Pop album - what went wrong..?

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U2DMfan said:
These two statements conflict each other, IMO. The former being irrelevant to everything but U2's future creative decisions. The latter is certainly accurate.

The band can believe what they want but they are not the arbiter of truth when it comes to the quality of their own music. That U2 consider POP a failure is utterly meaningless to the idea that it failed artistically or creatively. Commercially? That can be fairly measured - objectively. The band's own perception of it is whatever it is. But they don't hold any special authority over how any single one of us appreciates or doesn't appreciate a song.

Thus U2 calling POP a failure is only meaningful as a comment on its chart performance and other such nonsense that shouldn't matter to fans like us. We can love it or hate it or we can consider it a success or a failure and we don't need to defer to the band's opinion in order to do so.
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The first statement I added for dramatic effect...:shifty:

Music is subjective, however the real point of my post is not whether or not you like it (you do, I can appreciate that) but what the artist thinks of his own work and a more 'official' response to the subject line.

And it does matter what the artist thinks, it's their piece of work. Just because you find Pop essential doesn't mean the artist's negative feelings on said subject are irrelevant. But agreed, the way you feel about the album as a whole is your own.

I don't think Pop is a good U2 album, you think it's great. There are many different reasons why you feel the way you do, and why I find it just OK. I'm just stating my opinion mixed in with U2's feelings towards the project as a whole. We disagree on Pop...that's what makes this forum so much fun.
 
I agree with the idea that you can hear the sound of old u2 in some pop songs.. But 2 things: the casual fan won't. And, u2 didn't want you to hear that. Cause they wanted to be seen as a band that looks forward.At least initially.
 
Simply, it is an album that stands the test of time, still talked about, good or bad, some heavy rockers, very personal lyrics, some interesting sounds and innovation.

Clearly it is pivotal in the U2 catalog, no other album gets more attention, criticism and dissection. The songs just improved with the tour and came across well live... watch Mexico City and try to tell yourself Discotheque is just not over the top.

For me, it is one of their best albums, just crank it up, plenty of great tunes to make you dizzy, and I know some of the members here are a bit younger, but in 1997, the RADIO was terrible, filled with rap, R&B and boy bands...

POP was a big release at the time, well received by most fans and critics, it was everything U2 could be at the time. Can't think of any other U2 album with 6 singles either.
 
david said:
Sadly I don't remember ever hearing POP songs on the radio 'cept Staring at the Sun a few times on KROQ.
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I even remember some portuguese radios playing "Gone". I remember seeing "Discotheque" on TV lots of times. "Staring At The Sun" has more airplay than "Crazy Tonight" or as much as COBL. IGWSHA and LNOE also had some airplay here.
 
I remember the VH1 premier of Discotheque because they set aside a whole block of programming to do a U2 A-Z video special. I taped it at the time, and it was the first time I ever got to see the video for A Celebration.
 
Aygo said:
I even remember some portuguese radios playing "Gone". I remember seeing "Discotheque" on TV lots of times. "Staring At The Sun" has more airplay than "Crazy Tonight" or as much as COBL. IGWSHA and LNOE also had some airplay here.
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Well... They used to play songs on the radio back then.

Jocks had a lot more freedom to play what they wanted then... things hadn't fully changed into the corporate driven bullshit that radio has become today.

(enter the person who gets all uppity because their local obscure radio station still plays whatever they want maaaaaaan, ignoring the overwhelming worldwide trends in five... four... three... )
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
(enter the person who gets all uppity because their local obscure radio station still plays whatever they want maaaaaaan, ignoring the overwhelming worldwide trends in five... four... three... )
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The sad thing is that there are some decent terrestrial radio stations out there, and my own metropolitan area has a few of them as well. But it's even become a bit of a hassle to listen to them any more since my listening habits have just changed so much in recent years. SiriusXM, Pandora, the 16 GB flash drive hooked up to my car radio, the old formula of looking out for reviews or word-of-mouth recommendations... it's definitely a bit harder to get anything out of terrestrial radio these days, that's for sure.
 
It's interesting to see so many interpretations of "what happened with POP". Discussion of the album just seems to inseparable from the myriad of circumstances, from the electronic element, to the production, to the rushed delivery, to the success/ failure of the tour, to the abundance and/ or lack of promotion, all the way down to the haircut. I've seen opposing opinions on almost everything here, and somehow I often agree with both sides. It's fascinating shit.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
Well... They used to play songs on the radio back then.

Jocks had a lot more freedom to play what they wanted then... things hadn't fully changed into the corporate driven bullshit that radio has become today.

(enter the person who gets all uppity because their local obscure radio station still plays whatever they want maaaaaaan, ignoring the overwhelming worldwide trends in five... four... three... )
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Ah, the halcyon, free-wheeling days of late-90's rock radio! :D
 
U2 had good exposure with their 1997 records in Canada. Back then, I saw the 'Discotheque' video and heard it broadcast. I heard 'Staring at the Sun' on the radio countless times. I saw the 'Last Night on Earth' video many times on Canadian TV. I heard 'Please'.

None of this convinced me to buy the record. The world in general was just a bit tired of them then.
 
The Panther said:
U2 had good exposure with their 1997 records in Canada. Back then, I saw the 'Discotheque' video and heard it broadcast. I heard 'Staring at the Sun' on the radio countless times. I saw the 'Last Night on Earth' video many times on Canadian TV. I heard 'Please'.

None of this convinced me to buy the record. The world in general was just a bit tired of them then.
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I had a feeling people were tired of the experimental/ electronic side and wanted something familiar from U2. They got it several years later with ATYCLB and embraced it. I had a lot of friends who lost interest at Zooropa. I'd ask people if they were into U2, and I heard a lot of "yeah, their older stuff was cool, but I'm not into this electronic shit". POP only pushed them further into disinterest.
 
The Panther said:
U2 had good exposure with their 1997 records in Canada. Back then, I saw the 'Discotheque' video and heard it broadcast. I heard 'Staring at the Sun' on the radio countless times. I saw the 'Last Night on Earth' video many times on Canadian TV. I heard 'Please'.

None of this convinced me to buy the record. The world in general was just a bit tired of them then.
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Look at you speaking for the world. Good lord even. :doh: Plenty of folks across the world dug U2 1997/98 style. I used to watch MuchMusic a lot back then and they played new U2 a lot. Seems like they were able to entice plenty of other Canadian fans to buy the album, just not you. :wink:
 
The UK seemed to like POP.. Three Top 10s, another "straight in at #1" first single and even the fifth single made it to #12.... I bought both Discothèque singles from the local Our Price Music [ah!] having only heard/seen part of the song on a TOTP preview, good times, daft video... Regarding the reception back home, it's interesting comparing the UK Top 40 positions to the Billboard 100. Sales vs. Airplay?

Discothèque #1 [US #10]
Staring At The Sun #3 [US #26]
Last Night On Earth #10 [US #57]
Please #7 [US #--]
If God Will Send His Angels #12 [US #--]
 
No point in direct comparisons of UK to US chart-peaks in, say, the 90s. UK peaks are entirely based on sales, and US peaks are a combination of sales and radio play (and probably corporate plugging)... but mostly radio play. Even if the US single outsells every other single on the market, if it doesn't fit into a prescribed radio format (which U2 in the 90s doesn't), it won't have a high chart peak.

Also, I think, by the 90s, famous, established artists in Britain tended to chart singles well regardless of their (the singles') merit. Basically, if you were a famous artist, your single would place in the top 40 even if nobody liked it, just because enough committed fans would always go out and buy it.

If we want to discuss commercial sales figures, probably total, catalogue sales of the albums are more indicative of U2's relative popularity, not singles -- the more so as U2 are obviously more of an 'albums' band than a 'singles' band. (Of course, sales of albums becomes irrelevant after about 2003 when people stopped buying them.)
 
According to Wiki, US sales achievements go as follows:

Joshua Tree = Diamond (10 x platinum +)
Rattle & Hum = 5 x platinum
Achtung Baby = 8 x platinum
Zooropa = 2 x platinum
Pop = 1 x platinum
ATYCLB = 4 x platinum

So, yes, the stats do suggest that Pop was easily the USA's least favorite album of the period 1987 -- 2001, when they were already famous and people still bought albums -- even more so when we consider the four-year break before Pop, and the fact that it was heavily marketed as its own, mammoth tour (unlike Zooropa... or Rattle & Hum, which had no US tour).

I hope I have now enlightened everyone with the confirmation that Pop was not the world's biggest album.
 
The Panther said:
According to Wiki, US sales achievements go as follows:
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The Panther said:
I hope I have now enlightened everyone with the confirmation that Pop was not the world's biggest album.
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:scratch:

US =/= The World :huh:

Anyway, I have no interest in getting into any "whose dick is bigger" arguments.

I'll just say that the discussion in this thread has been quite interesting so far. :up:

Pop is a fantastic album for me personally and came out at the perfect time when my U2 fandom was at its peak! I keep returning to this album every now and then to marvel in its sonic brilliance.

So yeah, to answer the OP... nothing went wrong!
 
Clooney-Eye-Roll.gif
 
No one's saying Pop was a commercial dud. It sold frickin' 8 million.

You should, however, compare the relevant albums I listed, JT, R&H, AB, and Z.

The only one Pop's sales approached is Zooropa's, an album that was conceived as an EP to support a 1/2-finished tour.

All of this underscores the fact that Pop's lack of sales success (relatively speaking) was more pertinent in the US, which is why I specified "US sales" in my post, above.
 
It approached Bomb as well, and trumped NLOTH's sales... I just stated that. ANd I just compared to Zooropa as well. Have you even read my post? :doh:

Of course it's no comparison with JT or AB, they're the biggest albums of the band. God knows why the hell RnH has so many sales, probably due to the high amount of live songs on it.
 
You can't compare Pop's sales to Bomb or NLOTH, or any post-torrent era record...we're talking about two completely different universes here. That's apples and oranges. And keep in mind Zooropa sold almost what Pop did, with almost no promotion...the record was essentially an afterthought.

And maybe all those people (14 million) bought R&H because they...gasp...liked the music. Despite the revisionist history, the record was hugely popular with U2 fans when it came out.

LemonMelon said:
South America loved that shit.
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It was HUGE there. Still is (or so I'm told).
 
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