POP is good, but here's how it could've been great

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Obviously it's not perfect but it's still a great album. I'd have loved Hol(e)y Joe to have been on Pop and for Last Night and Playboy Mansion to have had better mixes, but I can't say I have any major complaints, even the cover, which I initially hated has grown on me a lot.
Delighted that North and South wasn't on it though, I cannot stand it.
 
I think the "1 more month" talk is wishful thinking

personal opinion:
- Discotheque
leave it as it is
I even think it makes a good first single

-Do you feel loved
I can see why it doesn't fully work for some, but I like it

- Mofo
great stuff

- If god ...
oh my, "it's the blind leading the blonde. it's the stuff, the stuff of country songs"
besides that I don't really love the melody and it is the first song where the production seems to belong to a different song than the 1 they're playing
probably my least favourite U2 song

- Staring at the sun
I think the acoustic live version sounds about 359 times better
and I'm not that a big fan of U2 acoustic live stuff
again, production of song doesn't suit song at all

- Last night on earth
sounds a lot better, verses are really nice, but the chorus just doesn't work for me

- Gone
production again doesn't really suit the song
no wonder it was a lot better live

- Miami
leave it, good track

- Playboy Mansion
nice outro makes it a bit better than If god ...
otherwise meh

- Velvet Dress
leave it, very nice
only problem is that by this time you start to feel you're listening to ep #4

- Please
very good

- Wake up dead man
very good



even though there's an abundance of potential in lyrics, theme and mood they would really have had to rebuilt half the album to do justice to that potential
 
I don't understand why so many people criticize this album.
For me it's one of the best album of U2.
:heart:
 
ozeeko said:
Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me was a song from Batman Forever off a soundtrack that came about 2 years b4 POP was released. What a fresh start that would've been, a 2 year old radio song as the lead off single (re-single) off U2's newest album! Great idea.

The original version of Gone fits in better with the weird spacey arrangements to be found on POP.

Your comments on Do You Feel Loved are pretty telling, considering you find the electronic influences to be a problem. That to me sums it up: You aren't a fan of electronic U2. I get it.

Please is too poppy? Compared to what...the single version with the shlocky swirling strings and the more in-your-face anthemic choruses? Uhhh, yea ok. Keep thinking that.

The only things I'll give you on this "revised" album are the better MOFO production (unless by that you mean getting rid of the techno influences) and the presence of Holy Joe Garage Mix.

My only addittion to this would be including "I'm Not Your Baby" - a lesser known U2 hip-hop classic with Sinead O'Connor.
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Not to mention Hold Me, Thrill Me was from the Zooropa sessions. Pop just required more time in the studio in terms of getting the song structures right (IGWSHA Singles Mix with the climax in the right place) and the lyrics instead of the scat singing. But it is a really important album with some great ideas and a really intrusive mood is portrayed for the responder. It is my favourite album for the fact that it is an album of confusion of irony and it quite raw. While I do say they needed more time in the studio it is more of a focus on lyrics and structure and not the dumbed down Best Of versions. Honestly terrible.
 
I'm fine with it as is. There are all manner of flawed projects by artists that I like more than the "masterpieces." Somehow it seems fitting that ambition should hit a wall, and the listener has to dig a little to see from that artist's POV, what was intended. Who knows? I might just be talking out of my ass. I'm thinking, like, Tusk by Fleetwood Mac or Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles. The hoi polloi never tout these as the masterpieces, but there's a wizardry and ambition there that is hard to deny. The same can be said for Pop.
 
Great album. The single versions show how much better it could have been. Those single versions are so warm and beautifully layered. Some of the difference is in the mixing, and not so much in the songs themselves, but they are a glimpse at what the album could have been.
 
It is aged very, very well. You could play Discotheque on the radio and most listeners would think its brand new U2. :wink:

In all honesty I think Pop is a near perfect album, the only thing i'd change would be the Please single version in place of the album version. :up:

I've said many times before, I believe that Pop deserves to be known as a masterpiece. :yes:
 
i think pop is fantastic.

and I DO think that some listeners refuse to approach electronic music and rhythm patterns as equally as valid as 4-guys-in-a-room. Which is a huge shame, a really huge shame, and as such this album will never get the respect it without a doubt deserves.

It's not perfect, by any means. But it's substantially more perfect than ATYCLB and HTDAAB. So where's that argument? Pop may have had some clunker lines ("OJ is more than a drink") and some less than stellar tunes (IGWSHA and Gone, that's right, Gone), but it didn't put me to sleep, like everything after "a little while" did on ATYCLB (save NY) or after COBL on HTDAAB.

Especially given that the band, more or less, builds and creates their own drum and rhythm loops, that element deserves WAY more credit than it's being given. They took it all back because the album didn't sell INSANELY and the tour was rarely sold out in the states. But if THIS is what happens every time U2 takes a risk (cut losses, write meh pop ballads, compete with Brittany Spears, evolve even further into a megacorporation), then i think the band and the listeners need to rethink things a little. Let them just do "ok" rather than sell out the world. Better to have 5 last masterpieces to be proud of than 5 bullshit hybridized song collections design for mass consumption.
 
Its still one of my favorite albums of theirs.The only weakness I see with POP is that after Mofo POP loses its flow factor to me.Also about half the album feels like it needed that last month or two that NLOTH got to finish some tracks.They should of brought in Brian Eno to help Flood finish this album.Here is what a good order would of been IMO on a 16 track album:

1.PopMuzik
2.Mofo
3.Discotheque
4.Do You Feel Loved?
5.North and South of the River
6.Staring At The Sun
7.Last Night On Earth
8.Gone
9.Holy Joe(Garage Mix)
10.Big Girls Are Best
11.Im Not Your Baby
12.Miami
13.Playboy Mansion
14.If You Wear That Velvet Dress
15.Please(Single Version)
16.Wake Up Dead Man

B Sides-
If God Will Send His Angels
Your Blue Room
Two Shots Of Happy One Shot Of Sad
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
Stateless
Plus All Remixes for POP singles
 
Earnie Shavers said:
Pop probably needed only three things:

- A 10% clean up. That fabled extra month, or probably even less. The songs are fine, their sounds and structures etc, but the glaring rushed mixing/editing mistakes aren’t.
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I agree with this, especially because you only want minor changes :wink:

- Wherever the dance record/techno album talk began, muzzle it there and then. It’s neither, it’s a 95% balls to the wall rock album, but to this day people still call it the ‘dance’ U2 album. Massive mistake that really hurt it, and still hurts it to this day.
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Yeah, I think that was like any other pre-album hype, like "Punk rock on Venus" Well there are possibly 3 or less songs on Bomb that would fit this description, and I'd say there are about 3 (the first three) songs on Pop that are anything close to dance/techno. I've danced to Mofo before, it totally works :wink: but yeah I guess the dance thing somehow stuck.

- Given that it was 1997 and the worst thing you could be at that time was a huge, ambitious stadium rock act, they might have totally re-written their history if they’d started Popmart off as they did ZooTV – with an arena leg of the US. Putting the songs in that setting first would have been great, for starters, that focus would have really, really helped them, and it would have given them a more humble air that would have to some degree held off the knives that were absolutely waiting for them regardless of it and the albums success or failure.
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:hmm: Never thought of that. Interesting. Yeah, they may have been able to sell out arenas, and then with the success of the tour come back in stadiums maybe? who knows. Popmart was brilliant, one of their best tours, too bad Bono's voice wasn't in its best form.

That, and the Village People outfits.
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:lol: those were a bit much yes. so were all the Popmart outfits. Bubble suit :huh: U2 is one of the most oddly dressed bands. and no, I didnt just figure that out :wink:


Vlad n U 2 said:
It is aged very, very well. You could play Discotheque on the radio and most listeners would think its brand new U2. :wink:
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:lol: because no one remembers it :sad: I agree though, I can't believe that album is over a decade old...maybe Discotheque should have been the lead single from NLOTH instead of GOYB :wink:

In all honesty I think Pop is a near perfect album, the only thing i'd change would be the Please single version in place of the album version. :up:

I've said many times before, I believe that Pop deserves to be known as a masterpiece. :yes:
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yes. yes. LNOE live was an improvement too but I don't think it's necessary to change the album version. But Please, the solo is too good to leave out. The rest of the new mixes (Disco, Gone, SATS from Best Of) are fine, but I don't really think they're improvements. kinda pointless I think, it's a shame they felt the need to redo these songs to make them worthy of a Best Of, but if it makes the band happy then whatevs.

SATS acoustic is lovely but no need for it to replace the album version. Shame they never nailed the full band live but I'm happy enough with the acoustic version.

Am I the only person who would put Do You Feel Loved in their top 10 U2 songs? I absolutely adore it.

I love Pop.
 
DYFL would come in my Top 15, but Please is in my Top 5, even Top 3 all time. :up:
 
Vlad n U 2 said:
DYFL would come in my Top 15, but Please is in my Top 5, even Top 3 all time. :up:
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Nice :up: Gone is my #1. Disco, DYFL, and Please would all make the top 20. Maybe Mofo.

I tried making a top 20 the other day and could not get any less than 25 and even that I was unsatisfied with :lol: my list is basically JT JT JT JT JT AB AB AB AB AB AB POP POP POP POP POP NLOTH¿
 
I have to say, I don't think the single version of Please is as much of a slam dunk over the album version as some of you do. I love the solo as much as anyone, and the live versions trump all others, especially the 1997 MTV VMAs performance, but in the single version, the cost of the solo is too great; in exchange for the solo, the heart-thumping-ly intense percussion is taken away. Especially in the 'september, streets capsizing...' bridge. In the album version and in all live versions, Larry is eating souls, but in the single version, he's way down in the mix. I made an edit of Please that is the album version until right after 'remember, we just started again', and the single version from there on out. But the live versions are still the best. Oh, and in the last 40 seconds of the album version, Edge has a backing vocal behind Bono's 'love is big, bigger than us, but love is not what you're thinking of, it's what lovers deal, it's what lovers steal, you know I found it hard to receive, 'cause you my love I could never believe', that is rather haunting.

Is anyone familiar with the 'Monster Truck' and 'Lab Rats' mixes of Staring At The Sun? They were on the single. The 'Monster Truck' mix is an industrial take on it, and the 'Lab Rats' mix sounds very similar except that the vocal track is techno-ed up a lot. They're both really cool.
 
AtomicBono said:
Nice :up: Gone is my #1. Disco, DYFL, and Please would all make the top 20. Maybe Mofo.

I tried making a top 20 the other day and could not get any less than 25 and even that I was unsatisfied with :lol: my list is basically JT JT JT JT JT AB AB AB AB AB AB POP POP POP POP POP NLOTH¿
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I can barely make a top 10. :reject:
 
I like Pop precisely because it wasn't "cleaned up". And as for Walk On being better than LNOE...
 
Anyway, today I stumbled across a question that I think can make an interesting discussion regarding Pop.

How do you think U2s career would've been if Pop was successful commercially etc. and it was recognised as a great album and all? Do you think U2 would have ventured into further creative and groundbreaking territory or was an album like ATYCLB inevitable?

Just thought i'd get it off me chest. :wink:
 
Vlad n U 2 said:
How do you think U2s career would've been if Pop was successful commercially etc. and it was recognised as a great album and all?
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I think that there'd be a change regardless - IMO U2 took their 90s direction as far as they could with Pop. But had Pop been a huge success they wouldn't have felt the need to win their audiences back, and that perhaps would have resulted in a more adventurous album than ATYCLB. I'm not sure what their direction would have been though.

As for how to improve Pop, chucking Miami and Playboy Mansion off the album and breathing some life into If You Wear That Velvet Dress would be a good start IMO.
 
Its always interesting to imagine, I sometimes (kinda) wish that Pop was a success and that they kept on going. :wink:
 
namkcuR said:
I have to say, I don't think the single version of Please is as much of a slam dunk over the album version as some of you do. I love the solo as much as anyone, and the live versions trump all others, especially the 1997 MTV VMAs performance, but in the single version, the cost of the solo is too great; in exchange for the solo, the heart-thumping-ly intense percussion is taken away. Especially in the 'september, streets capsizing...' bridge. In the album version and in all live versions, Larry is eating souls, but in the single version, he's way down in the mix. I made an edit of Please that is the album version until right after 'remember, we just started again', and the single version from there on out. But the live versions are still the best. Oh, and in the last 40 seconds of the album version, Edge has a backing vocal behind Bono's 'love is big, bigger than us, but love is not what you're thinking of, it's what lovers deal, it's what lovers steal, you know I found it hard to receive, 'cause you my love I could never believe', that is rather haunting.
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Yeah, I pretty much totally agree with this post. I'm surprised so many people like the single version better. The strings soften the song too much. I just don't like the production as much - it's too muted, the album version is much better. That being said, it is a shame that the album version lacks the guitar solo at the end. The solo really elevated the song live.

On a similar note, is the single of IGWSHA really that much different? As I recall, it was exactly the same except for the addition of some lyrics by Bono: "And I don't have to know how, and I don't need to know why..." etc, whereas the album version he just sings something that is mostly unintelligible Those extra lines are good, but still overall not a big difference.
 
Laugend said:
I don't understand why so many people criticize this album.
For me it's one of the best album of U2.
:heart:
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Thank you! It is probably my 3rd favourite U2 album after the very obvious AB and JT. Sensational stuff. Very, very cool music on this album. Note how I've bolded the word 'cool' - I really do mean that music on this album can be categorized in a genre of itself. It has traces of jazz and lounge, electronica and trance, and God knows what else. It's a beautiful album - a very colourful album as well much like how the 90's were. Epitomized the 90's U2 for me.
 
drt4 said:
Yeah, I pretty much totally agree with this post. I'm surprised so many people like the single version better. The strings soften the song too much. I just don't like the production as much - it's too muted, the album version is much better. That being said, it is a shame that the album version lacks the guitar solo at the end. The solo really elevated the song live.

On a similar note, is the single of IGWSHA really that much different? As I recall, it was exactly the same except for the addition of some lyrics by Bono: "And I don't have to know how, and I don't need to know why..." etc, whereas the album version he just sings something that is mostly unintelligible Those extra lines are good, but still overall not a big difference.
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The single version of IGWSHA has a different structure. Another less noted but, imo, just as noticeable of a difference is that the album version has these awesome swoosh-type sounds at the beginning of each chorus, where the single version does not. Also, the album version has a long rhythm-fueld instrumental outro that is absent from the single version.

Album Version:

nobody else here baby no one else here to blame
no one to point the finger... it's just you and me and the rain
nobody made you do it, no one put words in your mouth
nobody here taking orders when love took a train heading south
it's the blind leading the blond
it's the stuff the stuff of country songs

HEy IF GOD WILL SEND HIS ANGELS
AND IF GOD WILL SEND A SIGN
AND IF GOD WILL SEND HIS ANGELS
Would everything be alright?

God has got his phone off the hook babe would he even pick up if he could?
it's been a while since we saw that child hangin' 'round this neighbourhood
see His mother dealing in a doorway see Father Christmas with a begging bowl
Jesus sister's eyes are a blister... THE HIGH STREET never looked so low

it's the blind leading the blond...
it's the cops collecting for the cons
so where is the hope and where is the faith... and the love?
what's that you say to me
does love... light up your Christmas tree?
the next minute you're blowing a fuse
and the cartoon network turns into the news

HEy IF GOD WILL SEND HIS ANGELS
AND IF GOD WILL SEND A SIGN
WELL IF GOD WILL SEND HIS ANGELS
WHERE DO WE GO

Jesus never let me down you know Jesus used to show me the score
then they put Jesus in show business now it's hard to get in the door

it's the stuff it's the stuff of country songs
but I guess it was something to go on

HEy IF GOD WILL SEND HIS ANGELS
I SURE COULD USE THEM HERE RIGHT NOW
WELL IF GOD WILL SEND HIS ANGELS
WHERE DO WE GO...
(scat singing)

Single Version:

Nobody else here baby
No one here to blame
No one to point the finger
It's just you and me and the rain

It's the blind leading the blond
It's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs
Hey if God will send his angels
And if God will send a sign
And if God will send his angels
Would everything be alright

God has got his phone off the hook, babe
Would he even pick up if he could
It's been a while since we saw that child
Hanging 'round this neighbourhood
You see his mother dealing in a doorway
See Father Christmas with a begging bowl
Jesus sister's eyes are a blister
The High Street never looked so low

It's the blind leading the blond
It's the cops collecting for the cons
If God will send his angels
And if God will send a sign
And if God will send his angels
Where do we go
Where do we go

Jesus never let me down
You know Jesus used to show me the score
Then they put Jesus in show business
Now it's hard to get in the door

It's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs
But I guess it was something to go on
So where is the hope and where is the faith
And the love, what's that you say to me
Does love light up your Christmas Tree
The next minute you're blowing a fuse
And the cartoon network turns into the news

If God will send his angels
I sure could use them here right now
Well if God would send his angels
And I don't have to know how
Where do we go
And I don't need to know why
And I don't want to promise
Where do we go
And I don't want to lie
I just know that I need to
Where do we go
Tonight
Slowly, some night by your door
You take my hand by your door
 
lazarus said:
And that outro is one of the album's highlights for me, which is why I can't get behind that new version.
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That outro :drool: It reminds me of Elvis Costello for some reason.

Do you know what I'm talking about with the swoosh sounds at the beginning of the choruses in the album version?
 
I love Pop - great album. One of the most underrated U2 albums of all time.

I'd agree that it could have been even better. I would ditch Playboy Mansion. I'd like to have seen North and South of the River in there somewhere (the version featuring some 'ice notes' on the piano that they played live on the Late Late Show in Ireland) - although it probably wouldn't fit all that well with some of the other songs. I would also bring in the version of Please with the guitar solo and the live version or Last Night on Earth. Come to think of it I'd also put Holy Joe in there as it has one of the Edge's best guitar solos of all time.

Lots of U2's work has that quality - the songs grow when they play them live. Some of the Rattle & Hum songs really grew when played live on the Lovetown tours (Hawkmoon and All Along the Watchtower), ditto with Achtung with the live version of Love is Blindness. Other songs are studio classics that are brilliant songs but just don't translate well when played live - In a Little While, Crumbs, Lemon, Heartland etc.

However, remember the age we live in - if you'd like to change the running order of an album, bring in a b-side or two, ditch the album version for the live version etc - you can do all of that on your iPod. That is the challenge for all U2 fans - you have to keep looking for the perfect song version, the perfect album running order etc.

Keep working at it. The only limits are the limits of your imagination!
 
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