COBL_04 said:
For all the ladies out there? Do you love those verses?
With my fingers as you want them
With my nails under your hide
With my teeth at your back
And my tongue to tell you the sweetest lies
I reckon they're incredibly sexual. Love this song.
Hell fucking yes
toscano said:
Said it before, will keep on saying it. Pop is their last ROCK album, their last album which wasn't paint-by-numbers.
Larry and Adam went away after Zoo and took music lessons, and it showed. They had some new tricks and wanted to show them off. Edge didn't give a crap about sounding like Edge and just created. Bono's lyrics were some of his best ever. Angst seems to bring out the best in him. Raw, incomplete, but from the heart and soul and all the better for it. Everything has been a wee bit sterile since then. Squeaky clean and polished for the casual visitor who might drop by.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Now, I'm late to this thread, but I've been busy and that's my excuse. But Pop's the album I'll never grow tired of talking about, so even though I'm really tired and it's probably not the best time to be giving the album another review, I'm going to give it another go:
Discotheque
Ah, what can one say about this song? If anything's to blame for this album not selling better, it was the Discotheque video. Personally,
I love it, but I think it scared a lot of people
The song is rather groovy, and you can't
kind of dance to it. The lyrics don't seem to be about anything deep, but there's an underlying desperation there.
Do You Feel Loved
Do you feel loved? Do you?! I certainly do. I
love this song. Love is not even a strong enough word for it. The entire thing is sex. It has the best bassline ever, and in fact it was
this song that made me start fancying Adam. The lyrics too are sexy, with an even sexier delivery. I could almost care less about Edge and Larry in this song, but of course they tie it all together.
Do You Feel Loved continues the album's progression into darkness, underneath all the rhythm and beats and sexual energy is a story about confusing love and sex. Look at the verse quoted at the top of this entry, the song describes all these rawly sexual acts and then asks 'Does
this make you feel loved?' It seems to be about someone searching for love through rampant sex.
Mofo
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFOOOOOO!
This song really kicked ass live, but the album version is pretty asskicky itself. Edge makes his guitar sound like a 747, Bono breaks out the ultra-deep lyrics and writes what is essentially a song about God, rock and roll, and his mother. How many other musicians would put such themes into such a KICKASS song, seriously?
If God Will Send His Angels
It took me a long time to get into this song, and it's still not one of my favourites. It's a good song, and I've gone through phases where I really, really liked it, but it just doesn't have long-standing appeal with me. I think perhaps it's the somberness of it that turns me off. One thing a lot of people don't know though, is that (according to Bono) the song is from the point of view of a guy beating up his girlfiend (or at least berrating her), and once you know that, it takes on a whole different twist.
Staring at the Sun
Not one of my favourites at all. It's good on a hot summer day, but other than that I usually don't listen to it (I love both videos though!) The song is not that interesting lyrically, aside from the middle eight which I love. The verse about the insect is particularly cringeworthy. And I just realized that I have no idea what this song is supposed to be about, or if it's even about anything at all.
Last Night on Earth
One of my all time favourites. This is truly U2's last rock song, I wish they'd go back to making music like this. Another one of the incredibly dark songs on Pop hiding beneath a shiny coating, this one's about a girl that's living wildly because she's getting ready to kill herself. It's also another one of the songs that was just incredible live. This song is home to one of my favourite U2 lines: "She hasn't been to bed in a week, she'll be dead soon, then she'll sleep" I feel like that line is about me.
Gone
This is my second favourite U2 song ever (used to be my most favourite, but Zooropa pounded it to death in a bloody brawl.) Bono has said that when he wrote this song, he felt like he was writing the last song he'd ever write, and you can really tell. He's pouring himself into the lyrics in a way that he hadn't done since Acrobat. The bitterness and sorrow and defiance in the song are almost palpable. It is a simply incredible song.
Miami
I will defend this song to the grave. I hate when people say this song has stupid lyrics? So what? Who says every song has to freaking be Streets? It's just a fun song, a little postcard of a trip to Miami with some cheesy lyrics. Is that really such a bad song? I love this song so much. The first half of it is just the buildup, it don't matter, it's when you hit that killer riff before the bridge when the song really comes alive. And how sexy is that bridge? Only song in the world to ever make me wanna go get knocked up in a photobooth in Miami. That alone makes the song awesome. The "MIAMI! MY MAMMY!" scream is also awesome in a ridiculous way.
The Playboy Mansion
Least favourite track on the album. Bless em, they tried. I appreciate the sentiment behind the song, there's a good message there, but it just suffers from boringness. The porn music at the beginning is a great touch though (took me forever to realize what it was though... I guess I don't watch enough porn), I like the latter portion of the song though, "and though I can't say why, I know I've got to believe" I love that line.
If You Wear That Velvet Dress
Amazingly seductive song, oddly enough about not giving into sexual temptation. The music starts out simple and atmospheric, and then there's this great beat that kicks in and sounds exactly like a heartbeat, and then the rest comes together, but it's still simple and ultra smooth, and the focus is still on Bono's incredible delivery. It's an incredibly gorgeous song, although the sexiness of the Jools Holland version has far overshadowed the original.
Please
I'm not into this song like I probably should be. I blame my mother's bizarre obsession with the music video. I can't deny that it's a great song though. It's another one of those songs that just builds and builds into a great climax. The middle eight is that great climax, made even more awesome by the eerieness of the lyrics post-9/11.
Wake Up Dead Man
Anybody that went around calling Pop a "dance album" probably didn't get past the third track, and certainly didn't get to the last one. The opening lines are so striking "Jesus, Jesus help me, I'm alone in this world, and a fucked up world it is too" Those lines make some people uncomfortable, but I think they're perfectly
raw. The song would not have the impact it does if that sentiment were sugarcoated in any way. This song is so sad and angry, but it's understandable. Most people have been in that place of depression and anger at God. I love the "listen to the words" section, as it seems to almost be instruction to step back and calm down and listen for God's comfort, because it's there. This song is also noteable for the amount of
stuff that's hidden in it. It's U2's answer to Revolution 9.
Now see, I can't rank songs or give them ratings, but I can talk about them til I'm blue in the face.
As a whole, I of course love the album, there are a few weak spots, but I think it's underrated by the majority simply because people negatively focus on those weak spots, and on any of its strangeness or differentness, and tend not to focus on the fact that Pop has some of Bono's absolute best lyrics.
I know it annoys some people the way we PopTarts continually gush about the awesomeness of the album, but personally... I just think it's such a good album that it bothers me when people don't seem to see that. Just like I'm sure it bothers the rest of you when people don't like Achtung Baby (okay, it's really only one person, and his name is Axver
)