I "heart" POP

[Salome]

I think the real reason for the POP 'backlash' is:
- it was supposed to be real follow up to Achtung Baby and it fell short by a bit
- now the dust have settled hardly anyone outside this forum is even able to name a song from this album and wouldn't recognise any of the songs except for Discotheque therefore it's an 'easy' album to attack

 

[Hawkmoon72]

I think the real reason for the POP 'backlash' is:
- it was supposed to be real follow up to Achtung Baby and it fell short by a bit
- now the dust have settled hardly anyone outside this forum is even able to name a song from this album and wouldn't recognise any of the songs except for Discotheque therefore it's an 'easy' album to attack

Do you think most fans outside this forum could recognize Zoo Station, So Cruel, The Fly, Love is Blindness, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, Acrobat, Until the End of the World, Ultraviolet, and Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World?

 

[Salome]

no, but they could name One
and recognize Mysterious Ways and Even better than the real thing

 

[Hawkmoon72]

Perhaps, but the people we should care about ... are U2 fans.

And I have never understood why they have bashed the album so much over the years.

AB is maybe my favorite album of all-time of theirs, but Pop shows a hell of a lot more experimentation and risk than any album they have ever done. (edit: Outside of Passengers ... but a lot of that really was crap)

 

[zooperson]

The lyrics for the album are the best of any U2 album although I think NLOTH is on the same vein as far as lyrics go. they stay away from the cliche stuff and offer up a lot of original imagery and ideas. I think in that way HTDAAB is Pop's opposite.

The reason: I think the lyrics of Pop are more finite abstractions of bigger ideas. those are my favorite kind of U2 songs. some times Bono loses my interested when he tries to tackle huge ideas with cliche lyrics and ends up writing similar songs over and over.
uh, does anyone know what I mean? haha probably "no"?

I think it's like what he was saying about Please and Sunday Bloody Sunday. how those songs are about the same things but Please is about a couple and their personal thing while SBS is a very literal portrayal of some of the imagery of the things that happened Ireland that Bono talks about.

Please: "September; streets capsizing/spilling over/down the drain/ shards of glass/ splinters like rain/ but you could only feel your own pain/October; talk getting no-where/November;December/remember?/or are we just starting again?"

as opposed to

SBS: Broken Bottles under children's feet/ bodies strewn across a dead end street/ but I won't heed the battle call/ it puts my back up against the wall.

Please is far far more interesting for my money.

i think, to U2's credit, the ability they have to offer up something different with each album and not repeat themselves has made fans out of a lot of different kinds of people with different taste in music. So maybe it is not worth the arguement even though I have pleaded my case for this albums greatness up and down this forum.

So we can can all agree to disagree but it just so happens that people that love Pop are more intellegent

 

[Brian-C]

I cherish every song on the Passengers and wish there was more like it. But that's beside the point.

Pop is an odd one. Achtung Baby was sort of the perfect package, with it's Mondrian-style cover, featuring hazy pictures of the band. Then there was the videos with them cross-dressing. The television stuff was like an art installation and Bono's personas were very mysterious. Pop was way more kitsch and pompous. Some might argue the pomp of ZOO TV, but I would argue that the whole aura of 1991-92 was one filled with an inimitable weirdness not present on Pop or Pop-Mart. The world knew U2 way too intimately by then. You might say thy were the biggest band in the world by JT and R&H, but even then, they had room to reinvent themselves. Their story hadn't been fully told yet. After doing an album nearly as big as JT with AB, there was no hiding their mass appeal. What could they possibly do next? So Pop definitely lacks in some enigma. It was over-the-top in its presentation. Which, again, decries how incredible the actual songs are on the album.

I wonder what would have been made of those songs had they been presented with a different title and a different look? It's all hearsay, because you get the band going full-on Eurotrash, with pinks and flourescent greens and purples. Such an oddity, that one. I mean, you have you Beatles and Rolling Stones looking like psychedelic wizards, but U2 completely evoked the era, including even the masculinity of the post-alternative era. Which I call the muscle rock period. U2 seemed even to be mocking that on-stage, c. 1997-98.

 

[Hawkmoon72]

So we can can all agree to disagree but it just so happens that people that love Pop are more intellegent

While I can recognize the humor in this, no.

"i think, to U2's credit, the ability they have to offer up something different with each album and not repeat themselves has made fans out of a lot of different kinds of people with different taste in music."

U2 repeat themselves a lot. And I actually have no problem with that. If I don't hear a typical Edge riff or Bono lyric, I don't know what to do with myself. And I am not musically smart enough to know when Larry and Adam are repeating themselves.

 

[Hawkmoon72]

I cherish every song on the Passengers and wish there was more like it. But that's beside the point.

For real? Outside of Blue Room, Slug, Sarajevo, Native, and Always ... there was nothing on that album.

That said, those songs were well worth the non-U2 project.

 

[Brian-C]

I liked every song. But now we're off-topic.

 

[Popmart Shopper]

I Love Pop.At first i couldnt quite get it after Mofo though cause I thought it was going to be a complete dance record.I wish they would have made it more dance electronic and a double album.Songs like Velvet Dress and Playboy Mansion did sneak up on me years later and are hidden gems just try Velvet Dress at night with headphones or Wake Up Dead Man.I think Pop would have been better with a tracklisting like this:

Disc 1:
1.Popmuzik
2.Mofo
3.Do You Feel Loved?
4.North and South of the River
5.Levitate
6.Discotheque
7.Big Girls Are Best
8.Miami
9.Im Not Your Baby(U2 Only)
10.Neon Lights

Disc 2:
1.Last Night On Earth
2.Happiness Is a Warm Gun
3.Gone
4.If God Will Send His Angels
5.Playboy Mansion
6.Holy Joe
7.Staring At The Sun
8.If You Wear That Velvet Dress
9.Please(Single Version)
10.Wake Up Dead Man

B Sides-Stateless,Two Shots of Happy One Shot Of Sad,Your Blue Room,
Dirty Day,Numb,Staring At The Sun,Discotheque,Mofo,IGWSHA,and Last Night On Earth Remixes.

 

[Brian-C]

Were all of those songs even recorded during the time of Pop? Fuckin' "Neon Lights"? Are you kidding? I had no idea they even covered this song.

 

[Popmart Shopper]

Yes all those other songs not on the regular POP album were recorded around those sessions.Even Stateless from MDH soundtrack was from those sessions as was LAPOE and COBL in different forms though.Neon Lights may have been recorded later but it just sounds like something that would fit on POP.Your Blue Room was between Zooropa and Passengers.

 

[MooMoo!]

I Pop too.

Its so colourful and different.

The colours children! Ngh HEY!

 

[Moser]

I mean Edge took off the beanie, grew a pornstache, and wore cowboy boots.

Who would not like that!?

 

[digitize]

The lyrics for the album are the best of any U2 album although I think NLOTH is on the same vein as far as lyrics go. they stay away from the cliche stuff and offer up a lot of original imagery and ideas. I think in that way HTDAAB is Pop's opposite.

The reason: I think the lyrics of Pop are more finite abstractions of bigger ideas. those are my favorite kind of U2 songs. some times Bono loses my interested when he tries to tackle huge ideas with cliche lyrics and ends up writing similar songs over and over.
uh, does anyone know what I mean? haha probably "no"?

I think it's like what he was saying about Please and Sunday Bloody Sunday. how those songs are about the same things but Please is about a couple and their personal thing while SBS is a very literal portrayal of some of the imagery of the things that happened Ireland that Bono talks about.

Please: "September; streets capsizing/spilling over/down the drain/ shards of glass/ splinters like rain/ but you could only feel your own pain/October; talk getting no-where/November;December/remember?/or are we just starting again?"

as opposed to

SBS: Broken Bottles under children's feet/ bodies strewn across a dead end street/ but I won't heed the battle call/ it puts my back up against the wall.

Please is far far more interesting for my money.

i think, to U2's credit, the ability they have to offer up something different with each album and not repeat themselves has made fans out of a lot of different kinds of people with different taste in music. So maybe it is not worth the arguement even though I have pleaded my case for this albums greatness up and down this forum.

So we can can all agree to disagree but it just so happens that people that love Pop are more intellegent

Thank you. I've felt this way (well, perhaps sans the final line ) for a long time... I truly think Bono is an amazing lyricist because of how he handles this sort of thing. For instance... One is a couple fighting... and a song about borderline metaphysics. Lemon is a boy wanting his mother... and a society in general suffering from a lack of communication, and too much communication... with everything from sex to computers factoring in (and expressed in Bono's lyrics and delivery). Please is... well, you talked about it. Boots is a more literal version of this... a family at an amusement park, trying to focus in on the mother/wife's beauty, while the world collapses into the ground around them, but stays in the peripheral vision (the music ties into this, making the song seem throwaway at first but... not so much in reality).

 

[zooperson]

While i can recognize that you SAID that you recognized the humor in my line, no.

Second, I didn't say that everything U2 has done is a drastic change. As Bono has said in recent interviews, (paraphrase) "we try to start fresh each time with new paint and a new canvas and we will make new strokes but it's always going to be the same arm making those strokes." So, of course, U2 is U2. but you missed my point and I don't understand why you quoted me. My point is that we all (the fans) may have different interests, personalities, and tastes in music aside from our love for U2. What I was pointing out is the fact that U2 draw in people from every kind of avenue and that is why there are groups of people that prefer one album over another and other groups that completely disagree. I, for example, have a passion for early Los Angeles Punk Rock music and No-Wave and I tend to favor the more experimental 90's U2. Another person may love Bruce Springsteen and the Blues and not have any interest in punk or experimental so maybe they favor the late 80's U2. I am not saying this is an absolute rule. I am just using an example

While I can recognize the humor in this, no.

"i think, to U2's credit, the ability they have to offer up something different with each album and not repeat themselves has made fans out of a lot of different kinds of people with different taste in music."

U2 repeat themselves a lot. And I actually have no problem with that. If I don't hear a typical Edge riff or Bono lyric, I don't know what to do with myself. And I am not musically smart enough to know when Larry and Adam are repeating themselves.

Edit: also the following line was part of my original post so i especially don't understand you quoting me in order to make your point; "some times Bono loses my interested when he tries to tackle huge ideas with cliche lyrics and ends up writing similar songs over and over."

 

[zooperson]

Were all of those songs even recorded during the time of Pop? Fuckin' "Neon Lights"? Are you kidding? I had no idea they even covered this song.

Yes sir. it's the b-side to vertigo. it's beautiful.

 

[zooperson]

For real? Outside of Blue Room, Slug, Sarajevo, Native, and Always ... there was nothing on that album.

That said, those songs were well worth the non-U2 project.

you forgot Corpse, Elvis Ate America, and everything else.

 

[Hawkmoon72]

Mea culpa ... Zoo

I was not trying to prove a point at all or take you to task for your take. And not sure how we got into an argument, but it was clearly me who fanned the flames, so I apologize. And my intention was not to derail the love of Pop thread. And, it looks like I did that, and I am sorry. We agree on Pop. I love the album myself.

And we agree on Bono. He does find himself going too much to Bono lyric cliche playbook a lot. Lots of folks mock the "kneel", "feel", "need", "heart" stuff enough that yeah ... there is some truth to that.

 

[monsieur fly]

I thought the K Mart conference was hillarious- I don't know the band kept their faces straight! Journalists are so stupid, sometimes.

 

[Hawkmoon72]

I think a lot of fans found it to be hilarious too.

But, I think it was a turn-off for folks for an album right on the heels of Achtung.

As a fan, I understand what they were getting at. But, I could see how some more casual fans would dismiss the album because of something as silly as the K-Mart thing.

 

[Brian-C]

I, for example, have a passion for early Los Angeles Punk Rock music and No-Wave and I tend to favor the more experimental 90's U2. Another person may love Bruce Springsteen and the Blues and not have any interest in punk or experimental so maybe they favor the late 80's U2. I am not saying this is an absolute rule. I am just using an example

Well said. My favorite era for U2 music is definitely 1991-97, though I'm quite fond of 1979-84, as well. Particularly the single produced by Martin Hannett ("11 O'Clock Tick-Tock").

Nice to hear of someone else who digs L.A. punk and no-wave music. In a combination of the twain, might I suggest the L.A. no-wave band Monitor?

 

[zooperson]

Well said. My favorite era for U2 music is definitely 1991-97, though I'm quite fond of 1979-84, as well. Particularly the single produced by Martin Hannett ("11 O'Clock Tick-Tock").

Nice to hear of someone else who digs L.A. punk and no-wave music. In a combination of the twain, might I suggest the L.A. no-wave band Monitor?

Wow, never heard of Monitor! sounds too good to be true I'll check it out for sure. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about some awesome Los Angeles Punk Rock!

 

[Earnie Shavers]

The issue Pop had with fans is that it wasn’t finished.
The issue Pop had with the public is that it was by U2 and released in 1997.
Neither of which make it a bad album, they just mean it never got a shot at reaching its potential.

 

[Laugend]

I re-discover HOLY JOE yesterday : what a fucking brilliant song !!!!

 

[edgeplaytheblue]

Indeed Holy Joe is a brilliant songs. It should have been on the album

POP still is a very strong album

 

[Tyagu_Anaykus]

And I just rediscovered Miami. Fuck what a powerfull riff

 

[Laugend]

When I'm sad I listen this album and I know that everything is gonna be alright !

 

[popacrobat]

When I'm sad I listen this album and I know that everything is gonna be alright !

really? to me it's one of their darker albums.

 

[Brian-C]

Yeah, to me, it's one of those albums that always makes me want to start a dialogue on consumerism. But I have to say, it is strangely comforting too. Just kind of knowing that someone else sees all the propaganda and can sort of laugh at it.