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

[ultraviolet7]

the whole soul and atmosphere of the original recording is missing.

Everything that made Gone an amazing song...was Gone. In fact that is how they should have called the new mix on Best Of.
WAS Gone

If the new mixes were what they had in mind as finishing process for Pop I can't help feeling so glad that they couldn't "finish" it.

The best of mixes turned Discotheque and Gone into ATYCLB clones- what a dreadful fate for two great songs.

Depressing.

let the techno oriented stuff on pop BE JUST THAT. its a dance song. thats what it is. .

A dance song?
I thought a dance song was actually something you could dance to. Can anyone "dance" to Pop?

 

[Brian-C]

Can anyone "dance" to Pop?

Some of it. For sure.

 

[allbecauseofu2]

not the whole album. the stuff thats techno influenced. but u mean u can't do the twist to please?

 

[ultraviolet7]

not the whole album. the stuff thats techno influenced. but u mean u can't do the twist to please?

No, absolutely not and trust me I am definitely a dance person - I can't dance to anything on Pop.

 

[AtomicBono]

I danced with a guy to Mofo once

it ended well

 

[ultraviolet7]

I danced with a guy to Mofo once

it ended well

This doesn't count...

 

[believer75]

Gone, in it's original format, would have made for an insane lead-off single....we are back with....Gone. and we're not coming down....

And I have thought of this recently with the Letterman performances.....imagine if they had promoted Pop this way:
Night One: Gone
Night Two: Do You Feel Loved
Night Three: Staring at the Sun (full band!)
Night Four: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (play a recent "classic")
Night Five: Discotheque

Would have been a nice warm-up for Popmart, pre-Vegas.

But then again, that's just more U2 revisionist history....loved that whole era just the way it was.

 

[allbecauseofu2]

how can you not move to discotheque? or mofo?

 

[ultraviolet7]

how can you not move to discotheque? or mofo?

Er... um... No, this is beside the point I'm trying to make. I'll spell it out more clearly: since it's usual for people to write Pop off as a "dance" album or related to dance in some way and I think instead that it's far removed from that category, I'm interested in finding out what is the basis for the dance argument besides the "techno" sounds and the mirrorball aesthetics.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

No, absolutely not and trust me I am definitely a dance person - I can't dance to anything on Pop.

Discotheque is very danceable, what sort of U2 fan would you be to not dance the Boom Cha while listening to it.

 

[allbecauseofu2]

i never said the whole album. didn;t call it dance record. but thiers some danceable songs on it. thiers danceable songs AB and ZOO.

 

[65980]

I have to admit/confess that I now prefer the 2002 'Discotheque' to the original (hides while forum throws tomatoes). I didn't used to, but now I've found that the mainstreamed/pub-rocked 2002 version succeeds completely in its own terms, while the 1997 versions (like the Pop album in general) have a confused identity, and never quite resolve themselves or decide what they want to be.

There are a few groups that did dance/rock hybrids really well (The Stone Roses and New Order for example) but I don't think U2 is one of them...

 

[kingofsorrow]

people who can dance, can't dance to the songs on POP.
people who can't dance, can dance to the songs on POP.

 

[allbecauseofu2]

im only talking about 2-3 songs on pop. disco, mofo, do you feel. not the other ones. i do feel thier's electronic on the other songs. thier just not danceable really. the remix version elevation has electronic elements, but isn;t danceable at all. its a rock song.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I can dance a little bit to Miami...

 

[ultraviolet7]

There are a few groups that did dance/rock hybrids really well (The Stone Roses and New Order for example) but I don't think U2 is one of them...

Is Pop a dance/rock hybrid?

 

[Brian-C]

Jesus, it's just an album that dares to take on the slogan/advertising/pop modus operandi, circa 1997. It's a modern piece of pop-art, in music. Musically and lyrically, it draws from many things which run the gamut from timeless emotions to expendable mass-marketed crap. Skronky electronic textures abound. A few songs have dance beats too.