Pop or Poop?

[starvinmarvin]

I say the latter. I can't believe the adoration this album gets from the posters on this board. Sure, it's not as bad as its reputation, but it is certainly the band's weakest effort since October.

To make things worse, most people here don't even like the GOOD songs on Pop. You hear endless testemonials about the plodding Please, the overrated Gone, the lame ass If You Wear That Velvet Dress, etc, etc....If you want proof of the stupidity, just look at the results of the 3rd round of the Worst Songs survivor poll for Pop:


full results:
discotheque: 16
do you feel loved: 2
mofo: 12
if god will send his angels: 1
staring at the sun: 5
last night on earth: 16
gone: 31
miami: 0
the playboy mansion: 2
if you wear that velvet dress: 10
wake up dead man: 6

Just look at the numbers - it baffles the mind. If God will Send His Angels recieves 1 vote!!! Staring at the Sun - the best song on the album by a mile - only gets votes. Do You Feel Loved only gets 2 - the same numbers as the musically retarded Playboy Mansion. Unbelievable. Meanwhile, Please - which has no redeeming qualities save the lyrical message - wins the first round. Gone, which is a pedestrian u2-by-numbers rocker, wins the second round.

 

[corianderstem]

Stupidity? Because others like different songs than you?

I declare this thread to be poop.

Be prepared for more flames than Harry Potter at a book burning.

 

[Bluer White]

Never reproduce

 

[popacrobat]

more pop debate

 

[XHendrix24]

Stupidity? Because others like different songs than you?

I declare this thread to be poop.

Be prepared for more flames than Harry Potter at a book burning.

I was going to respond with my thoughts, but I think this post pretty much covers it.

 

[starvinmarvin]

Stupidity? Because others like different songs than you?

I declare this thread to be poop.

Be prepared for more flames than Harry Potter at a book burning.

Leave Harry out of this.

 

[corianderstem]

Well ... okay. My break is over, and I must now return to the book.

You haven't heard the last of me, starvinmarvin! ::shakes fist at internet::

 

[Axver]

On the most part, I agree. I consider Pop to be U2's weakest effort, but with glimmers of greatness - it's U2's 'nearly but not quite' album. Great concepts, great lyrics, and sometimes great music, but poor execution.

I must disagree on the Gone count, though. I consider that to be one of the best songs ever made, and it just about redeems the album as a whole. However, I simply cannot believe the love for the studio version of Discotheque. That song rocked live, but in the studio, it borders on tacky and cringeworthy and was a horrible first single. I'm confident if Gone or Last Night On Earth had been the first single, Pop would've done better - or Mofo, for that matter, as it would've turned some heads around.

Now, Please - one of U2's best live tracks. The Sarajevo performance is one of the high points of their career. That makes the poor studio version an even greater tragedy. And let's not even start on the fact that If You Wear That Velvet Dress is mixed too quietly to hear if you don't have your headphones on! It's also such a shame that Playboy Mansion didn't reach its full potential - the themes in it really could use some further expansion, and it would help if the music were more interesting.

At least Pop concludes with Wake Up Dead Man, another one of U2's great tracks. I finish listening to the album thinking it's better than it actually is simply due to the quality of that track.

 

[corianderstem]

Interesting stuff, Axver! I agree with you about Gone, Please and If You Wear That Velvet Dress (although I take great pleasure in listening to the beginning of that one with my headphones and cranking up the volume ... although that just might be my girly hormones ).

Thank you for telling us what you like and don't like, rather than just dismissing differing opinions as "stupidity."

What I never understood about the Great Pop Argument is the thought that the reworked versions of the Pop tracks on the 1990-2000 Best Of disc are superior to the original versions. I think the original versions are worlds better than the reworked ones.

Am I missing something? Or is it just one of those differences of opinions that you just have to shrug off and accept?

I'd love to hear a good explanation from someone who prefers the reworked versions: why do you consider those to be better?

 

[Axver]

Interesting stuff, Axver! I agree with you about Gone, Please and If You Wear That Velvet Dress (although I take great pleasure in listening to the beginning of that one with my headphones and cranking up the volume ... although that just might be my girly hormones ).

I love listening to IYWTVD when I can actually hear it - the Las Vegas Popmart performance is gorgeous, and the Jools Holland version is wonderful. And the studio version's solo is beautiful when I crank up my headphones.

What I never understood about the Great Pop Argument is the thought that the reworked versions of the Pop tracks on the 1990-2000 Best Of disc are superior to the original versions. I think the original versions are worlds better than the reworked ones.

Am I missing something? Or is it just one of those differences of opinions that you just have to shrug off and accept?

I'd love to hear a good explanation from someone who prefers the reworked versions: why do you consider those to be better?

I prefer one reworked version, think another is equal, and don't like a third. I heard the reworked versions first, and I still think Gone is much better on the b-side: it sounds better, the lyrical tweak after "what you thought was freedom" makes the line sound better to me, and I simply enjoy it more. Discotheque, I'm apathetic on: I'd take qualities from both to make one better mix, heh. On the reworked version, I miss the "boom-cha" part (yes, as much as I call Discotheque tacky, I LIKE that part), but the overall sound isn't as cringeworthy. And as far as SATS goes, they should never have touched the original.

 

[Chizip]

everytime I read a thread about Pop I listen to it again and I just keep loving it more and more

 

[corianderstem]

The live version of Velvet Dress is starting to grow on me. I didn't care for it for a long time, because it lost a lot of the subtle shimmer it had on the album, particularly because Bono sang the whole thing in his upper register ... that low voiced part is so awesome (I wish he'd use that part of his range more often).

Now it's grown on me, particularly the awesome transition between Discotheque and Velvet Dress - dig that descending guitar line!

 

[RocknRollKitty]

The way it's taken up for like an ugly child only a parent loves does get annoying. I've been here a long time, (4yrs) I've been on other message boards and I've talked to a lot of real people. I have NEVER seen anyone so defensive over one album by one band as some people are over Pop. It's okay to like it, hey I like a lot of stuff that's not acclaimed very high, everyone has every right to like what they want. But the extreme gushing is like it's trying to make up for what it really isn't. The thing that really gets me is the part about it not being 'gotten' as if some people are lacking and too stupid to see its genius a la "The Emperor's New Clothes." Like I said if you like it, okay, but the overgushing, overpushing of it and the putting down of those who don't like it, and the 2 newest albums because of it is very extreme. I wish my family loved me as much as a dozen or so members here adore this album!

 

[CPTLCTYGOOFBALL]

I think it's a good album, though my least favourite of the 90s. Mofo, though, is one of my fave tunes.

 

[starvinmarvin]

The way it's taken up for like an ugly child only a parent loves does get annoying. I've been here a long time, (4yrs) I've been on other message boards and I've talked to a lot of real people. I have NEVER seen anyone so defensive over one album by one band as some people are over Pop. It's okay to like it, hey I like a lot of stuff that's not acclaimed very high, everyone has every right to like what they want. But the extreme gushing is like it's trying to make up for what it really isn't. The thing that really gets me is the part about it not being 'gotten' as if some people are lacking and too stupid to see its genius a la "The Emperor's New Clothes." Like I said if you like it, okay, but the overgushing, overpushing of it and the putting down of those who don't like it, and the 2 newest albums because of it is very extreme. I wish my family loved me as much as a dozen or so members here adore this album!

Exactly! The Pop defenders are so "defensive" because they know that the album isn't up to U2 standards. Sure, the album isn't as bad as many claim, but there's no need to exagerate Pop's virtues to try to convince us that it is brilliant. Trust me, we all get the concept bhind the album. It isn't that brilliant.

 

[bathiu]

jick atack v.3.0.7.2


POP is my 5th... sometimes 6th favorite album... right in the middle, wich is the same place as in the last albums survivor.
I think it deserves nothing more and nothing less than that.

 

[bathiu]

The thing that really gets me is the part about it not being 'gotten'

hey U2kitten... you're banned like our jick here or just forget to re-login as "yourself"?

Please tell me, how did you "get" POP?
Because, you know, maybe you actualy don't *cough*'get' it...

 

[bathiu]

I can't believe the adoration this album gets from the posters on this board.

The posters on this board, jick my friend, voted this album as U2's 5th... wich makes it the "average" album... what's the problem?

 

[namkcuR]

Pop is a brilliant, brilliant record. I will never stop defending it.

Please, Mofo, Gone, Last Night On Earth, Staring At The Sun, Discotheque, If God Will Send His Angels, Do You Feel Loved, Wake Up Dead Man, If You Wear That Velvet Dress...other-wordly track after other-worldly track.

I pity those who don't get to know it's brilliance.

And for the record, I don't think the last two albums are crap. I think ATYCLB is a great record, while I think HTDAAB is bland, overrated, but not crap.

Pop

 

[liamcool]

The Playboy Mansion is Proto-Kite.

Don't diss it.

 

[hedgehog]

I love Pop! Its my 3rd favourite album!

Apart from Miami, Playboy mansion and Velvet dress, the songs on it are great and so much different to anything else they have done before.

Please, Discotheque, Mofo, Do you feel loved, Wake up dead man, Last night on earth, Staring at the sun... how can any album with songs like those on be deemed as crap?

Have to say though, it makes a nice change defending Pop instead of ATYCLB and HTDAAB.

 

[Irishteen]

Pop is underrated by critics, and overrated here, what if critics loved it, would you all still love it, I doubt it.

 

[hedgehog]

Id still love it even if it was loved by the critics.

I don't like Pop just because the critics don't like it, I geniunely love the album and always have done.

 

[Aardvark747]

Leave Harry out of this.

He should burn in hell....

 

[yimou]

I declare this thread to be poop.

 

[LMP]

I declare this thread to be poop.

Nono, this thread is great






























FOR ME TO POOP ON

 

[miss becky]

Exactly! The Pop defenders are so "defensive" because they know that the album isn't up to U2 standards.

Or maybe we get "defensive" because it seems like every time you turn around, there's another one of these damn threads being started. It gets really old after a while.

 

[EPandAmerica]

Id still love it even if it was loved by the critics.

I don't like Pop just because the critics don't like it, I geniunely love the album and always have done.

 

[corianderstem]

FOR ME TO POOP ON

HA! Nah, the thread became something more than I initially expected, so yay for actual discussion.

I agree with the comment that it's underrated by critics, overrated by its fans here. It's somewhere delightfully in between. It's not a masterpiece, but has some great songs, some nice surprises, and a few flashes of brilliance.

My opinions of it over time haven't changed too much - some songs I really dig, others I skip past. The one surprise for me is that I used to really love Last Night on Earth, and now it's one of my least favorites on the album. Just hasn't held up well.

 

[U2girl]

Horribly overrated.

As for getting old, try the endless "ATYCLB and/or Bomb sucks" threads.