POP - the forgotten masterpeice

[dietcokeofevil]

I would agree that fans on just about every thread get a little bit zealous about any of the albums.

I have taken some heat for not liking Unforgetable Fire that much. And for being tired of the Joshua Tree.

Yep, a crusade, a jihad, etc is waged every time you start a thread titled : "I DON'T LIKE_______ album. U2 fans are the scariest rock and rolls nerds on earth.

 

[dietcokeofevil]

...and yes I guess I would have to agree to being a bit too zealous about the albums I like. I am looking into a 12 step program as we speak.

Gotta run and do my bartending thing.

 

[HolyMeximofoJoe]

Masterpiece...no, Great Album.... YES!
Discotheque,DYFL,MOFO , IGWSHA, SATS,LNOE,Gone, Please, Miami...those songs i feel are absolutley WOW.

Having said that it's not in my top 3 that go's to AB, JT, and ATYCLB... after that it's very hard to put em in order.(except October, that is definitley at the bottom)

 

[MrBrau1]

Gone is a brilliant thing. I adore that tune.

 

[2morrow]

BOOM-CHA!

That's not all Pop's got going for it. My favorite song is DYFL?...great rythm/words/everything.

 

[RobH]

Re: last post on this topic for me

What flow/cohesiveness? Worst tracklisting next to Rattle and Hum.

I think Pop tried to outdo both AB as a theme album, and Zooropa in experimenting, but failed on both terms. Noble idea, bad execution. Lyrically, Bono was better on Zooropa and AB.

Next to the awful tracklisting and the worst production on U2's albums (ban Flood from producing, let him mix instead), Pop's biggest problem is not having any great U2 songs and at least a bit of "magic". Which in itself is a bigger crime than having very good songs and clunkers.

It's like watching U2 stumble on their traditional strong terrain: the TM bitterweet love song IGWSHA, U2 can do better than this. The TM big slow song, SATS, U2 can do better than that. Which leaves either rock songs, or political song, to save the day. Gone, while good, is nowhere near the ultimate "U2 rock song" - it should be driven by a riff, not 747 sound, and it really comes alive live and has barely any teeth on the album until the end (no comment on LNOE). Please, again, came alive live and I think was improved on the single version too. I think it won't surpass or match SBS or Bullet in the pantheon of U2's political songs though.

Not even necessarily a One or WOWY, I'd settle for something like Stay.

I enjoy Gone, SATS, Please and IYWTVD, I just think something like BD or Kite or COBL and OOTS is closer to greatness in U2 terms, and it has more "it".

I'd rank all the post-Zooropa albums together, overall.

Very well said U2 Girl. Especially about the magic. It's like for this album, the curtain was pulled away and the wizard was revealed. It was like, oh shit---U2 CAN make a crappy album. I've never been one to give U2 a free pass on anything---Bono needs to be called on his sillyness as much as anyone---(The God I blah blah....we know the rap)and this was one giant misfire.

The "you just don't get it!" theory? See previous comments about belonging to a "special club".

The "something bad must have happened to you at that time!" theory? See previous comments about "special time in your life does not equal great album", only in reverse.

And yes, I'd also rank the post Zooropa albums as all pretty weak. The 'magic' factor has been missing--big time.

Questions for Pop defenders: Why do you think so many people who were still on board for AB and Zooropa were disillusioned with Pop? We were ok with the experimentation on those efforts. We were not longing for the 80's sound. We just wanted more good music. But didn't get it. So you are not allowed to answer that we just 'didn't understand it' or that we 'wanted the old sound'. Also, if Pop is so good, what would you consider their worst album and why?

 

[bonocomet]

U2 does not have a "worst" album for me. There are things I do and don't like on every one of them. I have favorites, but I don't have least favorites. But then I guess that's why they are my favorite band.

Originally posted by dietcokeofevil

U2 fans are the scariest rock and rolls nerds on earth.

 

[RobH]

U2 does not have a "worst" album for me. There are things I do and don't like on every one of them. I have favorites, but I don't have least favorites. But then I guess that's why they are my favorite band.

Sorry to single you out bonocomet, but this is exactly why this topic is so hard to discuss rationally on here. Some people can't get themselves to admit that U2 has ever even remotely done anything crappy. They're my favorite band too. But Pop was not, is not, and never will be a masterpiece.

 

[Chizip]

is it really even worth arguing over? musical taste is all opinion, not fact. some peoples opinions are that pop is amazing, magical, a masterpiece, other peoples opinions are that its the opposite. neither is right or wrong, just enjoy what you enjoy.

 

[MrBrau1]

Pop is the most trendy U2 record. Bandwagon jumping of the highest order.

 

[Chizip]

Pop is the most trendy U2 record. Bandwagon jumping of the highest order.

or maybe people just like it because they like the music?

shocking, i know

 

[bonocomet]

No problem RobH, but I was just responding to your question about a "worst" album. Worst meaning absolute last on your list of favorites I guess. I just meant I can't place any U2 album on the bottom of a list... If I were ranking them, at a certain point they start being equal to me I guess. I just meant I don't rank any single U2 album at the bottom of my list. I honestly like them all, just some more than others. I'm not trying to be in a club or jump on any bandwagons. I just really like them, and I don't think any of their stuff is "crappy". It doesn't mean I love everything or that I don't dislike some of their songs. But you're lumping entire albums together, and in that case, no, none of them are "the worst". To me anyways.

 

[MrBrau1]

yeah, but Pop fans rarely argue the music. It usually involves integrity or attitude and the like. All that bullshit.

"I love Mofo, cause it was such a FU to U2 fans and the mainstream."

What a load of shit.

 

[RobH]

is it really even worth arguing over? musical taste is all opinion, not fact. some peoples opinions are that pop is amazing, magical, a masterpiece, other peoples opinions are that its the opposite. neither is right or wrong, just enjoy what you enjoy.

I'd be more than willing to let it slide at that Chizip, if it weren't for the 'masterpiece' contention. As I said way back at the start of this thread, there has to be some commonly accepted parameters as to what constitutes a 'masterpiece'. Otherwise anything qualifies. For example, is "Dude Where's My Car" the equal of "The Godfather"? In some people's minds, sure. But can that position be rationally defended other than with personal preference? Aren't there some works of art that just stand head and shoulders above others and truly deserve the title? Is Pop one of those?

Why I keep posting to this thread, I'm not even sure at this point. I know I'll never change anybody's mind about whether they like the album, just maybe the way it's portrayed on interference.

 

[DreamOutLoud13]

U2 fans are the scariest rock and rolls nerds on earth.

Now really, someone should write a book about Interference and use this as the subtitle:

Pop, Knees, and Fake Edge
Why U2 Fans are the Scariest Rock and Roll Nerds on Earth

 

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I'm in!

 

[Mogi]

Pop is the most trendy U2 record. Bandwagon jumping of the highest order.

I totally disagree. Like I mentioned earlier, I think U2 was just using the fashion and image as a "topping" to a very deep and spiritual album.
I think U2 knew this was trendy and quite disposable, but wanted to challenge their fans to get through this and see the real meaning behind Pop.

Again, I think U2 was playing the part, tongue in cheek, to show how our society had become consumer sheep and would buy anything glossed up and "hot".

I really don´t think U2 was trying to be that. I think they were trying to mock that with art. They just jumped into the painting instead of painting it.

Pop was a logical conclusion to Zoo TV and the forecasting of the new media.

Everyone wanted to jump on with Zoo Station for this new exciting ride. By WUDM, Bono sounded like he was about to puke and was so sick of all the bullshit and wanted back what he was searching for before indulging himself (and society).
Thus came "Beautiful Day".

Brilliant.

 

[bgmckinney]

ut Pop defenders seize on this issue like their mother has been insulted. Then they argue every reason in the world as to why it's great except...well...why it's great. I'm yet to read a coherent arguement with at least some objectivity as to what makes this album great. Taste is subjective, but there must be some middle gorund, some commonalities that the art (in this case, music as art) world can agree on that define greatness. Otherwise, my three year old's scribblings are just as great as the Mona Lisa

Ok, I’ll bite. I love the album. But I think we all as fans have this fantasy that if we just explain well enough, using exactly the right words, why we like what we like, we’ll bring everyone else around and they’ll hear it through our ears. Doesn’t usually work that way. But what the hell: I’ll just try to make a few “coherent arguments” about lyrics and music. No time to cover them all, but -

Lyrics - some of their best ever-

- Discotheque. As someone who really, really likes words, who has to be confined to a straitjacket for a week every time he hears some rapper make a bad rhyme, I think it’s brilliant. Top-notch bono. It’s a riddle about love - it’s no trick, cause you can’t earn it; it’s the way that don’t pay that’s ok, cause you can’t earn it - which is spot-on in every particular. Lyrics rarely get this good.

- Mofo. It still gives me chills to hear “looking for a sound’s gonna drown out the world / looking for the father of my two little girls...” I think that’s just as confessional and intimate, if not more so, than SYCMIOYO, or Kite, or Acrobat. Pop is all about aphorisms and puns; tight, short phrases that bite. On Discotheque it’s meant to be deceptively shallow; here it’s just moving. On DYFL it’s sexy in a sinister way.

Music - Well, either you like it or you don’t, obviously. All I can do is try to advance a few reasons why I think it’s worth liking. The mixes aren’t always the best; but the general tone is always right. And it may be that tone that many people don’t like - Pop is a twilight-to-midnight album, something you listen to with a bottle of wine and cigarettes, and no company, and vague heartache you can’t put your finger on.

Discotheque - great riff, great bassline, and wonderful vocal technique from bono. Absolutely beautiful, haunting falsetto work here, up there with The Fly and Ultraviolet. Wonderful production layering - double-tracked vocals; mysterious sounds in the background; and the gorgeous, knee-weakening falsetto orgasm just before the boom-cha section kicks in at the end. I cannot praise this song enough.

Velvet Dress - I have not made out to this song, but I will someday.

Please - One of the few U2 songs I have trouble listening to without being ready for it beforehand. So quiet, so restrained, and yet rising to this pitch of almost unbearable pleading - as good as the live versions are, the (original) studio cut still blows me away. Beautiful drum work. Bono sounds world-weary, disgusted, too furious to rasie his voice. Sunday Bloody Sunday without the naivete, but with the idealism still intact.

Wake Up Dead Man - U2’s creepiest song. Listen to the guitar work - the simple lick during the chorus; the gentle, mournful picking during the bridge - and that tremolo opera voice they’ve sampled throughout the track. This song conjures up an entire world.

Alright, gotta bet to bed. Does that help at all, RobH? Sorry I couldn’t be more articulate; it’s late

 

[Mogi]

ut Pop defenders seize on this issue like their mother has been insulted. Then they argue every reason in the world as to why it's great except...well...why it's great. I'm yet to read a coherent arguement with at least some objectivity as to what makes this album great. Taste is subjective, but there must be some middle gorund, some commonalities that the art (in this case, music as art) world can agree on that define greatness. Otherwise, my three year old's scribblings are just as great as the Mona Lisa

Ok, I’ll bite. I love the album. But I think we all as fans have this fantasy that if we just explain well enough, using exactly the right words, why we like what we like, we’ll bring everyone else around and they’ll hear it through our ears. Doesn’t usually work that way. But what the hell: I’ll just try to make a few “coherent arguments” about lyrics and music. No time to cover them all, but -

Lyrics - some of their best ever-

- Discotheque. As someone who really, really likes words, who has to be confined to a straitjacket for a week every time he hears some rapper make a bad rhyme, I think it’s brilliant. Top-notch bono. It’s a riddle about love - it’s no trick, cause you can’t earn it; it’s the way that don’t pay that’s ok, cause you can’t earn it - which is spot-on in every particular. Lyrics rarely get this good.

- Mofo. It still gives me chills to hear “looking for a sound’s gonna drown out the world / looking for the father of my two little girls...” I think that’s just as confessional and intimate, if not more so, than SYCMIOYO, or Kite, or Acrobat. Pop is all about aphorisms and puns; tight, short phrases that bite. On Discotheque it’s meant to be deceptively shallow; here it’s just moving. On DYFL it’s sexy in a sinister way.

Music - Well, either you like it or you don’t, obviously. All I can do is try to advance a few reasons why I think it’s worth liking. The mixes aren’t always the best; but the general tone is always right. And it may be that tone that many people don’t like - Pop is a twilight-to-midnight album, something you listen to with a bottle of wine and cigarettes, and no company, and vague heartache you can’t put your finger on.

Discotheque - great riff, great bassline, and wonderful vocal technique from bono. Absolutely beautiful, haunting falsetto work here, up there with The Fly and Ultraviolet. Wonderful production layering - double-tracked vocals; mysterious sounds in the background; and the gorgeous, knee-weakening falsetto orgasm just before the boom-cha section kicks in at the end. I cannot praise this song enough.

Velvet Dress - I have not made out to this song, but I will someday.

Please - One of the few U2 songs I have trouble listening to without being ready for it beforehand. So quiet, so restrained, and yet rising to this pitch of almost unbearable pleading - as good as the live versions are, the (original) studio cut still blows me away. Beautiful drum work. Bono sounds world-weary, disgusted, too furious to rasie his voice. Sunday Bloody Sunday without the naivete, but with the idealism still intact.

Wake Up Dead Man - U2’s creepiest song. Listen to the guitar work - the simple lick during the chorus; the gentle, mournful picking during the bridge - and that tremolo opera voice they’ve sampled throughout the track. This song conjures up an entire world.

Alright, gotta bet to bed. Does that help at all, RobH? Sorry I couldn’t be more articulate; it’s late

Great insight! I think you have a great point.

My argument was less from the musical point of view to more of the image that U2 portrayed. I felt that many people had a hard time getting through this and thus had a harder time absorbing the music.

I guess that is what I love about this album and consider this amazing art. Because of the layers of complexity that it offers. You can make arguments from many different angles.

I would love to see you expand your thoughts on every song.

 

[Utoo]

is it really even worth arguing over? musical taste is all opinion, not fact. some peoples opinions are that pop is amazing, magical, a masterpiece, other peoples opinions are that its the opposite. neither is right or wrong, just enjoy what you enjoy.

 

[The Slow Loris]

ut Pop defenders seize on this issue like their mother has been insulted. Then they argue every reason in the world as to why it's great except...well...why it's great. I'm yet to read a coherent arguement with at least some objectivity as to what makes this album great. Taste is subjective, but there must be some middle gorund, some commonalities that the art (in this case, music as art) world can agree on that define greatness. Otherwise, my three year old's scribblings are just as great as the Mona Lisa

Ok, I’ll bite. I love the album. But I think we all as fans have this fantasy that if we just explain well enough, using exactly the right words, why we like what we like, we’ll bring everyone else around and they’ll hear it through our ears. Doesn’t usually work that way. But what the hell: I’ll just try to make a few “coherent arguments” about lyrics and music. No time to cover them all, but -

Lyrics - some of their best ever-

- Discotheque. As someone who really, really likes words, who has to be confined to a straitjacket for a week every time he hears some rapper make a bad rhyme, I think it’s brilliant. Top-notch bono. It’s a riddle about love - it’s no trick, cause you can’t earn it; it’s the way that don’t pay that’s ok, cause you can’t earn it - which is spot-on in every particular. Lyrics rarely get this good.

- Mofo. It still gives me chills to hear “looking for a sound’s gonna drown out the world / looking for the father of my two little girls...” I think that’s just as confessional and intimate, if not more so, than SYCMIOYO, or Kite, or Acrobat. Pop is all about aphorisms and puns; tight, short phrases that bite. On Discotheque it’s meant to be deceptively shallow; here it’s just moving. On DYFL it’s sexy in a sinister way.

Music - Well, either you like it or you don’t, obviously. All I can do is try to advance a few reasons why I think it’s worth liking. The mixes aren’t always the best; but the general tone is always right. And it may be that tone that many people don’t like - Pop is a twilight-to-midnight album, something you listen to with a bottle of wine and cigarettes, and no company, and vague heartache you can’t put your finger on.

Discotheque - great riff, great bassline, and wonderful vocal technique from bono. Absolutely beautiful, haunting falsetto work here, up there with The Fly and Ultraviolet. Wonderful production layering - double-tracked vocals; mysterious sounds in the background; and the gorgeous, knee-weakening falsetto orgasm just before the boom-cha section kicks in at the end. I cannot praise this song enough.

Velvet Dress - I have not made out to this song, but I will someday.

Please - One of the few U2 songs I have trouble listening to without being ready for it beforehand. So quiet, so restrained, and yet rising to this pitch of almost unbearable pleading - as good as the live versions are, the (original) studio cut still blows me away. Beautiful drum work. Bono sounds world-weary, disgusted, too furious to rasie his voice. Sunday Bloody Sunday without the naivete, but with the idealism still intact.

Wake Up Dead Man - U2’s creepiest song. Listen to the guitar work - the simple lick during the chorus; the gentle, mournful picking during the bridge - and that tremolo opera voice they’ve sampled throughout the track. This song conjures up an entire world.

Alright, gotta bet to bed. Does that help at all, RobH? Sorry I couldn’t be more articulate; it’s late

Brilliantly articulated....no apologies necessary. I think you're spot on about the album's tone: "And it may be that tone that many people don’t like - Pop is a twilight-to-midnight album, something you listen to with a bottle of wine and cigarettes, and no company, and vague heartache you can’t put your finger on." And I think you've just taught me why I haven't been able to fully appreciate Pop.

For me, U2 has always been a "heavenly" band -- their music has always spoken to me from a different plane, a different dimension, almost. It's like its energy is coming from a non-earth plane -- and it fills me with something that is lacking here. But with Pop, I don't really get that feeling. With Pop, it's a lamentation, really a reflection, of what is going on here -- the feelings we are subjected to from the perspective of our own limited, yet very human, psyche. It's Bono becoming a human figure instead of an all knowing spiritual essense. And getting back to why I can't relate to this as well.....I don't think I am in that place...but I understand a lot of people are....so it was apprently needed. As you say, the tone of this album is "twilight-to-midnight....something you listen to with a bottle of wine and cigarettes...with a vague heartache you can't quite put your finger on." I understand that sentiment....there are many in the world who can't put their finger on what exactly is causing the global and also their personal discontent. And going back to what Mogi said, it's as though U2 were "jumping into the painting" instead of painting it, on Pop....and I appreciate that. It's just not what initially attracted me to U2.

A part of me would like to fully appreciate the tone of Pop....but for obvious reasons, a larger part of me, the hopeful part of me, hopes I never do.

 

[RobH]

Alright, gotta bet to bed. Does that help at all, RobH? Sorry I couldn’t be more articulate; it’s late

Yeah that helps.

 

[Salome]

personally I love the first 3 songs and the last 3 songs
what's in between (even though it has some brilliant lyrical moments) is never really great, mostly because of lacking great melodies or stand out chorusses in combination with some pretty mediocre production efforts (Miami is actually the only song from the entire middle section that does fully work for me)

6 songs in a row without showing signs of magic is something I don't find on any other U2 album


I appreciate what the band tried to do here and I think it's great that so many people here think it's great,
but I just don't find half the songs that wonderful

 

[bgmckinney]

Brilliantly articulated....no apologies necessary. I think you're spot on about the album's tone: "And it may be that tone that many people don’t like - Pop is a twilight-to-midnight album, something you listen to with a bottle of wine and cigarettes, and no company, and vague heartache you can’t put your finger on." And I think you've just taught me why I haven't been able to fully appreciate Pop.

For me, U2 has always been a "heavenly" band -- their music has always spoken to me from a different plane, a different dimension, almost. It's like its energy is coming from a non-earth plane -- and it fills me with something that is lacking here. But with Pop, I don't really get that feeling. With Pop, it's a lamentation, really a reflection, of what is going on here -- the feelings we are subjected to from the perspective of our own limited, yet very human, psyche. It's Bono becoming a human figure instead of an all knowing spiritual essense. And getting back to why I can't relate to this as well.....I don't think I am in that place...but I understand a lot of people are....so it was apprently needed. As you say, the tone of this album is "twilight-to-midnight....something you listen to with a bottle of wine and cigarettes...with a vague heartache you can't quite put your finger on." I understand that sentiment....there are many in the world who can't put their finger on what exactly is causing the global and also their personal discontent. And going back to what Mogi said, it's as though U2 were "jumping into the painting" instead of painting it, on Pop....and I appreciate that. It's just not what initially attracted me to U2.

A part of me would like to fully appreciate the tone of Pop....but for obvious reasons, a larger part of me, the hopeful part of me, hopes I never do.

Thanks... if not appreciating pop means you also get to be spiritually healthy, then it's a fair trade. Just barely, maybe, but still fair.
Mogi, I'd love to expand my thoughts... maybe there could be a thread devoted to individual pop songs.

 

[AtomicBono]

yeah, but Pop fans rarely argue the music. It usually involves integrity or attitude and the like. All that bullshit.

"I love Mofo, cause it was such a FU to U2 fans and the mainstream."

What a load of shit.

Uh, I don't think I've ever argued for Mofo that way. Musically, it's fucking awesome. One of the hardest rocking songs U2 has ever done. A song I'd play to anyone who doesn't think U2 is "badass" or "hard rock" enough (not that U2 is ever really hard rock). The rhythm section is killin' it. I don't see how you can not like that. It's sort of hip-hop, almost. Hip-hop and techno. It's very energetic. Then the screaming 747 guitar... love it. I love Bono's growling vocals too, contrasting with the eerie falsetto screams... Bono doesn't just sing the song, he becomes the song. The layering of sound on Mofo is brilliant as well... the end of Mofo is, in my opinion, one of the single most amazing things U2 has ever done. It's overwhelming. People say they can't hear the magic in Pop, but I disagree.

That said, the "vague heartache" is exactly how I would describe Pop as well. It feels like it's missing something because it is - it's that God-shaped hole. It is the emptiness you have that you can't quite place, that you try to fill with whatever you can get, because it's all that you can find.

 

[The Slow Loris]

It is the emptiness you have that you can't quite place, that you try to fill with whatever you can get, because it's all that you can find.

Hence, the following album, All That You Can't Leave Behind -- the answer to that "God shaped hole".

 

[The Slow Loris]

Thanks... if not appreciating pop means you also get to be spiritually healthy, then it's a fair trade. Just barely, maybe, but still fair.
Mogi, I'd love to expand my thoughts... maybe there could be a thread devoted to individual pop songs.

I don't know how fair a trade it is, actually....after reading your post, I'm thinking I need to jump back into the world again. What did Bono say in 'When I Look at the World'? "You don't even blink now, do you? Or even look away." That's what Pop does. It looks straight into the world, and doesn't look away. That's a brave thing to do, and it's the only way we can get to that place of being spiritually whole, I would think...but I may be wrong about that. All I do konw is that without Pop, there would have been no All That You Can't Leave Behind.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

Re: Re: last post on this topic for me

Very well said U2 Girl. Especially about the magic.

Well there you go, everyone is different. I think Pop has the magic in spades. To me, what is on the actual record (ie forget all other arguments about style or image or the tour or whatever, just stick to the 50 odd minutes of actual music), is only 10% spit and shine, or that fabled extra month of work, away from making Pop definitely one of their greatest albums. It isn't a masterpiece, but to me it is a kinda flawed genius. As I said, I hear the magic all through Pop and it is specificaly the lack of feeling I get from the Bomb that makes me dislike it so much. I hear it infinitely more in eg Velvet Dress than I do in Original of the Species, a song that is so incredibly devoid of any soul to me. Great tune, sure, but completely on the surface for me. (IMO).

 

[Earnie Shavers]

And as I've said before, Pop was almost destined to be a flawed genius. It almost works in it's favour. Look at the opening line "You can reach, but you can't grab it". Almost what the whole album is about, a big leap of faith that you take, ultimately falling short and landing with your face in the mud. In the end, the album itself did that. Pisses the band and I'm sure many fans off no end, but I've grown to love that flawed side to the album. And as the Slow Loris correctly said, picking themselves up out of the mud and pushing forward to a better day - All That You Can't Leave Behind.

 

[The Slow Loris]

Re: Re: Re: last post on this topic for me

Well there you go, everyone is different. I think Pop has the magic in spades. To me, what is on the actual record (ie forget all other arguments about style or image or the tour or whatever, just stick to the 50 odd minutes of actual music), is only 10% spit and shine, or that fabled extra month of work, away from making Pop definitely one of their greatest albums. It isn't a masterpiece, but to me it is a kinda flawed genius. As I said, I hear the magic all through Pop and it is specificaly the lack of feeling I get from the Bomb that makes me dislike it so much. I hear it infinitely more in eg Velvet Dress than I do in Original of the Species, a song that is so incredibly devoid of any soul to me. Great tune, sure, but completely on the surface for me. (IMO).

'Velvet Dress' is my favourite piece of music on Pop. It's one of the few times in recent memory where U2 delves back into the shadow and flickering light of albums such as The Unforgettable Fire, and this is a place where Edge really shines as an artist. I wish he could go there more on recent U2 albums.