The POP Celebration Thread ~ This album always re-awakens the rabid U2 fan in me!!!

[Zoots]

Just because we haven't seen many appreciation threads lately aaand cos the poll for this album is going on currently and I'm guessing people are in the mood for it.......

Thread Rules

1. This is an appreciation for the album only, not Popmart.

2. This is not a POP vs. ATYCLB or POP vs. HTDAAB thread.

3. This is not a POP vs. ATYCLB or POP vs. HTDAAB thread.

4. This is not a POP vs. ATYCLB or POP vs. HTDAAB thread.

5. This is not a POP vs. ATYCLB or POP vs. HTDAAB thread.


Oh... also

Gone..Miami = combust smiley (I've exceeded the image limit for this post, lol)

 

[coolian2]

I don't think we've had one of these in a while

 

[waynetravis]

Gone..Miami =

Fixed

 

[Zoots]

^ You are awesome!

I don't think we've had one of these in a while

You mean Pop appreciation threads or appreciation threads in general? Either way I think your comment is true.

 

[DreamOutLoud13]

Pop

Pop was U2 with attitude. Pop was U2 in technicolour. Pop was U2 fucking up the mainstream. Pop was a rainbow, glitter, discoball lemon spaceship, groovy fucking auditory and visual orgy of awesomeness

 

[zoopop]

Pop is the rock album U2 have wanted the last 4-6 years.

Discotheque
Do You Feel Loved
Mofo
Gone
Last Night On Earth
Miami
Please

were all good-great rock songs.

add:

Staring At The Sun
If God Will Send His Angels
If You Wear That Velvet Dress
Wake Up Dead
Playboy Mansion (Good song)

and you have one of the most unique sounding rock/pop albums by the biggest band in the world.

POP U ROCK

 

[U2democrat]

Pop

It was simply ahead of its time. If it were released fresh today, it'd be a monster hit.


Gone

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

POP

The album Pop - where to begin?...

Pop looks like the sun but it feels like the rain.

Pop is lookin' for to fill that God shaped hole with some muthafuckin' rock and roll.

Pop lights up my Christmas tree.

Pop is a long, hot summer.

Pop turns and we get dizzy.

Pop is walkin' movie sets and smokin' cigarettes.

Pop is bubblegum. You know what it is but you still want some.

Pop is big, bigger than us.

I'll be up with the motherfuckin' sun and I'm not comin' down.

 

[Zoots]

GirlsAloudFan, your post was such a pleasure to read!

 

[Tiger Edge]

Pop is one of the few albums I can listen to from beginning to end without any desire to skip a track.

The only flaw with Pop is that I didn't hear it until 2005, seven years too late!

For me, it's absolute perfection.

 

[luna_lovegood]

POP

The album Pop - where to begin?...

Pop looks like the sun but it feels like the rain.

Pop is lookin' for to fill that God shaped hole with some muthafuckin' rock and roll.

Pop lights up my Christmas tree.

Pop is a long, hot summer.

Pop turns and we get dizzy.

Pop is walkin' movie sets and smokin' cigarettes.

Pop is bubblegum. You know what it is but you still want some.

Pop is big, bigger than us.

I'll be up with the motherfuckin' sun and I'm not comin' down.

 

[bonocomet]

Still one of my favorite albums. I bought the 2 disc vinyl version

 

[bathiu]

POP '97

POP '00 and to this day I love it



















BTW: GirlsAloudFan

 

[65980]

For me, there's something slightly wrong at the "surface-level" with POP. The production didn't quite come off, the experiments are only half-attempted, the mixes were rushed (and quite poor in a couple of cases), and the cover and graphics are ugly (to say nothing of how stupid the band looked in the 'Discotheque' video).

However, POP is still very good. It's the best song collection the band produced between 1992 and 2003. The lyrics are fantastic, the tunes are there. The bass and drums are more exciting than usual.

 

[LemonMelon]

Third best U2 album IMO, behind JT and Zooropa. Some amazing atmosphere in parts, and a clutch of knockout singles.

And the Discotheque video PWNS.

 

[bonocomet]

I love the Discotheque video, and the SATS videos too. And the cover art of the album IS Pop.

 

[luna_lovegood]

And the Discotheque video PWNS.

Agreed. Its a bloody awesome song, with a bloody awesome vidoe. Probably my favourite of recent years. Larry's expression during the Village poeple sequence never fails to crack me up!

 

[Lila64]

Very nice GirlsAloudFan!

The CD is actually in my CD player at the moment. I love the look of the disc itself too

 

[Aardvark747]

Pop is most def. my fave album after AB. Mofo has always been the standout track for me!

That era as a whole is fantastic. The singles and b-sides are great with only the AB releases better I reckon.

My highlights from the Pop era:

Mofo (studio and live)
Do You Feel Loved
Gone (Though the the best of 90-00 version sounds a lot better)
Please (single edit and live performences)
Two Shots Of Happy...
Slow Dancing (with Willie Nelson)
The Popheart EP
North And South Of The River
If God Will Send His Angels and Please videos
and Popmart Mexico!

Sorry Zoot - kind of went off at a tangent from the praising of Pop to the whole Pop era!

 

[gareth brown]

love the album but jeeez

what a fucking waste of money THIS was!

 

[ponkine]

POP is my favourite U2 album.

It's unconventional, it's not a mainstream album. It's different, exciting and inspiring.

I simply love it

Now bring on the multitracks

 

[Pero]

i mean, c'mon. another thread about the most underrated album in history of mankind.
let me put it this way
moooffffoooo.

 

[zoopop]

I was 19 when Pop came out and here are few stand out moments during that era:

-Hearing Discotheque for the 1st time on the radio
-Local radio playing tracks off the album (yes, stations used to do this.) Heard Gone, LNOE, & Mofo
-Listening to a radio special w/ the band talking about Pop
-The midnight priemere of Discotheque video on MTV
-My Dad buying me tickets to the opening night of the Popmart. There was some kind of VH-1 special on TV to call & buy tickets.
-Buying the album at midnight
-Going to Vegas with hype surrounding the Popmart. Vegas radio was playing U2 all day and every hour they would say "U2 takes the stage for the 1st time in 4 years in 8 hours." Then Miami comes on.
-Concert wasn't great, but I'll never forget it. The hype was surreal and I did hear IGWSHA full band

An awesome time to be a U2 fan. Big risk, High reward for the diehards!!

 

[Mauwer]

love the album but jeeez

what a fucking waste of money THIS was!

Totally agree.
Man that LNOE remix does sound a lot like everything except LNOE

Cheers ,

Mauwer

 

[Rich79]

Ahh, POP. The perfect album. I'm so glad "I'm not the only one" who loves this album. What a climax to U2's 90's material. I'm not one for encouraging the repeating of oneself, but if the band were to go a little more in the POP direction again, I wouldn't complain at all. The sacrifice of big poppy radio hits and grand ballads for artistic brilliance is well worth it. I also agree that this is one of the few more consistent "Rock" albums U2 has. Depending on how you look at it, you could consider there to be 5-7 Rock songs on POP, whilst it's two successors have about 6 total between the two of them. Hmm...Perhaps the hype of a rock album in the last 8 years was a little off the mark; anyway, I know this isn't a thread for going on about such things. This is for POP; U2's masterpiece, in my opinion. And here's to hoping they out-do it in October '08!

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

best U2 album IMO, followed by JT and Zooropa. Some amazing atmosphere in parts, and a clutch of knockout singles.

And the Discotheque video PWNS.

FIXED!

 

[Moser]

POP

Fucking brilliant!

It was like U2 was saying "Who gives a fuck about what we wrote in the 80s? MOFO!"

Discotheque was a monster in disguise. The guitar riff screamed. The bass line shook the house.

Mofo: Everything you knew about U2 is wrong. The absolute opposite of what you expect from a rock album. The absolute thing you thing you WANT from a rock band.

Who gives a fuck about Bono's not sing higher notes!? His rough voice fucking sounded great on this alien album.

U2 expressed themselves as how they would have liked to be seen, and not by how many of their singles make the Top 40.

Way to go U2. You are the fucking men of all men.

PS: Discotheque video? The greatest manifestation of imagination in the land.

 

[Varitek]

I love Pop, except for Miami. And live the album absolutely kills.

 

[PookaMacP]

I love Pop. It was my first U2 album back in 1997 - bought on the strength of the two first two singles. Please was an incredible song then, and remains so now. I gave the album a spin a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at how good it remains. Only Playboy Mansion doesn't come up to scratch, though God knows there could've been a superb song made from the 'Then will there be no time for sorrow...' Curiously, I was talking to a friend of mine the other evening about music, etc, having just been to a Seasick Steve gig (I put that in because it was a great gig), and he surprisingly said that he couldn't abide U2, but loved Pop, particularly Discotheque. It kinda shocked me that a non-U2 fan might pick on that particular album to love.

Look at the released out-takes from that period too:
I'm Not Your Baby (either in Skysplitter Dub or Sinead O'Connor incarnation)
Holy Joe (particularly the Garage Mix, though I know it is a derivative of Discotheque)
North and South of the River
Big Girls Are Best (though it came out in the ATYCLB period)

and Love and Peace and City of Blinding Lights also had their genesis in the Pop period.

Totally agree.
Man that LNOE remix does sound a lot like everything except LNOE

Cheers ,

Mauwer

Which is, I think, what makes it a great remix!

 

[The Disciple]

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFO!