10 Years in POP - 03.03.1997-03.03.2007

[Danny Boy]

I don't think I can remember buying Pop. I'm sure I must have bought it the day it came out ...

I remember getting Achtung Baby, Zooropa, ATYCLB and HTDAAB, but not poor Pop.

That's funny; I have no memory of buying Pop either. I know I had a CD single of Discotheque before Pop was released, and I'm sure I must have bought it the day it was released.

Strange, because I have very clear memories of where and when I bought Zooropa, Best of 80-90, ATYCLB, Best of 90-00, HTDAAB, and U218 Singles.

 

[coolian2]

and how awesome is if god will send his angels.....terribly underrated song

I love you.

 

[U2inUtah]

Went to a midnight release party at a local cd store and then came home and listened to POP until the sun came up and I had to go to school.

I got into U2 sometime after Zooropa was out so it was the
First U2 album I bought when it was released.

Can't believe its been ten years.

Wow

Happy birthday POP!

 

[ElectricalVoice]

One of my absolute favourites ever, both the album and the tour.

 

[Alisaura]

Happy Boom-Cha, Pop!

I heard the live Hasta la Vista CD before I actually bought Pop, and possibly before I even heard it... the Please/Streets segue did amazing things to my brain; jaw-dropping, tearing-up, not-breathing things. I almost sat there all night just listening to that instead of going to a St John's meeting.
I used to go to the music library at Uni and listen to U2 albums I hadn't bought yet, including Pop. It took me a long time to get into Zooropa, but once I did, I loved it. I was a little nervous about listening to Pop for the first time after that, wondering if I would like it, but I loved Pop from the first listen. Maybe not all of it, all at once, but over the years since then I've grown to love all the songs on their own merits.

If You Wear That Velvet Dress...

I love Wake Up Dead Man as much as I can love an incredibly depressing, bitter song... when I'm in a miserable, rotten mood, nothing else fits so well. Stereo heartache.

Miami is just fun. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[andberlin]

such an underrated album, one of my favourites.

happy birthday pop!

 

[guill]

Pop

 

[Irishteen]

Happy birthday Pop!

You're still the biggest mix of brilliance and crap U2 have yet to release

Completely unrated in general except by people here who really overrate it, it's not even close to being any form of a masterpiece, half the album is pretty meh

 

[U2Kitten]

I was thinking about this the other day. Ten years is a long time. The album is now 'old' by some peoples' standards. Can we now, after all this time, stop arguing about it, getting mad when people don't like it, accusing people of not 'getting it' if they miss its 'genius?' In the end, it's just another album, like every other album ever made. It's time for everyone to 'get OVER it' and just look at it in the perspective of any other album. It's not a big deal.

 

[waynetravis]

POP!!

Discotheque
Do You Feel Loved
MOFO
If God Will Send His Angels
Staring at the Sun
Lasy Night on Earth
Gone
Miami
The Playboy Mansion
If You Wear That Velvet Dress
Please
Wake Up Dead Man

 

[popsadie2]

Pop is the album that got me into U2. It fit where I was spiritually and mentally as a frustrated 18 year old perfectly. I made some very deep connections to Pop songs ten years ago. I understand why it has its critics, but the album just seemed to "fit" me in a way that nothing else did back then.

 

[pepokiss]

the First album I ever bought






MOFO is the best thing ever

 

[Z00rop@83]

do you feel loved?

 

[If you shout...]

Has anybody listened to the "POPcast" thing on @U2? It's seriously one of the most hilariously embarrassing disasters which I've ever cringed through. It's utterly hilarious, how incompetent and vapid some of our fellow fans can truly be.

Anyway, Pop changed my life. I'll never forget it and I doubt that I'll ever stop loving it (although that Podcast came damn close to convincing me that I've been wrong for loving it for all these years...). Those were great days.

 

[RavenBlue]

My soundtrack for highschool I wore the cassette out!

I Pop!

 

[vRS]

Happy bd Pop, my 4th favourite U2 album just behind Atomic Bomb. In Bono's words its "Rock 'n' f***** roll"

Notable song mentions-

Do You Feel Loved
Mofo
Please
Wake Up Dead Man
Staring at the Sun
Discoteque

 

[intedomine]

3rd fave U2 album, yet I love it more and more every day...

Discotheque - one of my top 5 U2 songs
Do You Feel Loved - under rated and strangely brilliant.
MOFO - If The Fly was chopping down the Joshua Tree, MOFO was chopping down a forest of Joshua Trees.
Last night On Earth - brilliant video, amazing chorus
Miami - A song that makes U2's musical journey seem almost complete, amazing lyrics
Velvet Dress - Too cool, too sweet...
Please - Remarkable song, top ten for me, one of the great videos

Fantastic as it is, and never should be re-recorded, and should be respected and held in the highest esteem....an utterly amazing masterpiece...

What music should be all about...

 

[AtomicBono]

Nearly ten years ago to this day i was in Seoul and i had just bought the Pop cd, i carried it into a little hole in the wall bar that overlooked Yongsan and Seoul where i planned on having a few drinks with a friend. The youthful bartender served us up some brew and then asked me "what i had in the bag?". I told him it was the brand new u2 cd and he insisted i unwrap it so he could play it while we sat there and drank. So, there my friend and i discovered MOFO for the first time in a crazy little bar while getting an afternoon buzz and watching massive traffic jams on the streets below us. The horns from the traffic outside along with the angry Korean drivers cursing in their native tongue was a nice complement to the apocalyptic sound blaring from the speakers of the pub.

It was quite surreal, if i can overuse that

I just wanted to say that's a really awesome story.

well I'm sure I've made my history with Pop abundantly clear on here numerous times... but just to recap...3rd grade, my mom bought Pop, subjected me to it, and I fell in love. The CD pretty much became mine because it was all I wanted to listen to. so it's how I became a U2 fan and it's still my favourite album of all time.

happy 10 years Pop, and happy 10 years to what has become a defining part of who I am

 

[blueeyedgirl]

I don't think I can remember buying Pop. I'm sure I must have bought it the day it came out ...

I remember getting Achtung Baby, Zooropa, ATYCLB and HTDAAB, but not poor Pop.

Neither can I. But then I spent a lot of the 90s being drunk in clubs listening to lots of Britpop so it's all a bit fuzzy...

 

[Salome]

I remember buying the album
I of course heard Discotheque already which I thought was great and Staring at the sun which I thought was pretty bland

I still think of the album in that same hit & miss fashion

 

[Yahweh_OMG]

U2 is 30 year's old....

Joshua Tree is 20 year's old....

POP is 10 year's old.....


Crap, I'm getting old.....same age as U2....

 

[blueskyzg]

The bravest U2 album ever!

Still fresh and original.

POPART

 

[annie_vox]

I love POP! I listened to it a couple of weeks ago and it felt so good! Happy 10th aniversary to POP

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

It's hard to believe this album is 10 years old already. I still remember getting Popmart tickets for my 18th birthday, and writing a review of the new album for my high school newspaper, even though nobody else in my school had a clue who U2 was.

As others have said, I love Pop for its bravery and its drastic departure from U2's previous sound. Is it their best album? No, but it's a damned good one nonetheless.

 

[zooperson]

LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT SECONDFAVORITEALBUMPLEASEISTHEBESTU2SONGEVER
LOVE IT LOVE IT HAPPY B DAY POP!

 

[Drea]

If there was one tour that I could go back in time and see, it would be a Popmart show. Unfortunately I was like 8 or 9 and I seriously doubt that my parents would have let me go.

I Pop, it's a great album Unfortunately I was living in northwestern Ontario at the time, 8 hours from Minneapolis (which I'm sure had a show) and Winnipeg (which I don't think had a show) where I could've seen them... and at that point wasn't as in to them as I am now

Those of you saying you were 8 or 9 at the time are making me feel old, as I was 2 months from turning 26 when it came out (Yes that means I was in hs when JT came out, and in some ways it's scary to think it's been 20 years )

 

[schnumi]

If there was one tour that I could go back in time and see, it would be a Popmart show. Unfortunately I was like 8 or 9 and I seriously doubt that my parents would have let me go.

Exactly. I was 12 at the time but i just got to know U2, the first ever recollection i have of a U2 song is the video of Last Night on earth on TMF (tv music station).

That got me hooked. So obviously i missed out on POPmart but if there was one tour i would like to see it would be Popmart.

 

[popmart86]

ooh maan, 4th grade. it really brings back memories. i was going to get it on cassette but i paid too much attention to what my brother and sister thought about them . i finally bought it in 2001 and i love it!!! i remember seeing the commercial with the discotheque video and matt pinfield announcing the dates. those were the days. happy 10th, POP!!!!!!

 

[Chizip]

i wasn't as hardcore back then and i bought Pop while in line waiting for tickets to my first U2 concert, Popmart of course

i didn't really like it too much for a while, i remember i bought the Offspring's Ixnay on the Hombre on the same day and actually preferred that album for a while because it was catchier

oh what a fool i was, now its my favorite album

 

[zoopop]

I told my wife "Pop" turned 10 years old and she was like, OMG!!! It feels like yesterday I was reading a small story in my local paper about Discotheque. Pop was the last U2 album where there was no (no broadband at least) previews on the internet. The radio was the way we heard Pop. Here is a list of Pop highlights for me:

-Hearing Discotheque on the radio for the 1st time. Blown away!!

-Waiting up till midnight to see the world premire of the Discotheque video on MTV. They had a A-Z U2 video marathon for the damn thing. Too cool

-Listening and recording (on tape) the Pop special on the radio. Had interviews with the band and they played about 6-8 songs off Pop. Hearing Gone, IGWSHA, Velvet, and Playboy Mansion had me pumped for the album.

-My local "rock" (doesn't even play U2 at all anymore) radio station played tracks from the album (big no no back then). Heard Gone, LNOE, and Mofo. Hearing Mofo for the 1st time was so f***** epic.

-Going to the record store at midnight to purchase Pop on CD. Long lines and free pizza had me thinking U2 was the biggest band in the world (they were). Put in Pop on my way home and heard DYFL for the 1st time and thought this is the greatest U2 album ever. Reading the booklet before bed and wondering what the Popmart was gonna be like

-My Dad buying me a trip to see U2 in Las Vegas opening night!!! One of the worst and best shows I"ve ever seen. Seeing U2 in the middle of the desert with the world's eyes on them was something I'll never forget.

What I love and miss about Pop was that it was the last record/tour U2 did before the music industry took a dive south, tickets were $50, you had to purchase the album on CD, singles mattered, we had B-sides, setlist were just that, and U2 took a huge chance. Times have changed in the past 10 years.

Happy 10th B-day Pop!!!