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

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The album version outro of IGWSHA is one of U2's all-time highlights. That horn-like sound is the most harrowing depiction of loneliness I've heard on a song. Perfect.
 
Biggest problem with Pop: Howie B and Nellee Hooper shouldn't have been the DJ's / trip-hop mavens with whom U2 chose to work. They should have picked someone whose specialty was trance anthems, as the trance anthem / rock anthem overlay would have yielded fascinating results. Oakenfold, maybe?
 
Oakenfold? Nah. X-Dream were the best trance experimenters from that time. Coming out of the Berlin vibe of ZOO and the world music elements of the Passengers, X-Dream could have given U2 a much darker complexity than Oakenfold ever dreamed of.

But Pop is only partially electronic music, trance or whatnot. It's a revelry in kitsch and pop music, with elements of everything in air, of course with U2's completely dark sensibilities.
 
From a commercial standpoint, Pop and Popmart were very successful pretty much everywhere except in the U.S.. Pop's sales outside the U.S. were on par for what they usually sold and what was expected from it. It's in the U.S. where the sales were way off and I think it's still mainly in the U.S. that this album and tour are derided by some.

I remember when Zooropa was released in 1993 how the general public seemed to be disappointed in the album and it sold a lot less than Achtung Baby. Today there seems to be a bit of revisionist thinking about the quality of Zooropa, but I feel this album layed the seeds for the diminished commercial success of Pop in the U.S.. Fans were disappointed by it and were less in the mood to buy the next U2 album when it was released, especially with all the talk of the supposed dance sound to the album. The general public heard the title Pop, the first single called Discotheque and the Village People inspired costumes and were turned off, not willing to give it a chance.

I still think a lot of the people who deride Pop and Popmart never even heard the full album and gave it any chance. They single out this album as being a bad U2 album, while ignoring or forgetting that they didn't like Zooropa. Zooropa had no touring behind it in the U.S. and was meant to be a low key album, whereas Pop was always intended to be a massive U2 album to serve as the basis of the tour. As a result, Zooropa is the forgotten U2 90's album (excluding Passengers of course) which wasn't well received on release, but Pop is the one that is attacked because it was meant to be a high profile U2 album. I feel more casual U2 fans would like Pop over Zooropa if they really listened to it, as it is more like a standard U2 album than Zooropa was.

What I've always found puzzling was the band's statements about needing more time with it. Yes, more time probably would have made it a little better, but they already got that time, like they did with No Line this year. Pop was started back in 1995, possibly even late 1994, as they were reported at the time as working on 2 albums at the same time. It was scheduled to be released in November 1996, but like No Line, was pushed back by 3 months to allow them to finish it. They just didn't finish it to their liking, even with the extra 3 months they were given.

As far as them being underprepared for the tour, it's their own fault for not managing their time properly. Pop was finished in December 1996, so they had a good 4 months before Popmart started. Unlike with the past 3 U2 albums, they did no promo tour, only doing the 1 song performance at the Popmart press conference in February 1997. What prevented U2 from practicing the hell out of the new songs from January or February until starting time in Las Vegas instead of them shortchanging their rehearsal time? Most of the press they did for the album would have been done by early february, giving them 2-3 solid months where they could have rehearsed knowing what was ahead of them. They dropped the ball on that and it further hurt them in the U.S..
 
Pop is just an average album by U2 standards for me. Half great, half forgettable.

I always put the 90's trio at AB>Zoo>Pop. So I'm actually relieved it wasn't popular because they could have reached even further and made something bleh. :yuck: Their whole obsession with topping themselves and being ironically cool was getting out of hand, and I'm glad they took a step back and realised they needed to trim off the unnecessary fat or their music/message would get lost in it. They ended up bouncing back in a huge way though so maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
 
"I always put the 90's trio at AB>Zoo>Pop. So I'm actually relieved it wasn't popular because they could have reached even further and made something bleh.
yuck.gif
Their whole obsession with topping themselves and being ironically cool was getting out of hand, and I'm glad they took a step back and realised they needed to trim off the unnecessary fat or their music/message would get lost in it. They ended up bouncing back in a huge way though so maybe it was a blessing in disguise."

Bouncing back in a huge way? ATYCLB and HTDAAB? In terms of record sales and Grammys maybe, but Phil Collins did well there too so they are hardly yardsticks.
 
Halup said:
From a commercial standpoint, Pop and Popmart were very successful pretty much everywhere except in the U.S.. Pop's sales outside the U.S. were on par for what they usually sold and what was expected from it. It's in the U.S. where the sales were way off and I think it's still mainly in the U.S. that this album and tour are derided by some.

I remember when Zooropa was released in 1993 how the general public seemed to be disappointed in the album and it sold a lot less than Achtung Baby. Today there seems to be a bit of revisionist thinking about the quality of Zooropa, but I feel this album layed the seeds for the diminished commercial success of Pop in the U.S.. Fans were disappointed by it and were less in the mood to buy the next U2 album when it was released, especially with all the talk of the supposed dance sound to the album. The general public heard the title Pop, the first single called Discotheque and the Village People inspired costumes and were turned off, not willing to give it a chance.

I still think a lot of the people who deride Pop and Popmart never even heard the full album and gave it any chance. They single out this album as being a bad U2 album, while ignoring or forgetting that they didn't like Zooropa. Zooropa had no touring behind it in the U.S. and was meant to be a low key album, whereas Pop was always intended to be a massive U2 album to serve as the basis of the tour. As a result, Zooropa is the forgotten U2 90's album (excluding Passengers of course) which wasn't well received on release, but Pop is the one that is attacked because it was meant to be a high profile U2 album. I feel more casual U2 fans would like Pop over Zooropa if they really listened to it, as it is more like a standard U2 album than Zooropa was.

What I've always found puzzling was the band's statements about needing more time with it. Yes, more time probably would have made it a little better, but they already got that time, like they did with No Line this year. Pop was started back in 1995, possibly even late 1994, as they were reported at the time as working on 2 albums at the same time. It was scheduled to be released in November 1996, but like No Line, was pushed back by 3 months to allow them to finish it. They just didn't finish it to their liking, even with the extra 3 months they were given.

As far as them being underprepared for the tour, it's their own fault for not managing their time properly. Pop was finished in December 1996, so they had a good 4 months before Popmart started. Unlike with the past 3 U2 albums, they did no promo tour, only doing the 1 song performance at the Popmart press conference in February 1997. What prevented U2 from practicing the hell out of the new songs from January or February until starting time in Las Vegas instead of them shortchanging their rehearsal time? Most of the press they did for the album would have been done by early february, giving them 2-3 solid months where they could have rehearsed knowing what was ahead of them. They dropped the ball on that and it further hurt them in the U.S..
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Very well-written, and it's nice to hear the truth amongst so much revisionist thinking.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Zooropa actually go triple platinum in the U.S., despite not having a tour behind it?
 
Halup said:
From a commercial standpoint, Pop and Popmart were very successful pretty much everywhere except in the U.S.. Pop's sales outside the U.S. were on par for what they usually sold and what was expected from it. It's in the U.S. where the sales were way off and I think it's still mainly in the U.S. that this album and tour are derided by some.

I remember when Zooropa was released in 1993 how the general public seemed to be disappointed in the album and it sold a lot less than Achtung Baby. Today there seems to be a bit of revisionist thinking about the quality of Zooropa, but I feel this album layed the seeds for the diminished commercial success of Pop in the U.S.. Fans were disappointed by it and were less in the mood to buy the next U2 album when it was released, especially with all the talk of the supposed dance sound to the album. The general public heard the title Pop, the first single called Discotheque and the Village People inspired costumes and were turned off, not willing to give it a chance.

I still think a lot of the people who deride Pop and Popmart never even heard the full album and gave it any chance. They single out this album as being a bad U2 album, while ignoring or forgetting that they didn't like Zooropa. Zooropa had no touring behind it in the U.S. and was meant to be a low key album, whereas Pop was always intended to be a massive U2 album to serve as the basis of the tour. As a result, Zooropa is the forgotten U2 90's album (excluding Passengers of course) which wasn't well received on release, but Pop is the one that is attacked because it was meant to be a high profile U2 album. I feel more casual U2 fans would like Pop over Zooropa if they really listened to it, as it is more like a standard U2 album than Zooropa was.

What I've always found puzzling was the band's statements about needing more time with it. Yes, more time probably would have made it a little better, but they already got that time, like they did with No Line this year. Pop was started back in 1995, possibly even late 1994, as they were reported at the time as working on 2 albums at the same time. It was scheduled to be released in November 1996, but like No Line, was pushed back by 3 months to allow them to finish it. They just didn't finish it to their liking, even with the extra 3 months they were given.

As far as them being underprepared for the tour, it's their own fault for not managing their time properly. Pop was finished in December 1996, so they had a good 4 months before Popmart started. Unlike with the past 3 U2 albums, they did no promo tour, only doing the 1 song performance at the Popmart press conference in February 1997. What prevented U2 from practicing the hell out of the new songs from January or February until starting time in Las Vegas instead of them shortchanging their rehearsal time? Most of the press they did for the album would have been done by early february, giving them 2-3 solid months where they could have rehearsed knowing what was ahead of them. They dropped the ball on that and it further hurt them in the U.S..
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Sort of on-topic....if you go to any personal review site on the internet and look up U2, it's almost like everybody is preconditioned to hate Zooropa and POP. I've always felt that way, that those 2 albums are just hated because of their reputations and not necesarily because of what's on them. And funny enough, some of the reviews are always like "Zooropa sucks...but it does contain the the awesome hits Numb, Lemon, Stay, and some other songs are pretty cool too, like Daddy's Gonna Pay, the title track, and even legend johnny cash lends his vocal talents to the enjoyable closer The Wanderer.....so more than half of this album is decent...however IT SUCKS! IT GETS 2/10 STARS!" Same for POP, only this one is the "album where U2 dresses up like the village people!" Okay, I don't know about you, but when I put on POP, i hear music. U2 doesn't appear before my very eyes in disco get-up...but most of these reviewers have claimed to see this. Anyway, looking beyond the music that is actually on the album, POP gets dismissed for this very reason. Scroll down, and you'll find that ATYCLB and HTDAAB get better reviews, because its the preconditioned "U2 doin what they did best", as if they've been writing Vertigo's and Elevation's their whole life. And these reviews are warm while giving no clear reason to be that way, hardly any highlights are depicted, it's just a "return to form". Lastly, NLOTH is getting horrid reviews off these sites. "U2 experimenting again. Oh no, here we go again!" The propaganda machine keeps running.
 
Halup said:
From a commercial standpoint, Pop and Popmart were very successful pretty much everywhere except in the U.S.. Pop's sales outside the U.S. were on par for what they usually sold and what was expected from it. It's in the U.S. where the sales were way off and I think it's still mainly in the U.S. that this album and tour are derided by some.

I remember when Zooropa was released in 1993 how the general public seemed to be disappointed in the album and it sold a lot less than Achtung Baby. Today there seems to be a bit of revisionist thinking about the quality of Zooropa, but I feel this album layed the seeds for the diminished commercial success of Pop in the U.S.. Fans were disappointed by it and were less in the mood to buy the next U2 album when it was released, especially with all the talk of the supposed dance sound to the album. The general public heard the title Pop, the first single called Discotheque and the Village People inspired costumes and were turned off, not willing to give it a chance.

I still think a lot of the people who deride Pop and Popmart never even heard the full album and gave it any chance. They single out this album as being a bad U2 album, while ignoring or forgetting that they didn't like Zooropa. Zooropa had no touring behind it in the U.S. and was meant to be a low key album, whereas Pop was always intended to be a massive U2 album to serve as the basis of the tour. As a result, Zooropa is the forgotten U2 90's album (excluding Passengers of course) which wasn't well received on release, but Pop is the one that is attacked because it was meant to be a high profile U2 album. I feel more casual U2 fans would like Pop over Zooropa if they really listened to it, as it is more like a standard U2 album than Zooropa was.

What I've always found puzzling was the band's statements about needing more time with it. Yes, more time probably would have made it a little better, but they already got that time, like they did with No Line this year. Pop was started back in 1995, possibly even late 1994, as they were reported at the time as working on 2 albums at the same time. It was scheduled to be released in November 1996, but like No Line, was pushed back by 3 months to allow them to finish it. They just didn't finish it to their liking, even with the extra 3 months they were given.

As far as them being underprepared for the tour, it's their own fault for not managing their time properly. Pop was finished in December 1996, so they had a good 4 months before Popmart started. Unlike with the past 3 U2 albums, they did no promo tour, only doing the 1 song performance at the Popmart press conference in February 1997. What prevented U2 from practicing the hell out of the new songs from January or February until starting time in Las Vegas instead of them shortchanging their rehearsal time? Most of the press they did for the album would have been done by early february, giving them 2-3 solid months where they could have rehearsed knowing what was ahead of them. They dropped the ball on that and it further hurt them in the U.S..
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Nice post. The only thing I have issues with is your theory that Zooropa wasn't so well received.

I was 17 when Zooropa came out, and just 21 when Pop arrived, so I feel I'm qualified to talk about the relative weight of them in pop culture at the time. While it's true that Zooropa wasn't the grand-slam home run that Achtung was, it was also not intended to be; in fact, it was intended to be a 4-track EP to accompany their European tour. Now, of course the average record-buyer in 1993 didn't know that, but trust me there was a sense of Zooropa's being an addendum to the ZooTV Tour, which was still ongoing when the album came out. There was no sense of Zooropa as a new, stand-alone U2 project. Also, the videos and imagery from it was closely matched to the Achtung stuff, all of which fit nicely into the 'Alternative rock' vibe in North America at the time. Everybody I knew had Achtung , and also everybody had Zooropa. Edge appeared (alone) at the MTV-VA's and stole the show with a minimalist rendition of "Numb". Zooropa got great reviews and was a #1 album in the United States (and #1 in the UK, which Achtung Baby wasn't).

When Pop finally came around, times had dramatically changed. U2 were no longer considered part of the youth culture, as a host of new young guitar bands (mostly from the UK) were on the scene. I think the long wait hurt them, as well as the costumes and lame press launch, but ultimately the poor choice of single and video combined with the change in musical tastes had a larger effect on Pop's perception than any problems with Zooropa, in my opinion.
 
true, Zooropa was pretty much accepted the way it was intended
an album to accompany Achtung + ZOO TV

as a result the avarage person had been waiting about 5 1/2 years for the band to follow up Achtung Baby
I think most were just underwhelmed
 
Salome said:
true, Zooropa was pretty much accepted the way it was intended
an album to accompany Achtung + ZOO TV

as a result the avarage person had been waiting about 5 1/2 years for the band to follow up Achtung Baby
I think most were just underwhelmed
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Yea, this makes sense. I know i was underwhelmed, being a huge fan of both AB and Zooropa, I actually didn't start to 'get' POP until after ATYCLB was released (liked that album too). But I was older then and had a greater knowledge of music by then, so i could find things in the songs that i couldn't when i was much younger. It's probably their most subtle album.

Unfortunately, i think the naysayers of Zooropa and POP are mostly the people who gave it a couple of listens and just wrote them off completely, never gave them a chance. For one thing, they both lacked that one all across the boards classic U2 song (tho i think they all are classic, but i'm a die-hard). For casual listeners, this was like "huh?"
 
Halup said:
From a commercial standpoint, Pop and Popmart were very successful pretty much everywhere except in the U.S.
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I know it's an often-repeated statement, but it is actually correct? I don't know how accurate wikipedia is when it comes to sales and stuff, but if you compare the figures in Australia it's 5 x Platinum for AB and 4 x Platinum for ATYCLB as opposed to 1 x Platinum for Pop. That's a pretty big dip.

I agree that Pop often gets automatically dismissed because of its reputation rather than its actual musical content.
 
Since Zooropa wasn't taken too seriously and Passengers had been released finally as a non-U2 album, I think many people expected that the new album would have the band over their "weird" phase. While the experimental parts of Zooropa, were way more risky than the Pop material, Pop took all the toll of the bashing, having been launched as a major release with a proper mega tour to back it. While not musically riskier than Zooropa, the idea of Pop & PopMart was indeed ambitious, but it needed a stronger support from the band themselves. I think that even if it is true that Pop was written off with almost no in-depth listening, the band did not help either by not supporting their own release.

Personally I think Pop was indeed finished - frankly I think nobody can honestly believe that a band like U2 can be forced to release an "unfinished" album. All this story about recording in the mastering suite is last minute tinkering over something that was already finished, but for some reason was not liked. For a long time I believed that because the band felt they had crossed a line they shouldn't have in their view, they sort of backed off and came on with all this "unfinished" and "crap album" talk, the reworking of the Pop songs for the Best Of compilation, etc.

Recently I read somewhere in this forum - I can't find it right now- that Eno had stated something like "U2 was already making joyful music as early as the rehearsals for the PopMart Tour", which may be true in view that COBL was apparently picked up from material recorded at that time - something I could never bring myself to believe. This may give a different take on what happened. Since Pop was started in late 94, beginning of 95 and was released 2 years later, perhaps by the time it was finished the band (I mean some member/s other than Larry who was never comfortable with this direction - probably not Edge) had moved on to something entirely different and were not happy with the album, because it wasn't in sync with what they were into then. To reflect the "joyful music" they were apparently playing, there was nothing they could possibly do about Pop - they would have had to record an entirely new album (proof are the lame "reworked" Pop tracks on Best Of) and design an entirely different tour, which of course was out of the question. While we can't be sure, as with everything else, it may be a possibility.

Still I think Pop is a brilliant album the way it is, it still sounds fresh 12 years later and I think it's rather lame that the band are still going on about its finishing process. The problem with Pop was probably its timing. Released a year earlier we might be talking about something entirely different.
 
I :heart: this thread. So many insightful posts.

For what it's worth, I think every U2 album is "unfinished." They could tweak something forever, which may be why the live versions of the songs are often a bit different (in addition to the fact that obviously they're gonna have to strip down songs somewhat to work in a live setting). Pop might have been very last-minute, but so was NLOTH. I remember Bono saying they were doing stuff to it the very last day. I think Halup was dead-on with the comparison, and if Pop had been more successful then I think the boys wouldn't be so apologetic about it - they'd have no reason to be. Right now they're very proud of NLOTH because "people are saying it's our best album," but if it ends up being another Pop they'll probably be saying this one was unfinished too. I hope it's not because I think it's a brilliant album...I think the tour will really show if the album is well-received.
 
U2 by U2 shows that U2 has as many problems with POP as they do with most of their other albums
difference being that they feel that POP could have been a lot better with a bit more work

the "being apologetic about POP" shtick is fanfiction
 
This is a quote from the new Blender review of NLOTH:

"No Line on the Horizon is U2’s third killer in a row—by now, it’s bizarre to remember that just 10 years ago, everybody thought they were headed toward the dinosaur band tar pits."

I love NLOTH, but this quote is clearly referring to the time period between the end of Popmart and the release of ATYCLB. What kills me is that it's right. A lot of people did think that U2 were an "old" band. I remember on the first or second day of my Freshmen year of high school, in August 1999, in homeroom, the teacher had us do one of those, 'interview the person sitting next to you for five minutes to get to know each other' things, so the guy sitting next to me and I interviewed each other, and in the course of the conversation, I identified U2 as my favorite band - I had gotten seriously into U2 in the summer of 1998, and I had just the previous month finished collecting all of U2's albums+WAIA, and the U2 obsession was still relatively new to me - and so after everyone had finished their conversations and written the other person's answers down, each person was supposed to introduce the person sitting next to them to the class using the information written down during the conversation. So when it's his turn, the guy next me introduces me to the class, and one of the things he says is that U2 is my favorite band. Our teacher, who was probably in her 30s at the time, said something to the effect of, 'really? That's surprising, they're mine too, but I thought they were like an old band now', and some kid in the front of the room said, 'they are'.

I don't understand it though. Say what you will about Pop, it might sound too 'weird' to some people, it might not be 'U2' enough for some people, it might just not be your cup of tea(I disagree with all three), but it does not sound like a dinosaur rock band, it is not like Tattoo You or something. Whether you like Discotheque and Do You Feel Loved and Mofo and Staring At The Sun and Gone and Please or not, you can't deny that they still sound fresh today, and if that's true, then how could people have thought that U2 were an 'old' band or a dinosaur band based on Pop just two and a half years after its release and less than a year and a half after the end of Popmart?
 
namkcuR said:
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.
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I honestly think the Monster Truck version should have been the mix that featured on the album. It's vastly superior to the Brit-pop bandwagon jumping version U2 went with and released as the second single when Britpop was actually pretty much on life support by then.

Aside from Staring at the Sun, I don't have many problems with Pop. Sure, the songs at times feel like rough sketches; but they're really interesting sketches.

The marketing behind it was incredibly poor, though, with some very strange decisions. The choice of singles, for example. I still feel that if they had released Discotheque, Gone, Mofo and finally Please in that order they would have had a much bigger hit on their hands.
 
namkcuR said:
This is a quote from the new Blender review of NLOTH:

"No Line on the Horizon is U2’s third killer in a row—by now, it’s bizarre to remember that just 10 years ago, everybody thought they were headed toward the dinosaur band tar pits."

I love NLOTH, but this quote is clearly referring to the time period between the end of Popmart and the release of ATYCLB. What kills me is that it's right. A lot of people did think that U2 were an "old" band. I remember on the first or second day of my Freshmen year of high school, in August 1999, in homeroom, the teacher had us do one of those, 'interview the person sitting next to you for five minutes to get to know each other' things, so the guy sitting next to me and I interviewed each other, and in the course of the conversation, I identified U2 as my favorite band - I had gotten seriously into U2 in the summer of 1998, and I had just the previous month finished collecting all of U2's albums+WAIA, and the U2 obsession was still relatively new to me - and so after everyone had finished their conversations and written the other person's answers down, each person was supposed to introduce the person sitting next to them to the class using the information written down during the conversation. So when it's his turn, the guy next me introduces me to the class, and one of the things he says is that U2 is my favorite band. Our teacher, who was probably in her 30s at the time, said something to the effect of, 'really? That's surprising, they're mine too, but I thought they were like an old band now', and some kid in the front of the room said, 'they are'.

I don't understand it though. Say what you will about Pop, it might sound too 'weird' to some people, it might not be 'U2' enough for some people, it might just not be your cup of tea(I disagree with all three), but it does not sound like a dinosaur rock band, it is not like Tattoo You or something. Whether you like Discotheque and Do You Feel Loved and Mofo and Staring At The Sun and Gone and Please or not, you can't deny that they still sound fresh today, and if that's true, then how could people have thought that U2 were an 'old' band or a dinosaur band based on Pop just two and a half years after its release and less than a year and a half after the end of Popmart?
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I had similar expereinces. It's strange, I know. But if you look at the fag end of the '90s you can see a huge shift in music trends and target audiences. You had young poptarts like N'Sync, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears popping up everywhere like gremlins multiplying and targeted toward kids. You had young, angry rappers targeted toward rebellious teens. You had young, angry rap metal bands targeted toward rebellious kids and depressed teens.

I was watching an old VHS tape tape the other day which had a couple of hours worth of MTV from the early '90s. The first thing I noticed was that the bands featured were all kinds of ages - from 18 to 60 years old. I noticed this too with an old radio cassette recording of BBC Radio 1.

Something happened between '98 and 2000 where anyone involved in mainstream rock and knocking on 40 was labeled a dinosaur. And it had nothing to do with U2.
 
I always reckoned that Discotheque was the only obvious single on the album
Staring at the Sun should have been, but not with the treatment it got
Do you feel loved was close to being good single material, but it seems to lack a certain something (I don't think that one is aging incredibly well btw, it used to be one of my favourite tracks of the album)

when you start it off with the Wallmart melarcky, have no real singles the all you have left to sell the album is a great tour
now POPMart was great, but the first few shows didnt help the album
to say the least
 
Slapnutz said:
I had similar expereinces. It's strange, I know. But if you look at the fag end of the '90s you can see a huge shift in music trends and target audiences. You had young poptarts like N'Sync, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears popping up everywhere like gremlins multiplying and targeted toward kids. You had young, angry rappers targeted toward rebellious teens. You had young, angry rap metal bands targeted toward rebellious kids and depressed teens.

I was watching an old VHS tape tape the other day which had a couple of hours worth of MTV from the early '90s. The first thing I noticed was that the bands featured were all kinds of ages - from 18 to 60 years old. I noticed this too with an old radio cassette recording of BBC Radio 1.

Something happened between '98 and 2000 where anyone involved in mainstream rock and knocking on 40 was labeled a dinosaur. And it had nothing to do with U2.
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It looks as if every ten years or so a "new" movement addressed to the younger generation is needed to stir the status quo and automatically every established band over 35 is deemed a dinosaur. In the late 70s it was punk, in the late 80s/early 90s it was grunge. In the late 90s/early 00s there was nothing substantial and that is where inane pop and rap thrived.
 
If you combine the actual satirical and ironic meaning behind what U2 was doing with the Kmart press conference, with how funny they were in the interview, I don't think it is melarky. It's actually quite a genius move. Radiohead, at that time, tackled the burgeoning computer culture that was threatening to envelope our very existence, and the paranoia of anonymity. U2, on the other hand, took a very insightful look at the decay of kitsch and mass-marketing. How prophetic in the current days of Starbucks and Wal-Mart releases. You know, maybe it was just a bit too obvious of a subject, and maybe the songs just lacked a certain soul to be able to lampoon said subject. I happen to think the songs WERE soulful and poignant, and I remember feeling a lot of cynicism about music and art altogether at that time, so Pop felt, to me, like someone finally expressed what was really on my mind.
 
I got so many ideas i can't even begin. this is some thread. some pretty interesting takes.

1. when it comes to comparing u2 to bands , i use thier 80's peers.the bands they came up with. thier "graduating class" so to speak. most of those bands, from any genre did not survive the 80's and tanked. only the strong survive. Huey lewis,twisted sister,George Micheal,cyndi lauper,warrent, etc WILL all sign up to have had a 5x, 2x, hit single of soundtrack, and a 1x platinum albums in the 90's. just show em where to fucking sign. ask them about a flop after the 80's. u couldn't find these artists with a telescope in 1997. (much less now).

2.songs that appear from sessions after a album is made can sometimes look they should have been on that album. hold me kiss me.. would have been a great addition to zooropa. like sweetest thing to joshua tree. like dancing barefoot on rattle. three sunrises on unforget fire. A celebration on oct. speed of life on boy. party girl on war. north and south on pop. lady w/ spinning head on achtung. summer rain on all that you. xanienx and wine on dismantle. saints are coming on no line. thems the brakes.

3.i love pop and wouldn't change anything. wake up dead man a sleeper for best closer, and live that song even more potent. it was the gateway to the end of the 90's to ATYCLB. the live version from 97 and 00 are just ok, i thought the live version from 05 was great. the 97/00 attempts sounded like they were trying to hard, and it was a bit stiff. going against the grain. the 05 version found a way to go with the flow of the song. the mix on the 90-00 video dvd of LNOE is awesome.

4. i didn't get the impression that anything on pop was britpop sounding. i def feel stand up comedy sounds like oasis.
 
allbecauseofu2 said:
4. i didn't get the impression that anything on pop was britpop sounding. i def feel stand up comedy sounds like oasis.
Click to expand...

I stated once that SUC sounds like a mid-90's Duran Duran song. Just picture Simon LeBon singing on the verses...it actually works better for me...haha
 
Brian-C said:
If you combine the actual satirical and ironic meaning behind what U2 was doing with the Kmart press conference, with how funny they were in the interview, I don't think it is melarky. It's actually quite a genius move.
Click to expand...
I don't know
I appreciate it for it's meaning
but U2 doesn't work as merely conceptual art
they need to reach people
which is the only problem I have with POP besides the production
the concept behind the album is a lot stronger than the actual album
there seemed to be a lack of vision regarding execution
well, IMO

my point was that people often complain that POP was dismissed by the general public because it was misunderstood
I feel that if you want to reach an audience you have to at least need hand them something to hang on to
when you don't have appealing singles, butch up your opening shows and give them KMart it is a failure on the band's part to reach out, not on the audience's willingness to appreciate IMO
now you could argue that they don't need the big audience
fair enough, but go tell that to the band
 
So anyone else prefer the 'Staring at the Sun (Monster Truck)' mix to the album version? In an interview with Revolver Bono said this was close in spirit to the original version of the song, before they began stripping away the layers and turning it into an 'anthemic pop gem'.

No? Just me then.
 
i could see SUC being a duran duran song as well. but also i'm going to repeat what i said before. because some people really don't get what a "flop" is. what it means to REALLY lose your audience. what it means to have the public not care anymore.



1. when it comes to comparing u2 to bands , i use thier 80's peers.the bands they came up with. thier "graduating class" so to speak. most of those bands, from any genre did not survive the 80's and tanked. only the strong survive. Huey lewis,twisted sister,George Micheal,cyndi lauper,warrent, etc WILL all sign up to have had a 5x, 2x, hit single of soundtrack, and a 1x platinum albums in the 90's. just show em where to fucking sign. ask them about a flop after the 80's. YOU COULDN'T FIND THESE ARTISTS WITH A TELESCOPE IN 1997! (much less now).

some fanbases don't understand how they blessed they are. i mean i can enjoy my fav artists if they don't sell records i love david bowie. hasn't had a hit in the us in over 20 years. have all his recent albums. but you enjoy seeing your fav band have commerical sucess. the fanbases of the bands i mentioned above don't have that option. u2 joins the metallica, madonna, bon jovi, duran duran(for at least a little while after the 80's),beastie boys etc that survived to make a impact in another decade. after establishing themselves in the previous one. so many were destroyed after contact with jan 1rst 1990. they didn't dream it all up again. the dream was over.
 
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