Pop ....

[ShipOfFools]

Pop is a great U2 album.

 

[monsieur fly]

Well, I sort of explained already below:



I'll elaborate if you like:

First of all the title and concept of "The Playboy Mansion" while I understand is a comparison to Heaven and while I think it's an awesome idea, it is a Western 20th century concept.

Some of the lines below are what really date the song:

If coke is a mystery
Michael Jackson, history
If beauty is truth
And surgery the fountain of youth...

What am I to do?
Have I got the gifts to get me through
The gates of that mansion

If O.J. is more than a drink
And a Big Mac bigger than you think
And perfume is an obsession
And talk shows confession

People and things like OJ, Coke, Obsession, Big Macs and even Michael Jackson are not really universal themes. Like I said in my quote above, if someone were to listen to this song 500 years in the future would they understand what Bono is talking about?

I'm sorry but I completely disagree with this. So what if it is a 20th century western concept- it isn't U2's job to represent what you'd no doubt call "the diversity of experience". What's wrong with using 20th century western concepts anyway? And yes, of course the references are of their time but that's the whole point of good satire- not everything U2 writes has to be crammed full of vague, stadium-filling themes like love and peace and faith. That's why people got tired of them in the eighties. In fact, I like this song precisely because it does sum up a particular place at a particular time- Pop is of great value to future generations who want to understand what it was like to live in the fin de siecle west.

 

[ShipOfFools]

What I love about the Michael Jackson name dropping in The Playboy Mansion is that it has a double meaning. It could mean that Michael Jackson's career was over, or it could mean the album HIStory (which MJ had just released around the time that Pop was written.)

It's a clever pop culture reference and play on words.

 

[rjhbonovox]

One thing that seldom gets said about Pop is that it is really dark. I would say it is by far U2's angriest and more despairing set of songs.

Yup the original Q review of this album gave it 4 stars and had the headline Bleak. Probably cos of the way it ends "Jesus help me, I'm alone in this world and a fucked up world it is to"

 

[kennerado]

Those lines are not really dated, MJ is still in the news and so is OJ, who was just sentenced to that jail term.

 

[coolian2]

Those lines are not really dated, MJ is still in the news and so is OJ, who was just sentenced to that jail term.

more luck than judgement.


i love the playboy mansion, in saying that. i think it's better than miami, which i consider the weakest track on pop, but still love.

 

[Acrobatic]

POP is a SOLID album. One that you can listen to start to finish without disappointment. I put it in my Car CD regularly and have been listening to it all week.

The sad part is, and maybe it's my stereo, you just don't get the same effect with Wake Up Dead Man and Velvet Dress as you would with headphones. Way too much to appreciate with those two songs to listen on a crappy soundsystem.

Discotheque - excellent starter. Probably one of their best openers next to Streets and Zooropa
Do You Feel Loved - not sure how they could have "finished this one" great vibe. I think Adam was in great form all the way through this album
MOFO - the title says it all. If you want to get pumped, this song gets you rolling. I still have flashbacks of Bono walking out in his Boxing garb at RFK through the crowd.
IGWSHA - time to chill out for a moment. Great to set the pace and slow things down for a few minutes.
SATS - picking up the pace a little, nice Summer song. Feels good
LNOE - ready to change it up a little. Setting the scene for the next few.
Gone - now we're taking off. Great song to pick up the second half of the album and one of my top 10 (as difficult as it is to pick a top 10).
Miami - Now they change it up a little. WTF - wait, I like this tune. He says it all - MIAMI! That should sum it up enough. If you can't figure that out, take a road trip.
PM - What better song on the album to follow Miami - I think they got it right. Stop analyzing and get the picture.
Velvet Dress - Let's close this album with a bang. This song has vibe and even my non-U2 friends think this song is excellent. So fuck the POP critics!
Please - OK they now just got your attention, welcome to the end. Probably one of my personal favorites and more than likely the epitome of POP as a whole.
WUDM - enough can't be said about this song. Once again, my non-U2 friends have way too much appreciation for this song if not alone for all the layers and changes. This song fits perfectly as a closer when matched up with their other final tracks - personal and therapeutic! Not to mention, I love it!

Sorry for the lack of development on the analysis but I'm not one to write a book, otherwise I'd get stuck one page 1.

I'd love to see what they (U2) think would be a perfect redo of this but why mess with an excellent work of art. Stop thinking too much and keep making great music!

 

[monsieur fly]

What I love about the Michael Jackson name dropping in The Playboy Mansion is that it has a double meaning. It could mean that Michael Jackson's career was over, or it could mean the album HIStory (which MJ had just released around the time that Pop was written.)

It's a clever pop culture reference and play on words.

Agreed- one of Bono's best double-entendres.

 

[hadtowin]

POP sounds like nothing else on earth. It's astonishing.

 

[Aardvark747]

Listened to the album in full (for the first time in ages) whilst driving today. Lovely stuff

 

[TheBrazilianFly]

I love this record. It's really weird that a lot of the songwriting attitude on this record is more popular and successful right now, a decade later. U2 were a bit ahead of their time with this one.


Discothèque – Amazing song with one of Edge’s best riffs. Full of great hooks and grooves. It always sounded like a Zepellin song with a funky groove to me. A mix between Whole Lotta Love with Trampled Underfoot. Really ass kicking and the boom-chas were the cherry on the top for me.

Do You Feel Loved – One of Adam’s best basslines on the album that consolidated him as one of the best bass players there is and there ever was, in my opinion. This is a great song with Bono trying to be sexy and a little kinky. It’s a shame that they didn’t went on with it live.

Mofo – This should have been the album opener. I guess this is the song that best represents what they were after for this album. It’s a hybrid and a beast. It’s electronic with a punk rock attitude. U2 at their most shameless and exciting in their quest for a different sound.

If God Will Send His Angels – This record is full of great melodies and in my opinion this is one the best. Bono’s lyrics are great and it shows really what I think he was trying to do in the 90’s with irony and humor. It’s kind of a soul song in my opinion. Really wonderful.

Staring At The Sun – a pop electronic song that works even better acoustic. Go figure. Only U2 writes songs this way. Great grooves and guitar licks. Bono’s lyrics are a little non-sense and it makes the song stronger, in my opinion.

Last Night On Earth – A powerhouse rocker in an album named pop and led by electronic beats. Again another great melody on the chorus and verses. A different approach lyric wise that I thought worked really well. I love the production on this song, it’s full of layers and mysteries.

Gone – Another hybrid, something in between Mofo and LNOE. Great, great lyrics by Bono, very deep and personal, creating that awesome emotional build that U2 knows how to do like no other band does. Larry is great on this song as well, especially live.

Miami – The most experimental song on the record. Not the most inventive beat but creates a cool background for Bono with the lyrics, that are pretty entertaining. It’s very interesting look at what Bono can do with his lyrics to shake it up. I find amazing that this song worked better live than some others.

The Playboy Mansion – Again another great piece of melody and irony coming from Bono. Perhaps the song that best represents what they were trying to portrait in the album (theme wise) and especially in the Popmart Tour. I really love the slides, the backing vocals and the laid back groove. Very cool.

If You Wear That Velvet Dress – A song with it’s own charm. It again shows how much U2 was trying to experiment with different approaches of songwriting. It sounds like a Frank Sinatra song with a 90’s production. The album version is beautiful but the Jools Holland one is perfect.

Please – One of U2’s most intense and exciting songs. It’s them at their very best. Everybody shines on this one and helps make it great. Bono’s best lyrics perhaps? Certainly one of his best. Oddly enough it became one of their best love songs as well. Just amazing,

Wake Up Dead Man – I think it’s very ballsy of them to end the album with this song. It’s not the most commercial song on the record. It’s kind of an alternative rocker with that ironic flavor that it’s all over the record.

 

[Brian-C]

Lyrically, POP is incredible. The fact that it takes so much inspiration from European dance music makes it kind of a weird album, in that nothing on here feels celebratory. Instead, it's kind of flirting close to the edge of nihilism, and only seems to beg for some kind of meaning at the very end ("Please" and "Wake Up, Dead Man").

The album reminds me of what Noam Chomsky said in "Manufacturing Descent." I don't remember the exact quote, but it had something to do with having 30 seconds to two minutes in making a point for the TV medium. Even if you wanted to challenge long-standing ideas, in that amount of time, you'd end up sounding crazy, at best.

It's like U2 knew that they were making a pop-art statement, and Bono chose the words so wisely... everything seemed to be the perfect balance of decadent reverie and soul-searching. I can't help but feeling that some of the melodies were under-developed, and the album as a whole felt a bit unfinished, but so what? From the artwork to the intent to the delivery, it's a badass record... very ambitious. I can't think of anyone even attempting to make such a big statement about propoganda and popular culture. On the one hand, calling it "POP" assured that some people would never see how much they were ridiculing the idea of pop. The title alone provided fodder for people to think it was lightweight, when in fact, POP is probably the heaviest U2 album they ever made.

 

[Aardvark747]

Lyrically, POP is incredible. The fact that it takes so much inspiration from European dance music makes it kind of a weird album, in that nothing on here feels celebratory. Instead, it's kind of flirting close to the edge of nihilism, and only seems to beg for some kind of meaning at the very end ("Please" and "Wake Up, Dead Man").

The album reminds me of what Noam Chomsky said in "Manufacturing Descent." I don't remember the exact quote, but it had something to do with having 30 seconds to two minutes in making a point for the TV medium. Even if you wanted to challenge long-standing ideas, in that amount of time, you'd end up sounding crazy, at best.

It's like U2 knew that they were making a pop-art statement, and Bono chose the words so wisely... everything seemed to be the perfect balance of decadent reverie and soul-searching. I can't help but feeling that some of the melodies were under-developed, and the album as a whole felt a bit unfinished, but so what? From the artwork to the intent to the delivery, it's a badass record... very ambitious. I can't think of anyone even attempting to make such a big statement about propoganda and popular culture. On the one hand, calling it "POP" assured that some people would never see how much they were ridiculing the idea of pop. The title alone provided fodder for people to think it was lightweight, when in fact, POP is probably the heaviest U2 album they ever made.

Nice 1st post Welcome to Interference!

 

[rjhbonovox]

Listened to the album in full (for the first time in ages) whilst driving today. Lovely stuff

Thats how Alan Partridge would describe it!

On the one hand, calling it "POP" assured that some people would never see how much they were ridiculing the idea of pop. The title alone provided fodder for people to think it was lightweight, when in fact, POP is probably the heaviest U2 album they ever made.

Yep the title of the album is very mis-leading but thats what they intended. Very heavy, very deep and as far as U2 have ever been from what you would describe as Pop.

 

[Brian-C]

Yeah, well, as someone who spent a lot of time going to raves in the '90s, you couldn't help but feeling that a song such as "Mofo" was really heavy. With a lot of house music, the feeling is of celebration. Whereas with U2 on POP, you could tell that the party was causing some decay in Bono's soul. Not saying the guy doesn't know how to have a good time, but I think he has that essential element in him that knows when too much is just too much. It's like he reached out to the crowd dropping ecstacy and partying all the time and asked them to think about Bosnia... think about AIDS... think about the suffering and deterioration going on all around. In that sense, POP made perfect sense to me. Because life is a balance.

With ZOO TV, they lampooned the current media, and they strove for irony and satire and being detached and mysterious. Yet, they couldn't help but remain politically involved, socially involved. No matter how far down the rabbit hole U2 goes with their ideology, experimentation and trying new things out... they always end up being just U2. Four guys that care about the culture we live in.

 

[angelordevil]

...everything seemed to be the perfect balance of decadent reverie and soul-searching. I can't help but feeling that some of the melodies were under-developed, and the album as a whole felt a bit unfinished, but so what? From the artwork to the intent to the delivery, it's a badass record... very ambitious...

I really like what you say there. I was thinking of Pop earlier today, and how it's really the last U2 album that I truly believed in. Its 'flaws' are actually its beauty. For all of the blips and bleeps, and heavy use of technology, it doesn't sound contrived, in the least.

I'll also echo Ardy's remarks.

 

[phommel]

This album cannot be appreciated enough. the more threads the better!

POP = amazing!

It is in the TOP4 U2 albums of this board

 

[kennerado]

Do You Feel Loved
Last Night On Earth
Mofo
Gone
Staring At The Sun
Miami
Playboy Mansion
Discoteque'

Fucking brilliant!

 

[Aardvark747]

Thats how Alan Partridge would describe it!

QUOTE]

Indeed. Or, as in the episode where he's reading out the comments of his autobiography: "Lovely stuff - not my words, the words of Shakin Stevens"

 

[Brian-C]

Just so long as we can all agree that Shakin' Stevens is god the father.

 

[ascender_RS]

Achtung Baby, Zooropa, & Pop along with their associated tours were the best time (so far) to have been a U2 IMO. A very productive time for the band, some amazing live performances and they were experimenting with their sound.

 

[Brian-C]

Can't forget the Passengers.

 

[doctorwho]

I was reading the Radiohead forum yesterday (atease.com) and there were a few mentions about how Pop is sooooo underrated. Seems like some Radiohead fans can see how good it is. Have to say they kinda hate HTDAAB and ATYCLB. Not bad judges in my opinion.

It really depends.

If Radiohead stated upfront their goal was to make an album full of singles, how would that be perceived?

U2 fans are clearly mixed on the last two albums. I feel that ATYCLB is too mellow and "easy listening", but it has some good songs. HTDAAB has some of U2's worst ("A Man and a Woman" and "One Step Closer"), but also some of U2's best ("Love & Peace" and "Fast Cars"). I also like the rockin' aspects of "Vertigo", "City..." and "All Because of You".

What challenges people is that the last two albums are the first time that U2 focused more on the song, rather than the album. There are strengths and weaknesses in focusing only on the album. The strength is that something like "War", UF, JT and AB can be created, where the album flows seemlessly. The weakness is that some songs tend to sound too similar - especially true on JT. And, as Radiohead has experienced, with the focus on the album, it doesn't lend well to any song that can be promoted as a single. We might have seen a bit of this with GOYB, which isn't all that radio-friendly. It might work beautifully on the album, but as a stand alone song, it seems to have divided fans considerably. Of course, the strength of focusing on the song is potentially a great single, but it may come at the expense of album cohesion.

If we were still in the 70's, 80's or even early 90's, I think the album format is better. Radio stations and MTV were willing to play songs that might not necessarily leap out as "hits", but became them anyway. But in today's world, with downloads being the big thing, we have returned to the 50's and 60's, where the song is the focal point.

With "Pop", U2 still tried a mixed approach - have some songs they felt were radio-friendly, yet still focus on the album. Yet, I think that backfired some. The songs didn't work on radio that well and even turned people off. And to this day, there are mixed feelings about "Pop" amongst U2 fans and music fans in general. Maybe some bands can focus on both aspects, but I think U2 excels at one or the other.

I don't think "Pop" will ever see the love some want, but that's O.K. It doesn't deserve that much love for it has plenty of weaknesses. But I admire U2 for trying them. If NLOTH has some of that creativity and challenge, I will be happy.

 

[Brian-C]

I don't know if it has as much to do with the album format or the current radio market, as it has to do with the German and European music that pervaded the 1991-97 era for U2. Personally, I just thought that music coming out of America and Britain during that time was boring, for the most part. So when U2 started to sound more decidedly UK/US radio friendly in 2000, it was... well... boring as well. But that's just my opinion. Some will agree, others disagree. That's the beauty of it.

 

[ascender_RS]

Can't forget the Passengers.

Loving the Passengers project too. Still playing the album a lot.

 

[zwervers2]

Playboy mansions RULES x342564

it has the best lyrics Bono has ever written.
If OJ is more than a drink. Everytime I hear a smile appears on my face.

I love this song, I love the album althougH(sue me) I wish that your blue room had replaced velvet dress which for some reason doesnt affect me 1%

 

[zwervers2]

I really like what you say there. I was thinking of Pop earlier today, and how it's really the last U2 album that I truly believed in. Its 'flaws' are actually its beauty. For all of the blips and bleeps, and heavy use of technology, it doesn't sound contrived, in the least.

I'll also echo Ardy's remarks.

feel the same way a 100%

 

[ybab gnuthca]

Playboy mansions RULES x342564

it has the best lyrics Bono has ever written.
If OJ is more than a drink. Everytime I hear a smile appears on my face.

You can't mention that line without mentioning the next, "and a Big Mac - bigger than you think"

 

[Salome]

hmm, I always reckoned those lyrics were in a contest with If god .... for the worst U2 ever wrote
to each his own I guess

I think the POP concept was heavier than the majority of the songs managed to pull off

 

[TheEdge1967]

I think POP is brillant. This is becoming more evident as time passes by. POP had very high expectations due to Achtung being so ground breaking. Zooropa was a mid-tour release so it didn't have huge expectations as POP did. But the build up to POP was over done and when it didn't catch on people said it was U2's worst album.
Now when people listen to POP they take it for what it is rather than comparing it to something.
I would have to say that POP is definitely better than U2's last two albums as a whole.