maybe u2's downfall in the late 90s didn't really have anything to do with pop.

[BVS]

but I don't think the US got the joke...

EXACTLY!!!

 

[U2Man]

How so?

I think it's the furthest from American they could have gotten. America as a whole aren't known for embracing irony and camp.

well...

"bigger is better" attitude.

huge macdonalds arc over the stage.

edge's cowboy looks.

sounds american to me too.


are you guys by "joke" implying that some americans took it the wrong way and thought u2 were mocking them?


...and even if all this is true, we still have to explain why pop, the album, didnt do very well in the rest of the world either.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

are you guys by "joke" implying that some americans took it the wrong way and thought u2 were mocking them?

No, I don't think that Americans thought they were being mocked, I think the whole concept went over their heads. They basically just saw the forest for the trees as it were.

PopMart was very much like one of it's influences: Pop Art. Some people see art and some people just see cartoons or soup cans..

With regards to Pop not selling as much, I will grudgingly admit that it really did not have a stand out single. Other than Pop, Zooropa and possibly October, all other U2 albums have at least one defining single that casual fans will purchase just for that track:

Boy - IWF
October - Gloria?
War - NYD or SBS
UF - Pride
JT - WOWY or ISHFWILF or WTSHNN
R&H - Desire
Achtung - One
Zooropa - Stay?
Pop - Discotheque?
ATYCLB - BD
HTDAAB - Vertigo

 

[U2Man]

No, I don't think that Americans thought they were being mocked, I think the whole concept went over their heads. They basically just saw the forest for the trees as it were.

do you think thats why popmart (the tour) did better in the rest of the world?

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

do you think thats why popmart (the tour) did better in the rest of the world?

Yes, the rest of the world either understood the irony or didn't care about the packaging and came for the music...

 

[U2Man]

so, basically america said "screw you guys. we've seen a macdonalds arch before ".

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

In a way, yes. Don't get me wrong, I loved Popmart but to a casual fan it must have been pretty weird.

All those day-glow colours and crazy costumes and a giant lemon mirror ball?

 

[theoriginal]

ZooTV was pretty weird at its time too. Pink Floyd shows are always weird.

Casual fans were willing to embrace ZooTV, was Pop that much weirder?

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

ZooTV was pretty weird at its time too. Pink Floyd shows are always weird.

Casual fans were willing to embrace ZooTV, was Pop that much weirder?

It's strange isn't it?

I don't have an explanation really, I'm just grasping here but Zoo TV was very structured and mono chromatic in it's set design. The only splash of crazy colour was the trabants and what was on screen.

Popmart was bright yellow and orange with curves and a giant olive on a toothpick...

 

[Utoo]

When gaging the success of a tour--especially when it's for a group as big as U2---you can't really base it on whether or not the fans accepted what happened during the tour. Most tickets go on sale well before the tour, so it's not like people don't buy tickets because they hear that the tour itself is weird. They have no idea when they buy their tickets. Especially when it comes to 'casual fans'---they're less likely to read much about the tour before they even go to their show, and they're the ones who are less likely to "get the joke;" they won't know that there's even supposed to be any symbolism, etc., until they get to the show. Thus, I think that the "America didn't get the joke" (which is a pretty broad generalization..I know plenty of people who saw the show and "got it") really is NOT a good argument for why the tour may not have fared as well (if you believe that, of course).

As I said before, I think it was all the "weirdness," etc. that came out with the presentation of the album and pre-tour hoopla. And for that stuff, the joke/sarcasm was much less obvious than for the tour. Yeah, they played in K-Mart. But without the muscle suits, the arch, the giant lemon that you got on tour, there wasn't too much to get before the tour started. What you had instead were interviews with a U2 that's more puffed up than they are now; the band looking nothing like the JT era nor the ZooTV era, but instead in flashy silk and velor costumes; and the radio initially playing the most techno-oriented song on the album: Discotheque.

All this stuff came well before the tour & was enough to turn a lot of people off ahead of time....I don't think the tour factored in much at all. Nor did the "joke," which was on commercialism, etc. Before the tour started, the band was stuck in Playboy Mansion mode, which has is sarcastic roots much less visible than the giant golden commercialism arch of the tour.

 

[U2Man]

but at the time it seemed like u2 thought they needed the weirdness, as if it wasnt enough to be 'just u2'. could that be because u2 couldnt see any serious world issues to push against at this stage - so they had to find another way to get attention?

 

[CPTLCTYGOOFBALL]

It's strange isn't it?

I don't have an explanation really, I'm just grasping here but Zoo TV was very structured and mono chromatic in it's set design. The only splash of crazy colour was the trabants and what was on screen.

...

I think one tour supported an album that was a whole lot better than the other-simple as that-It's Just my opinion of course but Pop doesn't even even come close to AB. It was a very, very, very ordinary album that wished it was something bigger.


You can talk all you want about bad choices for first singles, poor choices for videos, poor timing for tours.

I think it comes down to the fact people just didn't really like it-Sure there are some people that love the album, there just aren't as many as some of the other U2 albums

 

[BVS]

well...

"bigger is better" attitude.

huge macdonalds arc over the stage.

edge's cowboy looks.

sounds american to me too.

But the cowboy hats were oversized and not to be taken seriously. The McDonald's arch wasn't a celebration of the arch...

So in this sense it wasn't American at all.

 

[BVS]

but at the time it seemed like u2 thought they needed the weirdness, as if it wasnt enough to be 'just u2'. could that be because u2 couldnt see any serious world issues to push against at this stage - so they had to find another way to get attention?

Um, no. They just approached the serious world issues in a different way, one that was way over many people's heads.

 

[U2Man]

Um, no. They just approached the serious world issues in a different way, one that was way over many people's heads.

what world issues, more precisely?

 

[matt76]

there wasn't? an album that didn't sell half of what they had expected, a promotion tv show with a historically low amount of viewers, half-empty stadiums all over the u.s....

Stop going on and on about 1/2empty stadiums!! I would love you to name all the concerts that had half empty stadiums!! Not many at all eh? if any?!!

 

[Salome]

I remember Staring at the Sun was played a lot and I remember people at my high school who weren't U2 fans being into it.

when you have a poll asking all the people who go to U2 shows and buy their album to name 5 songs that define the band not even 1% would mention any of the singles from Zooropa and POP

I love Zooropa to death but it is equally to "blame" for the relative demise of interest in U2 until Beautiful Day popped up

 

[theoriginal]

I don't ZooTV pushed against any more serious world issues than Popmart. Sure there was the Sarajevo linkups, but there were only a few, and that was five minutes of the whole show. ZooTV was largely about media and Popmart was largely about consumerism. So why was one received better than the other?

Songs too. Numb was as strange a U2 song has ever been, and it was received well in 1993. Discotheque is a more traditional rock song than Numb and even Lemon.

I think the one conscious choice the band made in relation to world events was after Rattle & Hum, and that was to try and step back, not make it seem like they thought they were the world's saviors.

When they did do political things, Sarajevo, Sellafeld, Free Tibet concert, they didn't want their role to be a big deal. I mean they didn't want to be defined that way in the nineties. I don't think they wanted to get away from "just U2". I think they wanted to get away from what they felt was the misconception of U2 in the 80's, which was that they were overly serious, messianic, pretentious band that was way to big for their own good.

The nineties is U2 pushing back from that view, and they found they had fun doing it (great music too). Bono has said that during the nineties he didn't think about Africa that much, that he let himself forget. The whole of the nineties looks kind of like a long drunken weekend, the band "letting their hair down". After Pop didn't do as expected, their was a "sobering" moment of self-reflection. The band thought they may have pushed too far, Bono thought he had ignored what he felt was a calling in his life, and thus the 2000's are born.

I kinda rambled, I hope this makes some sense...

 

[Salome]

Stop going on and on about 1/2empty stadiums!! I would love you to name all the concerts that had half empty stadiums!! Not many at all eh? if any?!!

I was at the second show in The Netherlands and Bono spent the first 20 minutes of the show getting worked up because the part of the stadium directly to his right was mostly empty

since The Netherlands was the first country they played in Europe for POPMart there was also an even bigger amount of foreign U2 fans there which prevented it from being worse

generally U2 are adding shows in The Netherlands
we're #2 after Ireland when it comes to sold concert tickets per habitant (or something like that)

I still preferred the show to the Zoo TV show I went to though

 

[theoriginal]

I love Zooropa to death but it is equally to "blame" for the relative demise of interest in U2 until Beautiful Day popped up

I think Zooropa and Pop's songs may account for lack of hits on the pop charts, but why was Zooropa so well received and not Pop? Zooropa didn't have a hit song, but it won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album, and it was perceived as a success. I remember reading somewhere that Numb was on the rap charts, Lemon on Dance, and Stay on Rock charts.

I think it is relevance. In the early nineties U2 was relevant. By 1997, consumers either had forgotten, moved on, figured that U2 were past their prime or were new consumers that weren't old enough when ZooTV came around.

 

[Snowlock]

pleeeease let's not argue about facts.

just look at the album sales figures for starters:

AB 17 Million
Pop 6 Million
ATYCLB 12 Million

pop was expected to be a major release and seller like ab and atyclb. it sold about 1/3 of achtung baby and 1/2 of atyclb. and yes, then there was popmart with half-empty stadiums.

Seriously, don't inject empirical fact into the debate. Pop was fan-frickin'-tastic. Everybody loved it; everybody got it and it was bigger and better than AB or JT before it and CERTAINLY all the milk-toast crap that's come out since; despite what the critics, fans, DJ's, management and the band themselves say.

My first musical introduction was with Pop, well that and Barney! And let me tell you something about BARNEY while we're at it. He's a frickin' genius. You think Bono, with all of his on his knees lyrics in this day and age could write something as compelling as "I love you, you love me"?! Do you? DO YOU!? Frickin' fascist nazi old bastard. Go listen to The Eagles or something. Leave Pop alone.

Of course, next to Radiohead, Pop sucks ass, noob.

 

[doctorwho]

god, this is getting annoying.

how do you explain these figures then:

You have to be careful comparing sales figures U2Man.

Everyone will readily agree that "Pop" was not a huge seller. To date, it has sold about 1.5M copies to actual consumers in the U.S. It is estimated to have sold around 7M worldwide. Now, compare this to AB or ATYCLB or HTDAAB, these sums for "Pop" are low - no argument. But... when an artists' weakest selling studio release still goes Platinum, and still sells millions worldwide, one could hardly call that a "downfall". A drop? Sure. A decrease? Yes. But a "downfall"? Never. Many artists who have experienced true downfalls don't even see their albums reach Gold status in the U.S. (500,000 copies sold). Yet, U2's unnecessary "18 Singles" has already crossed that threshold! So "Pop" is hardly a "failure" in terms of sales - just a disappointment compared to expectations.

As for the tour - while there were SOME stadium shows that didn't sell out, plenty did. In fact, some parts of the U.S. performed SO well that U2 added second and even third shows (like in Chicago). And remember - this is a stadium tour, not arena. Arenas hold 15-25,000 people at the most. Stadiums hold 35-100,000 people! It's very difficult for any artist to sell out an 80,000 seat show! The media claimed U2 was "failing" because they might have sold 50,000 tickets out of 60,000 available tickets. But those 50,000 tickets are the equivalent of 3 arena shows! Had PopMart been an arena only tour, it would have been hailed as a huge success.

This is why, IMO, U2 went to arenas in the U.S. for the last two tours. They can easily sell 15-20,000 tickets in all cities they visit. And in the bigger cities or places where U2 are extra popular, like Boston, Chicago, NY, etc., U2 will add 2, 3, sometimes 4 extra shows! And this creates the illusion of U2 being "super hot" because they were able to sell out 4 shows! But those 4 arena shows may be the equivalent to 1 stadium show! This is why PopMart is, if I'm correct, U2's biggest tour ever in terms of attendance, surpassing JT, ZOO TV, Elevation and Vertigo, which are U2's highest points in terms of album sales, hits and tour success.

In other words, don't be ready to dismiss "Pop" and PopMart too quickly as "failures" or as a "downfall". U2 did quite well, but just not as good as other eras. And the media spun anything they could about U2 into something negative. For some reason, there was a backlash. It happens to all artists and U2 have endured several. Yet each time they bounce back with even better sales (AB outsold R&H, ATYCLB outsold "Pop") - very impressive!

 

[U2Man]

You have to be careful comparing sales figures U2Man.

Everyone will readily agree that "Pop" was not a huge seller. To date, it has sold about 1.5M copies to actual consumers in the U.S. It is estimated to have sold around 7M worldwide. Now, compare this to AB or ATYCLB or HTDAAB, these sums for "Pop" are low - no argument. But... when an artists' weakest selling studio release still goes Platinum, and still sells millions worldwide, one could hardly call that a "downfall". A drop? Sure. A decrease? Yes. But a "downfall"? Never. Many artists who have experienced true downfalls don't even see their albums reach Gold status in the U.S. (500,000 copies sold). Yet, U2's unnecessary "18 Singles" has already crossed that threshold! So "Pop" is hardly a "failure" in terms of sales - just a disappointment compared to expectations.

As for the tour - while there were SOME stadium shows that didn't sell out, plenty did. In fact, some parts of the U.S. performed SO well that U2 added second and even third shows (like in Chicago). And remember - this is a stadium tour, not arena. Arenas hold 15-25,000 people at the most. Stadiums hold 35-100,000 people! It's very difficult for any artist to sell out an 80,000 seat show! The media claimed U2 was "failing" because they might have sold 50,000 tickets out of 60,000 available tickets. But those 50,000 tickets are the equivalent of 3 arena shows! Had PopMart been an arena only tour, it would have been hailed as a huge success.

This is why, IMO, U2 went to arenas in the U.S. for the last two tours. They can easily sell 15-20,000 tickets in all cities they visit. And in the bigger cities or places where U2 are extra popular, like Boston, Chicago, NY, etc., U2 will add 2, 3, sometimes 4 extra shows! And this creates the illusion of U2 being "super hot" because they were able to sell out 4 shows! But those 4 arena shows may be the equivalent to 1 stadium show! This is why PopMart is, if I'm correct, U2's biggest tour ever in terms of attendance, surpassing JT, ZOO TV, Elevation and Vertigo, which are U2's highest points in terms of album sales, hits and tour success.

In other words, don't be ready to dismiss "Pop" and PopMart too quickly as "failures" or as a "downfall". U2 did quite well, but just not as good as other eras. And the media spun anything they could about U2 into something negative. For some reason, there was a backlash. It happens to all artists and U2 have endured several. Yet each time they bounce back with even better sales (AB outsold R&H, ATYCLB outsold "Pop") - very impressive!

i believe i've already explained what i meant by downfall. maybe it wasnt the best choice of word. but whether you call it a drop, decline, decrease or downfall, the point remains. pop didnt do nearly as well as ab and atyclb.

and yes, im aware of the stadium issue - but i still think u2 could have sold out those stadiums during zoo-tv.

 

[Greenlight]

I think it is relevance. In the early nineties U2 was relevant. By 1997, consumers either had forgotten, moved on, figured that U2 were past their prime or were new consumers that weren't old enough when ZooTV came around.

I think that's true. I'd had a real cooling off period with U2 in the mid 90s. No particular reason as such that I remember, I was just more into newer bands at the time such as Oasis and Blur who were making a real impact then at least in the UK. When Pop came out (and it did get a lot of airplay on the radio) I really didn't take to it. I probably only listened to it a few times and gave up and it was only after ATYCLB came out that I got back into U2 and gave Pop another chance and then realised what I had been missing. It's one of my favourites now. I think many fans both casual and diehard didn't "get it" when it came out which did have an impact on sales. It's one of those albums that grows on you but many didn't give it a chance.

 

[U2Man]

somebody please post the Q magazine cover saying "the kings are dead - long live the kings" or something like that.

 

[beegee]

I don't think the US got the joke...

Meh.

I personally didn't want the joke.

 

[dietcokeofevil]

How so?

I think it's the furthest from American they could have gotten. America as a whole aren't known for embracing irony and camp.

It was definitely American. Americans simply don't like to be the brunt of an international joke.

 

[MrBrau1]

but why was Zooropa so well received and not Pop?

cause Zooropa rode the coat-tails of AB. A brilliant record.

Most people hated Zooropa. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Now everyone says they love it, but at the time, it was considered by many to be a steaming pile of dung. There was no internet. If you wanted to hear Zooropa, you had to buy it, or borrow it from someone who did. So happly little U2 fans who loved AB and Zoo TV went out and bought Zooropa. They got burned, and weren't gonna get burned again with a record that had "Discotheque" as a lead single/video.

 

[LemonMelon]

There's only way to explain their lack of relevance during that time and that's really that the band hadn't started a project worth mentioning from an economic sense since ZooTV in 1992. As I said before, Zooropa was not, in and of itself, commercially viable, and there was no way that it could have sold if not for the fact that it rode ZooTV's coattails. There was nothing that could have made Zooropa stick in people's minds, so by the time March 1997 rolled around, U2 had released two commercially inaccessible records (with no recognizable single) in the span of 3 1/2 years, and the band's reputation had greatly soured.

So, in layman's terms:

Pop didn't kill Pop.

Zooropa and/or Passengers killed Pop.

 

[doctorwho]

i believe i've already explained what i meant by downfall. maybe it wasnt the best choice of word. but whether you call it a drop, decline, decrease or downfall, the point remains. pop didnt do nearly as well as ab and atyclb.

and yes, im aware of the stadium issue - but i still think u2 could have sold out those stadiums during zoo-tv.

O.K., so it was a "decline" or whatever euphemism you want to call it. And so what? Does every album have to sell well? HTDAAB didn't sell quite as well as ATYCLB. Is that a "decline"? Neither R&H or AB sold as well as JT. Are they "drops"? Everything is relative. While "Pop" wasn't this huge seller U2 and others anticipated, it didn't do that poorly.

I think the reason why it failed to launch huge was due to several reasons. As others stated, "Zooropa" wasn't really as well received as the sales indicate. It rode on AB's and ZOO TV's coattails. But I know many JT era fans who enjoyed (or "tolerated") AB, but abhorred "Zooropa". Even I didn't like it much the first few times and I didn't buy it right away. The album didn't really produce any big hits in the U.S. (while AB produced 4 Top 40 hits) and wasn't as accessible. Then U2 seemed to "disappear". "Hold Me...Kill Me" was fun and was a hit for U2, but that was just a one-time song associated with a movie. Few outside of the die-hard fanbase heard of OS1 - and those that did seemed to mock it laughing at the thought of a rock group like U2 pairing with the likes of Pavarotti (or the reverse). And when U2 finally did release an album, the lead single - after gaining tons of momentum because it was "new U2" - flopped. It was a hit because people were desperate for U2. But once they heard it, the song faded quickly. It's a shame as it is a good song, but U.S. audiences really didn't care for it.

My view is that had U2 released "Staring at the Sun" as the lead single, "Pop" would have done far, far better. Had U2 done an arena tour, they would have received tons of praise for selling out all their shows. But they wanted to continue to "f*ck up the mainstream" - at least in their minds - and their gamble backfired.

Still, for a so-called "flop", it did amazingly well. I bet all artists wish their worst selling album in the last 20 years would still sell 1.5M copies in the U.S. and that their "flop tour" still would generate nearly $180M, surpassed only be the more expensively priced Rolling Stone tour as the biggest tour of the year.