PASSENGERS!  What the heck is it?  In short, it's a musical collaboration
by the members of U2 and Brian Eno.  Brian Eno is a longtime producer
of U2 (The Unforgettable Fire, Achtung Baby, Zooropa) and has taken
somewhat of a "backseat" (at least officially) in the actual musical 
development.  This time around though, U2 are "passengers" on this vehicle 
driven by Brian Eno!  OS1 started out as being a sequel of sorts to a
series of albums called "Music for Films" that Eno made in the 70's.  
The idea was for U2 to really open up creatively, to explore some more
abstract music, uninhibited by what might be expected from the band.  
These two things are probaby the main reasons for the band using the
moniker "Passengers".  It seems the boys were also figuring that most
of their fans wouldn't like this new direction, and so didn't want to
mislead anyone by calling it the next U2 album.  Here are a couple quotes
from the band on this album:

	"For us this is an opportunity to get all this stuff out that
         there really isn't room for on our own records" - Adam Clayton

	"We wanted to make an album in six weeks" - Bono

	"This album doesn't sound like anything you'd expect from either
	 of us" - Brian Eno

	"Soundtracks are a very freeing thing.  In one way, they're a 
         licence to be self-indulgent, but out of the experimentation 
         and the fun of just making noise and music, you can discover 
         many kinds of song potential." - Bono

	"[we don't want to alienate our audience] but at the same time,
	 we love what's going on in the underground and we need a place
	 for that side of us too." - Bono

	
Passengers are:
  Brian Eno, Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jnr
  and featuring extra passengers: 
  Opera great Luciano Pavarotti, dj and mixmaster Howie B, 
  and Japanese singer Holi.

The Linear notes of Passenger's "Original Soundtracks 1" contain a few 
surprises:

The movie descriptions (mostly completely fictional!) were written
by Ben O'Rian and C.S.J. Bofop.  

The first name is a simple anagram for Brian Eno and the second
is a bit more tricky:
    Shift each letter to the left by one character, and you get:
    CSJBO FOP
       <<<<< <<<
       BRIAN ENO

!!!!
    


Some more interesting stuff:

The director of the film "United Colours of Plutonium", Kobayashi
is the singer on Ito Okashi.

Under the description for "Slug" these two names are meantioned:
Peter Von Heineken is a joke on U2's manager, Paul McGuiness.  
Say Jutta Minnit quickly and you get "Just a minute" - another inside joke?!

For "Always Forever Now" we have further anagrams:
Venda Davis unscrambles to David Evans (Edge's real name),
Tanya McLoad unscrambles to Adam Clayton 
Kiley Sue LaLonne unscrambles to  Anne-Louise Kelly (the album production manager)
Pi Hoo Sun is phonetic for P. Hewson, (Paul Hewson is Bono's real name).

For "Ito Okashi (Something Beautiful)":
"the face of a child drawn on a melon" - a reference to the the "babyface"
on the Achtung Baby CD (the CD itself) which also wears a space helmet on the
cover of Zooropa, and the "Melon" remixes CD (for Propaganda subscribers).

For "Hypnotize (Love me 'til Dawn)":
Evans is The Edge's real last name
Tony Corbin = Anton Corbijn (a famous photogropher - he did the
cover of The Joshua Tree as well as many U2 photo shoots)

For "Lets Go Native":
Barry Boedders is one "r" away from being an anagram for 
Des Broadbery (one of the "studio crew", also credited with doing the
sequencers on Always Forever Now.

[this information was compiled from Wire (the U2 mailing list) and a couple
 other sites - I don't have _that_ much free time!]

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