i like it, though from the moment i bought it, i was firmly in the "pop is awesome" camp. perhaps it was because the year before was when i went from just having achtung baby and zooropa on cassette to deciding i had to slowly spend my money buying all of their stuff on cd, so i'd been able to exhaustively hear everything prior to this and pop was the first new album of theirs i bought. but i've always loved it.
it's not perfect and yes, you can tell it was rushed. but especially in retrospect with how overthought, rife with delays (moreso than pop, i think even its detractors would agree post-90s albums are more calculated and the release dates get pushed back aaaaall the time), and overprocessed their albums after pop are. i know pop has its moments of being overcooked too, but imo even at its most well done, overburnt hockey puck of a steak, it's not as bad as how it is in their later albums.
plus i mean...popmart. such an awesome tour. i may have had nosebleed seats (man i wish i'd done ga, oh well. i was 13 and had never been to a rock concert) but it was still such an amazing experience. plus tbh i'm glad i saw the tour early in its first leg: i got electric sats, even though they did fuck it up and have to start over.
while achtung baby and perhaps even zooropa* were imo their last perfect, classic albums, pop is definitely their last attempt at a classic album. the next two are unlistenable to me. nloth was redeemable but is just very good at points, but there are too many poor songs that drag it down and make it not a classic. soi...i've listened to it maybe a handful of times, didn't even go to the tour. kept meaning to see them and put it off, saying i'd see them on the next leg, then the next. then i realised the tour was over and was like "oh well, not like i wanted to hear the miracle anyway."