Best Song Survivor: Pop, Round Four

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers

What is your least favourite song?

  • Total voters
    47
  • Poll closed .
Axver

Axver

Vocal parasite
Joined
Jun 2, 2003
Messages
152,977
Location
1853
Since digitize is out of town, he has asked me to start this round, and it is very nice indeed to return to the Survivor driver's seat. In the last round, it was a very iffy battle (sorry), with If You Wear That Velvet Dress narrowly losing to If God Will Send His Angels. We are now left with nine songs fighting it out for Pop's three spots in the 1990s quarter-final. You have 24 hours to vote for your least favourite song, the next song to be eliminated from this contest. For anyone just joining us, rules may be found here.

Last round's results:
19 votes: If You Wear That Velvet Dress
16: If God Will Send His Angels
6: Staring at the Sun and Wake Up Dead Man
3: Last Night on Earth
0: Discotheque, Do You Feel Loved, Mofo, Gone, Please
(Total votes: 50)
 
IGWSHA, again. Truly one of U2's strangest single choices.
 
Since I don't care which one leaves first (between LNOE and IGWSHA), my vote goes to LNOE in hopes of a tie.
 
I quite like IGWSHA, but I'm neither devastated or surprised by the hate for it around here. Its relative accessibility, and presence (albeit in alternate form) on a middling movie's soundtrack (has U2 ever done a song for a good movie?) makes it an easy target.
 
Even the man who thinks POP is the worst album of all time defends songs from it. What a surprise!

You'd just hate to seem part of The Hive wouldn't ya :wink:
 
cobl04 said:
Even the man who thinks POP is the worst album of all time defends songs from it. What a surprise!

You'd just hate to seem part of The Hive wouldn't ya :wink:
Click to expand...

Of course Pop isn't the worst album of all time. It's just the worst album with the name U2 written on it.

My votes in Rate the Song show I don't dislike all the songs on this record..in fact, there a few I do like, and one that I'd put in my U2 top 10.

I just think the remainder of the songs on the record as so bad that it more than cancels that good work out. Pop's problem is that as a U2 record it just does't work, and is so derivative of work by other bands, in a genre that at the time was actually on the decline. Despite it being "different" sounding for a U2 record, there's strikingly little that's original about it. Pop is credited, by some, for U2 taking a bold new direction, ala Achtung Baby...but it wasn't that at all...U2 just tried to do something that a long of other bands before them did, and better. It didn't work. But don't ask me, ask them. They'll tell you the same thing, and have said as much...more than once.

Uncharacteristic for them, they tried to jump on a bandwagon just as it was running out of steam.

It does have some quite strong moments lyrically, however.
 
Nick66 said:
Pop's problem is that as a U2 record it just does't work, and is so derivative of work by other bands, in a genre that at the time was actually on the decline.
Uncharacteristic for them, they tried to jump on a bandwagon just as it was running out of steam.
Click to expand...

I strongly disagree that the genre was on the decline. On the contrary, in 1996 (when Pop was recorded) it had actually broken into the mainstream in a big, big way. Underworld had their biggest hit single ever, The Chemical Brothers were rising to prominence, The Prodigy were racking up uber hits. An argument can be made that U2 were meddling in a genre that they didn't really understand and were unable to master. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake.
 
lemonfly said:
I strongly disagree that the genre was on the decline. On the contrary, in 1996 (when Pop was recorded) it had actually broken into the mainstream in a big, big way. Underworld had their biggest hit single ever, The Chemical Brothers were rising to prominence, The Prodigy were racking up uber hits. An argument can be made that U2 were meddling in a genre that they didn't really understand and were unable to master. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you're correct...I probably should have said "peaking". The point is, they weren't exactly doing anything new, fresh, or groundbreaking in terms of sound (well, except for them), and what they were doing was not in the same league as some of the other bands that made a name for themselves with that music.

That's not to say that Pop cant be enjoyed, that's of course purely a subjective opinion. There's just nothing particularly original or ground breaking about the record.
 
I certainly don't hate IGWSHA, but something has to go every round. Just wait until the finals when we have to cast votes to eliminate some of the best songs ever written!
 
bonocomet said:
I certainly don't hate IGWSHA, but something has to go every round. Just wait until the finals when we have to cast votes to eliminate some of the best songs ever written!
Click to expand...
Best songs ever written? I don't think Staring At The Sun is going to last that long... But other than that, so far pretty much all of my favorites have gotten into the final rounds, so it probably will be really hard to choose.
 
BlueSilkenSky said:
Best songs ever written? I don't think Staring At The Sun is going to last that long... But other than that, so far pretty much all of my favorites have gotten into the final rounds, so it probably will be really hard to choose.
Click to expand...

Yeah I do think U2 has written a few of the best songs ever written!
 
I'd be just fine if the trio of IGWSHA, SATS, and LNOE are the next three eliminated. I voted for SATS, but I'm not too concerned about the precise order.
 
I have to say that Pop is not my most fave U2 album but what is great is that this survival game is making me go back and listen to all this great music--some of which I have not heard in years. That being said, I really tried to get through the album version of Wake Up Dead Man. I'm sorry, I couldn't do it. :reject: Please don't hate me. It's just not my fave. I heard a live version a few days ago and it sounded so much better live...at least the version I heard. So I am basing my vote on the studio version.
 
Nick66 said:
Mofo was a single. It didn't chart in any country I believe, except Australia, where it peaked at #35, making it the worst-performing single on Pop.

IGWSHA peaked at #11 & #12 in Ireland and the UK respectively.
Click to expand...

Not really a very strong argument, given that Mofo was the last single and the last single from U2 albums (or, to be honest, most bands!) tend to be the weakest performing - at least when they spit out four or more from one album. By that point both album and tour hype are on the wane and the cycle for that era is pretty much over. Not to mention that Mofo was just a remix single targeted more at clubs than at the general public.
 
Axver said:
Not really a very strong argument, given that Mofo was the last single and the last single from U2 albums (or, to be honest, most bands!) tend to be the weakest performing - at least when they spit out four or more from one album. By that point both album and tour hype are on the wane and the cycle for that era is pretty much over. Not to mention that Mofo was just a remix single targeted more at clubs than at the general public.
Click to expand...

Well, I was merely responding to the suggestion that Mofo wasn't single, which clearly it was, and that it would make a better single than IGWSHA...which clearly, it wasn't, at least in terms of sales.

And in this case, it doesn't matter when it was released...we can do an apples-to-apples comparison because the Mofo and IGWSHA singles were released on the same day. And IGWSHA significantly outperformed it (though admittedly, neither was a blockbuster).
 
I admit I'd forgotten that they were released on the same day - since Mofo didn't chart until 1998, I'd misremembered and thought it was released in early 1998.

Not persuaded it is an apples-vs-apples comparison though, since IGWSHA had the backing of appearing in a movie to boost its profile and was targeted at the general market and mainstream radio, while Mofo was more specifically focused at a club market, featuring solely remixes rather than the original album version or a radio edit. I don't think anybody should be surprised that with those two singles competing against each other, IGWSHA - complete with its fairly decent selection of b-sides - did better on the charts. That even appears to be the intention.
 
Axver said:
I admit I'd forgotten that they were released on the same day - since Mofo didn't chart until 1998, I'd misremembered and thought it was released in early 1998.

Not persuaded it is an apples-vs-apples comparison though, since IGWSHA had the backing of appearing in a movie to boost its profile and was targeted at the general market and mainstream radio, while Mofo was more specifically focused at a club market, featuring solely remixes rather than the original album version or a radio edit. I don't think anybody should be surprised that with those two singles competing against each other, IGWSHA - complete with its fairly decent selection of b-sides - did better on the charts. That even appears to be the intention.
Click to expand...

The City of Angels film didn't come out until April, 1998, four months after the IGWSHA single was released. So clearly the film would have had no impact on those chart numbers. And as you know, it was a different version. Want to try that again? :)

I don't by the remix/radio edit thing. Lots of singles are remixes and different from the album version. Interestingly, both Mofo and IGWSHA contained alternate versions of the other song as b-sides. If anything, that may have contributed to people not picking up both singles.

Hmmm. Perhaps however you're right about the marketing strategy, i.e. releasing both singles on the same day was two fold...one to appeal to a more mainstream audience, and one more to the dance crowd (which they were obviously trying to reach with this record). But in that case I don't think they were "competing" against each other.

In any event, we're losing sight of the original point. I'm not sure what's so difficult to admit...that IGWSHA was a better single? Any casual listener, I believe would conclude that. It's clearly the more accessible song. Whether it's a better song in terms of quality is of course debatable, but I think at that point, as you said, they were at the end of Pop's run and not much they put out was going to light up the charts. In other words, it just really didn't matter. At that point, the public had already made their judgement on Pop (something that would be repeated again with NLOTH).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

N
NBA 2023-24 Thread
10 11 12
Replies
332
Views
10K
gump
gump
cobl04
Kiss the Future documentary
Replies
11
Views
3K
MrsSpringsteen
MrsSpringsteen
N
  • Locked
NBA 2022-23 Thread
46 47 48
Replies
1K
Views
45K
U2inUtah
U2inUtah
D
Paul Epworth provides some interesting insight into U2's songwriting process.
Replies
24
Views
2K
An Cat Gav
An Cat Gav
LuckyNumber7
Desert Island Mini - LP Island - Rules & Sign Up Thread
2 3 4
Replies
96
Views
4K
Axver
Axver

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom