles Chart and Hot 100. "Zooropa" was released as a promotional single in Mexico and the United States.

Reissues
In October 2011, Achtung Baby was reissued to commemorate its 20th anniversary; CD copies of Zooropa were included in the "Super Deluxe" and "Über Deluxe" editions of the release. Continuing a campaign by U2 to reissue all of their records on vinyl, Zooropa was re-released on two 180-gram vinyl records on 27 July 2018. Remastered under the Edge's direction, the reissue included two remixes to commemorate the album's 25th anniversary: "Lemon (The Perfecto Mix)" and "Numb (Gimme Some More Dignity Mix)". Each copy includes a download card that can be used to redeem a digital copy of the album. To commemorate the album's 30th anniversary, in October 2023 the group will release a limited-edition yellow vinyl pressing of the album that contains a new photo from 1993 on the inner gatefold.

Critical reaction
Zooropa received generally favourable reviews from critics. Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone wrote in his four-star review that the album was "a daring, imaginative coda to Achtung Baby" and that "it is varied and vigorously experimental, but its charged mood of giddy anarchy suffused with barely suppressed dread provides a compelling, unifying thread". Spin wrote a positive review, commenting that the record "sounds mostly like a band shedding its skin, trying on different selves for size". The review said the album "has the feel of real collectivity", praising the cohesiveness of the individual band members' playing. The review concluded by saying Zooropa "indicates U2 might be worthy of whatever absurd mutations the '90s throw our way". Jon Pareles of The New York Times praised the group for transforming themselves and becoming "raucous, playful and ready to kick its old habits". Pareles enjoyed the sonics and electronic effects that made the "sound of a straightforward four-man band ... hard to find", and he commented that "The new songs seem destined not for stadiums ... but for late-night radio shows and private listenings through earphones." The Orlando Sentinel gave the record a rating of three-out-of-five stars, commenting, "Although U2 leans heavily on the electronic sound of contemporary dance music, the rhythm tracks on Zooropa are less than propulsive." The review said that Eno's production and the electronic flourishes made the album interesting, but that ultimately, "there's nothing especially hummable" and "the songs are not very memorable".

David Browne of Entertainment Weekly gave Zooropa an "A", calling it "harried, spontaneous-sounding, and ultimately exhilarating album". Browne judged it to sound "messy" and "disconnected", but clarified "that sense of incoherence is the point" in the context of the record's technology themes. He concluded, "For an album that wasn't meant to be an album, it's quite an album." Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times gave the record a maximum score of four stars. In two separate articles, he said that it "captured the anxious, even paranoid tone of the Zoo TV Tour" so much so that "it stands as the first tour album that doesn't include any of the songs from the tour" and yet sounds like a "souvenir" of Zoo TV. In a positive review, Jim Sullivan of The Boston Globe called the album a "creative stretch", noting that the band experimented more yet retained their recognizable sound. He commented that the group's "yearning anthemic reach" and "obvious, slinky pop charm" were replaced with "darker corners, more disruptive interjections, more moodiness". Paul Du Noyer of Q gave Zooropa a score of four-out-of-five stars, finding a "freewheeling feel of going with the flow" throughout the album and calling it "rootless and loose, restless and unsettled". For Du Noyer, U2 sounded "monstrously tight as a performing unit and fluidly inventive as composers, so the results transcend the merely experimental".

A review from The New Zealand Herald was more critical, saying that the album started as an EP and "just got longer but not necessarily better". The publication called it "more perplexing than challenging" and commented that it "sounds like the biggest band in the world having one of the biggest, strangest mid-life crises". Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun Times gave the record a three-and-a-half star review, calling it "inconsistent", but admitting "it's satisfying and surprising to hear a band of U2's status being so playful, experimental, and downright weird". Robert Christgau gave the album a B−, calling it "half an Eno album" in the same manner that David Bowie's Eno-produced albums Low and "Heroes" were, but saying, "The difference is that Bowie and Eno were fresher in 1977 than Bono and Eno are today." The Irish media were more critical in their reviews of the album; George Byrne of the Irish Independent said, "The songs sound like they were knocked up in double-quick time and with about as much thought put into the lyrics as goes into a DJ's timecheck". Byrne remarked that the record resembles "a lot of mickey-taking over a variety of drum patterns". In a retrospective, four-star review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic stated that "most of the record is far more daring than its predecessor". For him, although there were moments that the album was "unfocused and meandering ... the best moments of Zooropa rank among U2's most inspired and rewarding music".

Accolades
Zooropa finished in 9th place on the "Best Albums" list from The Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop critics' poll. At the 36th Annual Grammy Awards, it won the award for Best Alternative Music Album. In his acceptance speech, Bono sarcastically mocked the "alternative" characterisation the album received and used a profanity on live television: "I think I'd like to give a message to the young people of America. And that is: We shall continue to abuse our position and fuck up the mainstream." Zooropa was also nominated for Album of the Year at the 1993 GAFFA Awards in Denmark.

Commercial performance
The album performed well commercially, debuting at number one in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland. It also reached number one in the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, and Iceland. In the US, the album spent its first two weeks on the Billboard 200 at the top spot, staying in the top 10 for seven weeks. In its first week on sale, Zooropa sold 377,000 copies in the US, the group's best debut in the country to that point. The album reached the top 10 in 26 countries.

Despite reaching impressive peak positions, Zooropa had a shorter stay on the music charts than Achtung Baby did. In total, Zooropa spent 40 weeks on the Billboard 200, 61 fewer weeks than Achtung Baby. Zooropa spent 34 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, nine of which were in the top ten, but it charted in the UK for 59 fewer weeks than Achtung Baby.

According to Nielsen Soundscan, Zooropa sold 1.8 million copies in the US in 1993, the 22nd-highest total in the country that year, and by February 1997 sales in the US had reached 2.1 million copies. The album has been certified 2× Platinum in the US by the Recording Industry Association of America, 3× Platinum in Australia, Platinum in the UK, and 4× Platinum in both New Zealand and Canada. To date, it has sold more than 7 million copies.

Zoo TV Tour
The band began the Zoo TV Tour in February 1992 in support of Achtung Baby. In contrast to the austere stage setups of previous U2 tours, Zoo TV was an elaborate multimedia event. It satirised television and the viewing public's overstimulation by attempting to instill "sensory overload" in its audience. The stage featured large video screens that showed visual effects, random video clips from pop culture, and flashing text phrases. Live satellite link-ups, channel surfing, crank calls, and video confessionals were incorporated into the shows.

The Zooropa album was released in July 1993, halfway through the Zooropa leg of the tour. Of the 157 shows the band played during the Zoo TV Tour, approximately 30 of them were after the release of Zooropa. Many of the album's songs found permanent places in the shows' set lists. "Lemon" and "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car" were performed with Bono in his MacPhisto persona, during encores of the Zoomerang Leg of the tour. "Dirty Day" was also played on this leg after the acoustic set. "Numb" was performed with the Edge playing guitar and on lead vocals, with Mullen performing backing vocals while drumming. "Zooropa" was played only three times and "Babyface" twice more at the same shows on the Zooropa leg, but they were cut out of the set list after the band were displeased with how they sounded live. "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" was performed acoustically for the Zooropa and Zoomerang legs.

Legacy
Although the record was a success, in the years following its release, the group have regarded it with mixed feelings and rarely play its material in live performances. Bono said, "I thought of Zooropa at the time as a work of genius. I really thought our pop discipline was matching our experimentation and this was our Sgt. Pepper. I was a little wrong about that. The truth is our pop disciplines were letting us down. We didn't create hits. We didn't quite deliver the songs. And what would Sgt. Pepper be without the pop songs?" The Edge said that he did not think the songs were "potent", further stating, "I never thought of Zooropa as anything more than an interlude... but a great one, as interludes go. By far our most interesting." Clayton said, "It's an odd record and a favourite of mine." In 2005, Bono claimed that the album's track "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" is "perhaps the greatest U2 song".

After the release of Zooropa, David Bowie praised the band, writing, "[U2] might be all shamrocks and deutsche marks to some, but I feel that they are one of the few rock bands even attempting to hint at a world which will continue past the next great wall—the year 2000." In 2023, Steven Hyden of Uproxx echoed Bowie's sentiments in a 30th anniversary retrospective on Zooropa: "U2 dared to imagine something that in the present moment seems to be of little common interest: the future... I mean the future as it stood in the '90s, when people looked beyond the 20th century and envisioned a radically different world emerging from a period of political and cultural uncertainty." Hyden felt that U2 had been guided by uncertainty for the record, calling it "artistically successful in that it set out to evoke an increasingly incoherent world by making anyone who heard it also feel incoherent". He believed that unlike other alternative rock albums from 1993, Zooropa was even more relevant in 2023 than when first released, and that it had not become dated: "And that's because the world U2 thought they were commenting on in 1993 was in reality just coming into existence, and it's the world we're living in now." He added, "Above all, Zooropa summons the modern desire to unplug from the grid and reconnect with something 'real' or 'authentic.'"

Edna Gundersen of USA Today said in 2002, "the alien territory of Achtung Baby and Zooropa cemented U2's relevance and enhanced its cachet as intrepid explorers". Neil McCormick wrote about Zooropa, "It feels like a minor work, and generally U2 don't do minor. But if you're not going to make the Big Statement, you're maybe going to come up with something that has the oxygen of pop music." In 1997, Ann Powers of Spin wrote, "Zooropa took U2 as far from the monastic mysticism of The Joshua Tree as they could go. It freed U2 from itself." In 2013, the magazine published an article by Rob Harvilla that called Zooropa the album that almost killed U2's career. Harvilla referred to the album as "a weird blip best understood as a portent of the burps that followed, a mega-band dipping a big toe into murky art-rock waters before belly-flopping completely with Pop and its subsequent crass, costly, cred-depleting tour misadventures." While lamenting the band's latter-career creative output, he added: "Mark this record, then, as a celebration of a time when U2 was still musically daring; give 'Lemon' credit at least for successfully trolling you. It is the maddening, befuddling, discomfiting, somewhat ill-advised, occasionally inspired sound of very famous, very difficult men trying on some ill-fitting clothes." In 2011, Rolling Stone ranked the record at number 61 on its list of "100 Best Albums of the Nineties".

Track listing
Notes
 * After "The Wanderer" fades out at 4:41, a "hidden track", consisting of a ringing alarm used to alert disc jockeys of "dead air", starts at 5:13 and plays for 30 seconds.
 * The 2018 vinyl reissue splits the original album's ten tracks over sides 1–3, with the bonus tracks appearing on side 4.

Personnel
Adapted from the liner notes.

U2
 * Bono – vocals, guitar
 * The Edge – guitar, piano, synthesisers, vocals
 * Adam Clayton – bass guitar
 * Larry Mullen Jr. – drums, percussion, backing vocals

Additional musicians
 * Brian Eno – synthesisers, piano, arcade sounds, backing vocals, loops, strings, harmonium
 * Des Broadbery – loops (tracks 2, 6, 7)
 * Flood – loops (6, 10)
 * Johnny Cash – lead vocals (10)

Production

 * Flood – production, mixing, engineering
 * Brian Eno – production
 * The Edge – production
 * Anne-Louise Kelly – album production manager
 * Robbie Adams – engineering
 * Willie Mannion – engineering and mixing assistance
 * Rob Kirwan – engineering and mixing assistance (tracks 1–7, 9)
 * Mary McShane – engineering and mixing assistance (3)
 * Suzanne Doyle – studio production manager

 * Arnie Acosta – mastering
 * Stewart Whitmore – digital editing
 * Cheryl Engels – post production coordinator
 * Terry Cromer – additional recording facilities (Audio Engineering)
 * Julian Douglas – additional recording facilities (Audio Engineering)
 * Steve Averill – art direction
 * Brian Williams – design, computer treatments
 * Shaughn McGrath – baby illustration

title: Zooropa


text:
MD5CRK

In cryptography, MD5CRK was a volunteer computing effort (similar to distributed.net) launched by Jean-Luc Cooke and his company, CertainKey Cryptosystems, to demonstrate that the MD5 message digest algorithm is insecure by finding a collision – two messages that produce the same MD5 hash. The project went live on March 1, 2004. The project ended on August 24, 2004 after researchers independently demonstrated a technique for generating collisions in MD5 using analytical methods by Xiaoyun Wang, Feng, Xuejia Lai, and Yu. CertainKey awarded a 10,000 Canadian Dollar prize to Wang, Feng, Lai and Yu for their discovery.

A technique called Floyd's cycle-finding algorithm was used to try to find a collision for MD5. The algorithm can be described by analogy with a random walk. Using the principle that any function with a finite number of possible outputs placed in a feedback loop will cycle, one can use a relatively small amount of memory to store outputs with particular structures and use them as "markers" to better detect when a marker has been "passed" before. These markers are called distinguished points, the point where two inputs produce the same output is called a collision point. MD5CRK considered any point whose first 32 bits were zeroes to be a distinguished point.

Complexity
The expected time to find a collision is not equal to $$2^{N}$$ where $$N$$ is the number of bits in the digest output. It is in fact $$2^N! \over {(2^N - K)! \times {2^N}^K}$$, where $$K$$ is the number of function outputs collected.

For this project, the probability of success after $$K$$ MD5 computations can be approximated by: $$1 \over { 1 - e^{K \times (1-K) \over 2^{N+1} } }$$.

The expected number of computations required to produce a collision in the 128-bit MD5 message digest function is thus: $${1.17741 \times 2^{N/2}} = {1.17741 \times 2^{64}}$$

To give some perspective to this, using Virginia Tech's System X with a maximum performance of 12.25 Teraflops, it would take approximately $${2.17 \times 10^{19} / 12.25 \times 10^{12} \approx 1,770,000} $$ seconds or about 3 weeks. Or for commodity processors at 2 gigaflops it would take 6,000 machines approximately the same amount of time.

title: MD5CRK


text:
Euphuism

Euphuism is a peculiar mannered style of English prose. It takes its name from a prose romance by John Lyly. It consists of a preciously ornate and sophisticated style, employing a deliberate excess of literary devices such as antitheses, alliterations, repetitions and rhetorical questions. Classical learning and remote knowledge of all kinds are displayed. Euphuism was fashionable in the 1580s, especially in the Elizabethan court. Its origins can be traced back to Spanish writer Antonio de Guevara, whose ornate, manierist courtesan prose became very popular throughout Europe, and whose work The Clock of the Princes, translated into English in 1557 by Thomas North, reached its peak in popularity during Elizabeth I's reign.

Euphues (1580)

"Euphues" (εὐφυής) is the Greek for "graceful, witty". John Lyly published the works Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and Euphues and his England (1580). Both works illustrated the intellectual fashions and favourite themes of Renaissance society— in a highly artificial and mannered style. The plots are unimportant, existing merely as structural elements on which to display conversations, discourses and letters mostly concerning the subject of love. Its essential features had already appeared in such works as George Pettie's A Petite Pallace of Pettie his pleasure (1576), in sermon literature, and Latin tracts. Lyly perfected the distinctive rhetorical devices on which the style was based.

Principles
The euphuistic sentence followed principles of balance and antithesis to their extremes, purposely using the latter regardless of sense. John Lyly set up three basic structural principles:

 * phrases of equal length that appear in succession
 * the balance of key verbal elements in successive sentences
 * the correspondence of sounds and syllables, especially between words that are already balanced against each other

Examples
"It is virtue, yea virtue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor rich, the base-born noble, the subject a sovereign, the deformed beautiful, the sick whole, the weak strong, the most miserable most happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason; the one commandeth, and the other obeyeth: these things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, neither age abolish". (Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit)

"Is it not far better to abhor sins by the remembrance of others' faults, than by repentance of thine own follies?" (''Euphues, 1, lecture by the wise Neapolitan)

"Can any treasure in this transitory pilgrimmage be of more value than a friend? In whose bosom thou mayest sleep secure without fear, whom thou mayest make partner of all thy secrets without suspicion of fraud, and partaker of all thy misfortune without mistrust of fleeting. Who will account thy bale his bane, thy mishap his misery, the pricking of thy finger the piercing of his heart." (Euphues)

"How frantic are those lovers which are carried away with the gay glistering of the fine face? The beauty whereof is parched with the summer's blaze and chipped with the winter's blast: which is of so short continuance, that it fadeth before one perceive it flourish". (Euphues' after-dinner speech to the 'coy' Neapolitan ladies on whether the qualities of the mind or the composition of the man are more worthy).

"Time hath weaned me from my mother's teat, and age rid me from my father's correction". (Lucilla, considering her father's reaction in abandoning her fiance Philanthus for Euphues).

"A sharp sore hath a short cure" (Euphues)

"As they be hard to be won without trial of great faith, so are they hard to be lost without great cause of fickleness". (Euphues to Lucilla on the quality of 'fervency' in women).

"But alas Euphues, what truth can there be found in a traveller? What stay in a stranger? Whose words and bodies both watch but for a wind, whose feet are ever fleeting, whose faith plighted on the shore, is turned to perjury when they hoist sail". (Lucilla to Euphues).

Legacy
Many critics did not appreciate Lyly's deliberate excesses. Philip Sidney and Gabriel Harvey castigated his style, as did Aldous Huxley in his book On the Margin: Notes and Essays, who wrote, "Take away from Lyly his erudition and his passion for antithesis, and you have Mrs. Ros."

Lyly's style, however, influenced Shakespeare, who satirised it in speeches by Polonius and Osric in Hamlet and the florid language of the courtly lovers in Love's Labour's Lost; Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing also made use of it, as did Richard and Lady Anne in Richard III. It was taken up by the Elizabethan writers Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge and Barnabe Rich. Walter Scott satirised it in the character of Sir Piercie Shafton in The Monastery, while Charles Kingsley defended Euphues in Westward Ho!.

Contemporary equivalents in other languages
Euphuism was not particular to Britain, nor a manifestation of some social structure or artistic opportunity unique to that country. There were equivalents in other major European languages, each of which was called by a different name: culteranismo in Spain, Marinismo in Italy, and préciosité in France, for example.

title: Euphuism


text:
Agumon

Agumon (アグモン) is a fictional character from the Japanese multimedia franchise Digimon. He is a reptile-like Digimon who has appeared in various parts of the Digimon franchise including anime, manga, toys, video games, trading card games, and other media.

Creation and development
Agumon was created by Kenji Watanabe for the Digital Monster Virtual Pet in 1997 and was created to be a dinosaur that would be able to be taken on a stroll. While creating the Digimon Adventure short, director Mamoru Hosoda wanted to focus on Tai and Kari's relationship with Koromon, the Digimon that appeared in their house. The main theme of the movie was how Tai and Kari had problems interacting with the Digimon as across its multiple forms, he is either silent or talkative. Due to time constraints, Hosoda claimed that the friendship presented was one-dimensional.

Hosoda further elaborated on the bond between Agumon and Tai as they are allies despite being from different ways and expressed a challenge about how it was possible that Tai could help his partner during the battles. As a result, he felt the friendship between Agumon and Tai be deeper based on the latter's dilemma. He wants to make Digimon give complete confidence to the humans and thus wanted to give an scenario in for the second OVA to how Tai could help Agumon become stronger and defeat the villain, Diaboromon. That's the part I want to let "miracles" take care of. Not to resolve the plot conveniently, but to overcome real issues like this. Taichi and their friends don't need to help their partner in the Digital World, but just be by their side. Hosoda wanted people to understand that is the important thing. "On the first glance, it looks like they triggered a "miracle" at that moment, but what they really overcame was that psychological limit". Through this film, Hosoda wanted to make sure Agumon was not a pet and instead a friend to Tai.

In regards to the series' reboot, director Masato Mitsuka claimed that their "important task is to make sure things come across to the viewer as cool". He says he found it difficult to think about how to show "cool" action sequences using the physics of the Digimon and especially Greymon, compared to Son Goku from Dragon Ball Super and his panoply of attacks. "The Digimon will reach Ultimate-level very quickly, so in the long run, the time Agumon will actively spend as an Adult-level Greymon will be gone... [...] Still, we were very enthusiastic about wanting to show off the pride of an Adult-level."; "Ultimate-level Omegamon is one of the most impressive "symbols" of Digimon, still to this day, with many derivatives [...] its appearance and the when and how were determined even before I was brought into the project. [...] Special circumstances have made it so that there aren't many occasions with a proper action-like depiction of Omegamon, he's always been protected for very particular moments. But I wanted to depict him as the miracle that appears after overcoming great difficulties. May each of his appearances in this new TV series be a chance to make him fight powerful enemies, while displaying his strength and a status of crisis saviour." explains Masato Mitsuka.

In Japanese, Agumon is voiced by Chika Sakamoto. In English the role is taken by and Tom Fahn (Agumon) MJ Lallo/Philece Sampler/Brianne Siddall did Koromon while Doug Erholtz voiced SkullGreymon. Michael Lindsay/Kyle Hebert voiced Greymon, and Joseph Pilato/Kyle Hebert voiced MetalGreymon, and Lex Lang/Kyle Hebert voiced WarGreymon. In the Adventure movie, Peggy O'Neal voiced Botamon, Michael Sorich Agumon - Adventure Movie, and Bob Papenbrook Greymon.

Taiki Matsuno and Brian Beacock voice the 2006 version of Agumon in Digimon Data Squad.

Virtual pets
Agumon debuted in the Digital Monster Ver.1 on June 26, 1997. It has since appeared in most Digimon virtual pet releases, in which Agumon has achieved hundreds of different digivolutions.

Video games
Agumon appears in almost every single Digimon video game, though a few of its appearances only feature the 2006 re-design from Digimon Data Squad rather than the original 1997 design. Across the video games Agumon has achieved hundreds of different digivolutions.

Digimon Adventure media
Agumon first appeared in the original video animation (OVA) Digimon as a recently born Digimon who befriends the toddlers Tai Kamiya and Kari Kamiya. As it bonds with them, it evolves. When a giant Digimon known as Parrotmon invades the city, the two engage in fight. Agumon is nearly defeated but regains consciousness when Tai plays the whistle. Shortly afterwards, Agumon disappears alongside his enemy.

Agumon later appears in the anime Digimon Adventure as Tai's partner Digimon when the human finds himself lost in the Digital World. He is simple-minded, but he always believes Tai has the best interests for the team and trusts him as a friend. His other forms are Botamon (ボタモン) (Baby), Koromon (コロモン) (In-training), and Greymon (グレイモン) (Champion). Tai finds an item known as Crest of Courage, he forces Greymon to reach a new evolution form SkullGreymon (スカルグレイモン) but it becomes berserk and attacks all his allies. When becoming tired, SkullGreymon returns to his Koromon form and Tai requests forgiveness for acting so reckless. Agumon reaches his appropriate Ultimate form, MetalGreymon (メタルグレイモン), when Tai unawarely shows bravery to save Sora and defeat Etemon. The fight results in Tai and Koromon finding themselves in the human world where Kari confuses him for the other Koromon from the OVA. Tai and Koromon eventually return to the Digital World to aid their friends. During the battle against the stronger VenomMyotismon, Tai and Agumon are given new powers thanks to Angewomon's arrow allowing the Digimon to take the Mega Digimon. WarGreymon (ウォーグレイモン). After saving the Digital World from the Dark Masters and Apocalymon, Agumon says Tai farewell as the latter returns to the human world.

In the OVA Our War Game, Agumon travels the web alongside Tentomon, Patamon and Gabumon to defeat Diaboromon, who hacks The Pentagon to launch an LGM-118 Peacekeeper missile at Tokyo. WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon are beaten up by Diaboromon but when Tai and Matt enter the internet and received mails encouraging them to win, the two Mega Digimon combine to become the warrior Omnimon (オメガモン) and kill Diaboromon.

In Digimon Adventure 02 Agumon is kidnapped by Ken Ichijoji who forces him to evolve into SkullGreymon and later MetalGreymon (Virus) (メタルグレイモン (ウィルス種）) as his puppet. He is saved by Garurumon and Raildramon as they destroy the item that made Ken control him.

Agumon also has access to an alternate Mega form called Agumon (Bond of Bravery) (アグモン -勇気の絆-), a Digivolution forged by the bond between Agumon and Tai.

In the 2020 Digimon Adventure reboot, Agumon is one of six legendary Digimon that fought and destroyed Millenniummon in the ancient past, dying in the process and being reborn. Like in the original series, he is partnered with Tai Kamiya and along with his original digivolutions, he can become MetalGreymon Alterous Mode, a Mode Change of his Ultimate form MetalGreymon that has an arm cannon, a corrupted Mega form in a partially formed Machinedramon (ムゲンドラモン) and an alternate Mega form called BlitzGreymon caused by an adaptive digivolution. Agumon often acts as the powerhouse of the team, particularly after he digivolves to Mega, becoming the most often appearing Mega Digimon. As WarGreymon, he destroys ZeedMillenniummon once and for all when he's resurrected, using a Terra Force powered by the hopes of all of the Digimon that the DigiDestined have met along the way and the power of Goddramon and Holydramon. Agumon has a strong bond with Tai, able to pick his real partner out amongst a number of Algomon replicas when he is put to the test. In the series finale, Agumon gains a digivolution, becoming Omegamon Alter-S to destroy Abbadomon. At the end of the series, rather than returning to the Real World like the other Chosen Ones and their partners, Taichi chooses to stay in the Digital World with Agumon and continue their adventures together.

Digimon Data Squad
Agumon was re-designed for Digimon Data Squad, with this version of Agumon considered a different species under the name Agumon (2006 anime version) (アグモン（2006アニメ版）). It appears as the partner of Marcus Damon and has a completely different Digivolution line, having access to the forms GeoGreymon (ジオグレイモン), RizeGreymon (ライズグレイモン), ShineGreymon (シャイングレイモン), ShineGreymon Burst Mode (シャイングレイモン：バーストモード), ShineGreymon Ruin Mode (シャイングレイモン ルインモード), and Agumon Burst Mode (アグモン：バーストモード)

Other anime
Agumon cameos in the rest of the Digimon anime, with both Tai's Agumon and Marcus' Agumon appearing in Digimon Fusion as part of a cross-over.

Manga
Agumon appears in the first ever Digimon Manga C'mon Digimon with a different design than what was used in other media, having been redesigned by Tenya Yabuno. This design was never used again. Agumon also appears in Digimon Next as the partner of Tsurugi Tatsuno. It initially appears in its 1997 design, only to mutate into its 2006 design during the course of the story, which causes it to go down the same digivolution line as Marcus Damon's Agumon - only with VictoryGreymon (ビクトリーグレイモン) as its Mega form. Tai's Agumon's appears during a cross-over in the Digimon Fusion manga and Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01, with Tai's Agumon meeting his alternate universe counterparts. Finally, various Agumon cameo in the rest of Digimon's Mangas.

Manhua
Tai's Agumon appears in the various Manhua made by Yuen Wong Yu.

Trading cards
Agumon has appeared on a large amount of cards in the various Digimon trading card games. Across the trading cards Agumon has achieved hundreds of different digivolutions.

Live action
Agumon appears as the protagonist in the 2020 live action short Welcome to Digimon World. It appears as Pulsemon's rival in the 2021 live action shorts Digimon Project 2021.

Reception
UK Anime Network felt that Agumon was the franchise' mascot as an answer to Pikachu from Pokémon and felt the former was more appealing due to his continuous evolutions fight scenes in the 1990s. IGN Agumon's relationship with Tai which made one of the most popular characters from the '90s. In a poll he was voted as the 5th "Which catcher/trainer would take home the gold?" IGN listed how Tai forces Agumon to evolve into SkullGreymon as one of the best moments from the first Digimon anime. Additionally, Tai and Koromon's brief return to the real world as listed as another moment due to Tai's brief interactions with his younger sister, Kari. DVD Talk saw Agumon as a fanfavorite character, being the cause to why Toei reused another incarnation of the character as a protagonist in Digimon Data Squad. The evolution of Omegamon in Tri was noted to be an entertaining idea Toei used in the first film of the series but felt the execution was poorly handled. The Fandom Post felt that Agumon's inability to console Tai in Tri when wondering about the dangers the fights can cause is well written with visuals helping to create a good scene. However, the writer felt that Omegamon's fight against Alphamon was anticlimactic as the writing was instead more focused on Tai's concerns.

Critics also commented on Agumon's role in Last Evolution Kizuna. IGN praised how Augmon visited Tai's home in the film, giving it a more mature feeling as appealing as fight sequences. HobbyConsolas praised the dilemma presented in the movie as the more Agumon and Gabumon fight, the less time they have to interact with their friends, giving a major emotional impact in the narrative. Anime News Network criticized how the film primarily focused on Agumon and Gabumon's relationships with their partners as the rest of the cast do not carry such importance. Inside Pulse felt the emotional value was presented in the film not only due to the fact Agumon will never be with Tai again but also because it has been nearly twenty years since the first series' premiere and the story concludes the events of the original series' canon. Joshua Seth and Tom Fahn reflect on what might be their final vocal sessions as Tai and Agumon. Little did either of them know that a job two decades ago would last so long.

For the original series' reboot, Polygon criticized the heavy focus on Agumon and Gabumon's evolutions and fights as, sometimes, the rest of the cast members feel too minor. Anime News Network's writers were divided about the handling of Agumon in the premiere as while his design remains appealing, his early evolution into Greymon lacks a reason to explain how he has such powers. Christopher Farris from the same site praised how Agumon was supported by Tai to become Greymon and how it later merges with Garurumon to create an enjoyable fight sequence as the warrior Omegamon. Crunchyroll described the reboot's Agumon as more likable than the original due to his constant fights he is involved rather than the original childish Agumon. Comic Book Resources claimed fans were divided in regards to the handling of the main cast in the premiere as Greymon and Garurumon combine into Omegamon despite lacking the strength the original canon needed in order to reach this form. When the reboot introduced DoneDevimon as a villain, Anime News Network praised MetalGreymon's "Dark Evolution" into Mugendramon due to the chaotic scenario presented as the character became enraged when Tai was eaten by the villain. When Mugendramon's evolution is reversed as Agumon regains his senses and instead becomes the original Final Form WarGreymon was praised for the visuals and other elements that helped to make the episode one of the best in the series. The Fandom Post compared this episode to the original canon to when Agumon became the berserker SkullGreymon but believed the reboot was done in a better fashion. However, he still felt that the evolution as lackluster. Once Agumon becomes WarGreymon again, the same site called it "was the saving grace of this episode" based on how the evolution was handled and claimed that it was important as he considered Agumon the franchise's mascot, thus needing an appealing evolution sequence.

Agumon's meeting with BlackWarGreymon was praised for starting one of the deepest interactions-related existential crises: while Agumon was born from an egg, BlackWarGreymon is an artificial Digimon, giving rise to the latter's inferiority complex and depressive search for meaning in his life. Agumon's mental is tested when he is forced to evolve into SkullGreymon as a combination of stress and coward. Crunchyroll agreed, finding this episode showed Tai's flaws for the first time in the anime and how it resulted in SkullGreymon's evolution and how Agumon's evolution into a berserker creature distanced him from the more friendly Pokémon.

title: Agumon


text:
Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant

Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant (12 September 1800, Monflanquin – 29 October 1872) was a leading French chess master and an editor of the chess periodical Le Palamède. He is best known for losing a match against Howard Staunton in 1843 that is often considered to have been an unofficial match for the World Chess Championship.

Chess career
Saint-Amant learned chess from Wilhelm Schlumberger, who later became the operator of The Turk. He played at the Café de la Régence, where he was a student of Alexandre Deschapelles. For many years he played on level terms with Boncourt, a strong player, and received odds of pawn and two moves from Deschapelles and Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais. In 1834–36, he led a Paris team that won both games of a correspondence match against the Westminster Club, then England's leading chess club. After La Bourdonnais' death in 1840, he was considered the country's best player. In December 1841 he revived Le Palamède (at its inception in 1836 the world's first chess periodical), which ran until 1847.

He played two matches against Staunton in 1843. The first, in London, he won 3½–2½ (three wins, one draw, two losses), but he lost a return match in Paris just before Christmas 13–8 (six wins, four draws, eleven losses). This second match is sometimes considered an unofficial world championship match.

In 1858, Saint-Amant played in the Birmingham tournament, a event. He won in the first round, but lost in the second by a 2–1 score to Ernst Falkbeer. Returning to Paris, he witnessed the adulatory reception accorded Paul Morphy at the Café de la Régence. The score of one game between them is known, a 22-move rout by Morphy of Saint-Amant and his consultation partner, given as "F. de L." or "F. de L'A".

Outside of chess
Saint-Amant became a government clerk in Paris at an early age. He then served as the secretary to the governor of French Guiana from 1819 to 1821. He was dismissed from that appointment after he protested against the slave trade that still existed in that colony. After that, he tried his hand as a journalist and actor, then became a successful wine merchant. He was a captain in the French National Guard during the 1848 revolution. For his role in saving the Palais des Tuileries from destruction by the mob, he was made its Governor for a few months. In 1851–52, he was the French consul to California. He visited during this period the Territory of Oregon, witnessed a period of transition for the early settlements and wrote one of the few records available on this period. Upon returning to France he spent some years writing well-regarded works on the French colonies, and a treatise on the wines of Bordeaux.

In 1861 Saint-Amant retired to Algeria. He died there in 1872 after being thrown from his carriage.

Notable games
Reuben Fine writes that although Saint-Amant lost his epic match against Staunton, in the 13th match game, playing White, "he at least had the satisfaction of winning the most brilliant game."

 * 1. d4 e6 2. c4 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 c5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. a3 Be7 7. Bd3 0-0 8. 0-0 b6 9. b3 Bb7 10. cxd5 exd5 11. Bb2 cxd4 12. exd4 Bd6 13. Re1 a6 14. Rc1 Rc8 15. Rc2 Rc7 16. Rce2 Qc8 17. h3 Nd8 18. Qd2 b5 19. b4 Ne6 20. Bf5 Ne4 21. Nxe4 dxe4 22. d5 (first diagram) exf3 22...Bf4! was essential. 23. Rxe6! Qd8 (second diagram) Of course not 23...fxe6 24.Bxe6+, winning the queen. 24. Bf6 gxf6 25. Rxd6! Kg7 If 25...Qxd6, 26.Qh6 forces mate. Black could resign here. 26. Rxd8 Rxd8 27. Be4 fxg2 28. Qf4 Rc4 29. Qg4+ Kf8 30. Qh5 Ke7 31. d6+ Kxd6 32. Bxb7 Kc7 33. Bxa6 Rc3 34. Qxb5

In the 9th match game, Saint-Amant had pulled off a swindle that grandmaster Andrew Soltis considers the greatest ever perpetrated in match play.

title: Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant