Miggy D said:
...of how it was presented.
There are Pop haters out there. I'm not one of them. It's not their best album, but it's definitely a solid one. Gone is one of U2's best songs.
But Pop was not a huge success by U2's standards, and not because of the album. Pop failed because of presentation alone.
First Mistake: Releasing Discotheque as the first single. Had they released Gone first instead, Pop would have done much better. Discotheque isn't a bad song, it's just a bad first single. Gone would have been a big smash on radio.
Second Mistake: The Discotheque video. As a U2 fan, I can enjoy it. It's funny, and it shows the boys having a laugh. Nothing wrong with that. But commercially, U2 couldn't have done themselves any more harm had they started killing fans.
You've earned tons of cool collateral from the Zoo TV era, and how do you spend it? By giving The Edge a child molester's moustache and dressing the band up as The Village People. It was supposed to be ironic. It was supposed to be cheesy. It definitely wasn't cool.
Third Mistake: The clothing. Bono oozed cool as The Fly. So what was with the bubble pants and muscle shirts? He may have been mocking the outlandish absurdity of fame and excess, but it was too ridiculous by half.
"Well who gives a shit if those stupid people didn't get what U2 was trying to do!"
That argument doesn't hold up. U2 were able to say exactly what they wanted to say about music, culture, and stardom during the Zoo TV era and still look incredibly cool at the same time. Here, they just looked absurd.
Imagine if Bono and the boys had worn some darker colors, some grays and blacks, and some dark shades. Not recreating Zoo TV, but not recreating 1977, either. The clothing did not match the music. It took me a very long time to think about Discotheque without thinking of the video. Now I finally like the song.
There are a few outfits from the Pop era that were pretty cool. But for every cool outfit there were 3 huge cowboy hats, 4 yellow jumpsuits and 5 spandex bubble pants.
Fourth Mistake: PopMart. The tour was too gaudy, too big, and far too impersonal.
"But that's the point, stupid!"
Just because it was the point doesn't mean it was a good idea.
I watched the live performance of Gone from the Best Of 1990-2000 DVD last night. The band was dwarfed by the scenery. Sure, Zoo TV was flashy, huge, and excessive, but U2 managed to feel part of the spectacle. Popmart nearly drowned them in it. The band looked so tiny and insignificant in front of the huge screen, enormous yellow arch and gigantic metallic lemon. The whole concert felt distant.
I wasn't able to see the tour in person, but I have friends who did, and I've read about it. It seems that it was less a U2 concert and more a multimedia extravaganza while 4 men happened to be playing instruments.
Watching Zoo TV concert videos, I can see it all come together: the setting and scenery serve the band. "PopMart Live in Mexico City" left me feeling cold. Who knew such a huge band could look so small? U2 were defeated by their own technology.
Pop is a good album. It didn't get the presentation it deserved.
It's not that people didn't 'get it': people got it and didn't care for it.
Good album. Poor delivery.
-Miggy D
Sorry for the late reply but I was gone for a week.
First mistake: No song off POP would ever make a good single. They released 6 singles off that album, all of them tanked and none of them was a song called Gone. They had 5 other chances to release Gone but they didn't, so clearly the opportunity was there but they decided it wasn't fitting to be a single. So there was no mistake. Maybe SATS as the first single would have been better.
Second mistake: Even if the Discotheque video was directed by Phil Joanau, Antoin Corbijn, or Steven Speilberg, it would never save the lack of redeeming musical quality of the song.
Third mistake: Again, no good clothing can take away from the quality of the music which was lacking.
Fourth mistake: The tour was more personal because even the people in the back could see U2 through the giant TV screens. They were bigger than the Zoo TV screens. If you want to talk about impersonal, try the JT Tour -- no TV screens and giant stadiums. Imagine how alienated a spectator in the back would feel. Yet the JT Tour sold out, and so did the Zoo TV Tour. By the time, Popmart hit the third leg - they were already playing to half-empty stadiums. It wasn't about the tour but the lack of musical quality.
Many have argued that it was the overall package or the choice of singles that doomed POP. But that is hardly the case. POP failed in all these areas:
1. FAN APPEAL: The album debuted at #1 which doesn't speak much about it quality as it does about U2's snazzy marketing campaign. But the album dropped like a hot potato and hasn't even sold up to 2 million to this day in the USA. Some would argue that it did well outside the USA, but remember it debuted at #1 in 33 countries so that made up majority of the album sales - then it dropped after than. We all know strong debuts aren't indicators of the album's musical quality.
2. BAND ACCEPTANCE: The band has been quick to disown POP. Bono labelled it as "unfinished", Mullen said he wants to finish it, while Eno said it was "disjointed." Even the band's own actions of trying to remodel POP (from making better single versions to the new mixes) show their dissatisfaction and embarrassment about the album.
3. CRITICAL ACCLAIM: POP was the only U2 album post Live Aid that did not bag a Grammy. It did get a nomination but no awards. Nowadays, people say that the Grammies are a fraud and that the voters just pick "safe" selections like U2. But think again, once upon a time during the POP era they did reject U2.
4. TOUR FAILURE: Who could forget the band restarting a song and looking very lost during opening night in Vegas? Then by the very next show in San Diego, they played to a half-emply stadiums. By the time the third leg was in gear, half-empty stadiums were the norm. U2 managed to save face by playing South America (where the have never played before) to good attendance.
5. COMMERCIAL FAILURE: Some say POP didn't sell because U2 was already in the downward trend and that their sales figures were still good for musicians their age. Well U2 proved that wrong with ATYCLB and HTDAAB now. They are even older, yet they still sold more than POP. As a matter of fact, POP is their worst selling effort since the Unforgettable Fire. That is totally embarrassing considering U2 had just come from one of their most successful commercial peaks in their career with Zoo TV and public anticipation was high.
So POP was clearly a failure in all areas. From the critics disliking it, to the fans not buying it, to the band ultimately disowning it then remodelling it.
There are only a few noisy fans of POP (who constitute a vast minority) who keep on trying to "save" POP and indoctrinate the new U2 fans on this board about its real status among U2's catalogue. POP is a failure when compared to the rest of U2's back catalog.
Clearly, POP failed because of the music.
Cheers,
J