U2 on POP

[RobH]

Who out there has any firsthand quotes by members of the band dissing POP? I seem to recall quite a few after the initial "this is our best album yet" bs was over. What have the members of the band actually said about that album?

 

[Canadiens1131]

"I remain convinced that history will vindicate PopMart. It's PopMart that stands the test of time to a much greater degree than Zoo TV."

-- Willie Williams, 2002

"There was a sense on the record company's part that this was going to be an enormous record for us in America. And when it wasn't, we took it in our stride."

-- Edge, on Pop

"If I was to choose my mode of transport, I'm not sure it would be a mirrorball lemon. I think I'll take the bus next time."

-- Larry, 2002

"It was a success, with the exception of the United States. It sold eight million, so it was by no means a failure."

-- Edge, on Pop

Those random ones from @U2.

 

[rjhbonovox]

"Fucking Great Album"

RJJ,2005!

 

[jick]

"Unfishined" - Bono.

"Unfinished" - Mullen.

"Disjointed" - Eno.

Cheers,

J

 

[financeguy]

Jick is correct, they all described as unfinished in a Q interview a few years ago. But unfinished does not equal bad!

 

[LMP]

The relative quickness and rapidness of schedule for Zooropa worked to their advantage, but just didn't work so well for Pop I guess

They should've planned the tour AFTER the album felt finished for the band

 

[jick]

The relative quickness and rapidness of schedule for Zooropa worked to their advantage, but just didn't work so well for Pop I guess

They should've planned the tour AFTER the album felt finished for the band

U2 took a year to record POP. That makes it not as quick as Zooropa. But they should have given it another year like they did for HTDAAB.

Can you imagine if HTDAAB had Sometimes You Can't Make It and Native Son and Xanax&Wine from the demo versions instead of what we have now? That would be an awful unfinished album. Unfortunately that is what happened with POP and they already had booked the tour.

I think from now on, U2 will limit themselves to releasing albums exclusively on October November.

Cheers,

J

 

[Harry Vest]

Again, POP contains one of my top ten U2 songs of ALL time...GONE!!! It also contained PLEASE and WAKE UP DEAD MAN so it really wasn't that bad an album after all.

 

[Zoots]

Again, POP contains one of my top ten U2 songs of ALL time...GONE!!! It also contained PLEASE and WAKE UP DEAD MAN so it really wasn't that bad an album after all.

Don't make me start about how fucking brilliant Pop is.

 

[LMP]

U2 took a year to record POP. That makes it not as quick as Zooropa. But they should have given it another year like they did for HTDAAB.

Can you imagine if HTDAAB had Sometimes You Can't Make It and Native Son and Xanax&Wine from the demo versions instead of what we have now? That would be an awful unfinished album. Unfortunately that is what happened with POP and they already had booked the tour.

I think from now on, U2 will limit themselves to releasing albums exclusively on October November.

Cheers,

J

I misphrased a little bit, I meant the ense or urgency was present in both album productions. Zooropa with the tour and all of the craziness that was ZooTV, and Pop with the fact they needed to get the album done before PopMart started, and had to spend their usual rehearsing time finishing the album making the songs in the live setting suffer.

Also, the idea of putting the albums out in October/November is a good idea IMO because it would be in time for Grammys and holiday push, and us fans have to wait for like 10 months w/ anticipation

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

"Unfishined" - Bono.

"Unfinished" - Mullen.

"Disjointed" - Eno.

Cheers,

J

 

[rjhbonovox]

Can you imagine if HTDAAB had Sometimes You Can't Make It and Native Son and Xanax&Wine from the demo versions instead of what we have now? That would be an awful unfinished album. Unfortunately that is what happened with POP and they already had booked the tour.

I think from now on, U2 will limit themselves to releasing albums exclusively on October November.

Hey if U2 had released HTDAAB a year earlier it would have been a better album! Native Son and Vertigo there aint much between them Xanax and Wine pisses all over fast cars no doubt about that and Sometimes, well all I can say is at least the original version didn't have the goddamn cringeworthy awful falsetto lines "its you when I look in the mirror, and its you when I dig up the bone". Yep, gotta say it would have been a better album!

 

[Zoots]

Is this original version of Sometimes available anywhere? I'd like to give it a listen.

 

[Reggie Thee Dog]

In Q magazine date October or November of 2000, both Bono, Larry and Adam stated misgivings about the album and the tour. Does this mean that both were bad, no. Does it mean that the album didn't meet the bands standard, yes. And they all stated that they were rushed to finish it. In Larry's estimation SATS needed at least one more month to nail it down completely. Adam stated that the American audience wasn't buying what they were selling on the tour. Somewhat true in my estimation.

U2 albums are all great in their own way. Pop is great to those who:

1. Discovered U2 at that time
2. Enjoy the experimental side of U2
3. Love U2 no matter what

I like Pop, I listen to Pop it's just not one of my top 3 U2 albums. To say that the band has never slagged the album is not a correct statement. I don't think they hate the album, I just don't think it was everything it could've been. I don't either.

 

[discothequeLP]

Hey if U2 had released HTDAAB a year earlier it would have been a better album! Native Son and Vertigo there aint much between them Xanax and Wine pisses all over fast cars no doubt about that and Sometimes, well all I can say is at least the original version didn't have the goddamn cringeworthy awful falsetto lines "its you when I look in the mirror, and its you when I dig up the bone". Yep, gotta say it would have been a better album!

to each his own. i totally 100% disagree with everything you just said.



dig up the bone? try "pick up the phone." i don't know how Bono's voice could ever be cringeworthy. and the original "Sometimes" is totally missing something at the bridge, when Bono sings "Siiiing..." There's nothing there, it sounds empty. The final version is a masterpiece.


Xanax and Wine is disjointed and doesn't flow as well as Fast Cars does. It's very cool, but after every chorus the song has to stop and go back to the beginning for the intro gutiar part. it just doesn't flow.


Vertigo is alot better than Native Son. Vertigo is the finished version. Native Son is lacking something, especially the last chorus. Vertigo ends with a bang.

 

[Reggie Thee Dog]

Wow, discothequeLP, that's exactly how I feel about the unreleased songs. Like after listening to them I understand why they were scrapped.

 

[Canadiens1131]

Hey if U2 had released HTDAAB a year earlier it would have been a better album! Native Son and Vertigo there aint much between them Xanax and Wine pisses all over fast cars no doubt about that and Sometimes, well all I can say is at least the original version didn't have the goddamn cringeworthy awful falsetto lines "its you when I look in the mirror, and its you when I dig up the bone". Yep, gotta say it would have been a better album!

Native Son's lyrics are cheesier than Vertigo, it is only musically better. Xanax and Wine, I agree with you, but it should not be an album track, just like Fast Cars. Original Sometimes sucks the big one, the horrible fat guitar sounds in the beginning, sounds like a goddam carnival. and Stevie L. is so right, it needed a chorus.

 

[Yahweh]

I thought POP was about the same in quality that ATYCLB was myself and infact even though the band said that it was unfinished they were very complimentry of it most of the time.

My favourite quote came from Bono when he was here in Edmonton.

"I just know that they are up on our music here and there is a strong thing right across Canada about our record and that they are a little faster then the Americans"


I think that about says it all.

 

[financeguy]

My favourite quote came from Bono when he was here in Edmonton.

"I just know that they are up on our music here and there is a strong thing right across Canada about our record and that they are a little faster then the Americans"

I think the comparative failure of the album in the USA does have a lot to do with musical tastes there. For example the dance beats on the album would have gone over the heads of most Americans. That type of music hadn't taken off in the USA back then.

 

[bathiu]

"Unfishined" - Bono.

"Unfinished" - Mullen.

"Disjointed" - Eno.

Cheers,

J

REAAALYY?? and they didn't "finish" it for the special Digital BoxSet? When it would make it even more desireable to buy and download. Wow, such a great moment to "finish" POP, and they didn't do it... hmmm

I just have to say it: Find me an unfinished album with 12 songs and all of them longer than 4:30

Also, if no one noticed it... those strange opinions from the band about POP ended when the campaign promoting ATYCLB was finaly over.
Makes you think... -no comment-

 

[ImOuttaControl]

REAAALYY?? and they didn't "finish" it for the special Digital BoxSet? When it would make it even more desireable to buy and download. Wow, such a great moment to "finish" POP, and they didn't do it... hmmm

I just have to say it: Find me an unfinished album with 12 songs and all of them longer than 4:30

Also, if no one noticed it... those strange opinions from the band about POP ended when the campaign promoting ATYCLB was finaly over.
Makes you think... -no comment-

Listen, Pop is my 2nd favorite album after Achtung Baby, but to claim that the songs were finished as U2 wanted them is living in a fantasy world.

An album with 12 songs over 4:30? What difference does that make? So U2 could put out 12 demos over 4:30 on a disk and that would be a finished album with finished songs?

Why else would U2 have re-recorded IGWSHA, LNOE and Please for their single releases? If they would have been finished songs, then U2 would have released the album versions. They didn't, because they weren't able to finish these songs before the album came out.

The fact is that U2 was forced to put POP out before it was finished---there is a lot of documentation on this. The tour was starting and the album HAD to be out. The vocal for LNOE was recorded the day the album was mastered for petes sake!

 

[bathiu]

Why else would U2 have re-recorded IGWSHA, LNOE and Please for their single releases? If they would have been finished songs, then U2 would have released the album versions. They didn't, because they weren't able to finish these songs before the album came out.

So it's only POP's songs that have "finished" single version of the songs?
I didn't know that, I also must have some illegal singles of Elevation, Walk On, Wild Horses... to name a few... because they also have a totaly changed versions of the songs... not just barely changed like IGWSHA (wich in fact is only a shorter "radio edit") and LNOE...

From NY Times:

U2, with its producers and engineers, was recording and mixing in two studios simultaneously. Workdays stretched to 14 and16 hours. But even at that stage, everything was subject to change -- including, as itturned out, the final deadline. "We have trouble finishing things," said the Edge, U2’sguitarist. The album, originally due last September as a pre-Christmas release, was finished in late December, with all-night recording sessions up to the last minute. It is to be released March 4.

It WOULD be unfinished if released in September. Just like HTDAAB if released in spring of 2004.

 

[ImOuttaControl]

So it's only POP's songs that have "finished" single version of the songs?
I didn't know that, I also must have some illegal singles of Elevation, Walk On, Wild Horses... to name a few... because they also have a totaly changed versions of the songs... not just barely changed like IGWSHA (wich in fact is only a shorter "radio edit") and LNOE...

For the first part. No, you're obviously reading between lines I never drew. I think the only songs that weren't quite finished are IGWSHA, LNOE, Miami, Velvet Dress, Please and possibly WUDM. Wake up dead man is a live take and is very rough. I get the feeling they weren't able to spend much time on it.

It's very obvious that IGWSHA, Please and LNOE aren't finished on the album, and I love every one of these songs! The others we dont know, because they weren't released as singles.

IGWSHA-- not just a shorter radio edit. The whole song is cleaned up from the sloppy version on Pop. Listen to the both versions back to back. Also, Bono didn't finish the lyrics for the album version. "and i don't have to know how, I don't need to know why, and I don't want to promise, cuz I don't wanna lie...I just know that I need you, to know..." Or do you think the scat singing on POP was the original intention?

LNOE-- Again, cleaned up from the sloppy album version. A distorted mess with admittedly sub-par vocals by Bono. His voice was so screwed up from the panic of not having the album finished that they had to add tons of delay and reverb to his voice.

Please-- the album version sounds like a live take in the studio, if I remember right it actually was. It sounds more like a demo after hearing the finished single version.


What about Walk On, WGRYWH and Elevation you say?

Well, Elevation and walk on were changed in their single version to sound more like the live versions. For WGRYWH-- U2 have always stated that they were disappointed in how this song turned out on the album.


Bono said some of the songs weren't finished.

Larry said some of the songs weren't finished.


Why even try to argue it?

 

[Axver]

I think the only songs that weren't quite finished are [...] possibly WUDM.

I think it's pretty clear that while WUDM may not have been finished perhaps to the band's satisfaction, it definitely saw heaps of work - all of Van Diemen's Land is played backwards through the song and I believe rivergoat has isolated something like sixty other audio items hidden beneath the surface of the song. They spent a lot of time putting stuff in that song.

 

[bathiu]

Wait, now that I think about it, U2 saying that it's unfinished (even if it's NOT) is the best thing they could ever do to POP. There's no way in the world that a band like U2 could promote an album better than by saying that it's unfinished. Fans dream about having things like "Axtung Beibi" (Salome) outtakes... and now they have something like that on an official release on POP.
2in1 - promoting ATYCLB with "sorry for a mistake" and promoting POP with "get the uniqe chance and hear our unfinished songs"...
to U2 for being so smart...
--------------------

I think it's pretty clear that while WUDM may not have been finished perhaps to the band's satisfaction, it definitely saw heaps of work - all of Van Diemen's Land is played backwards through the song and I believe rivergoat has isolated something like sixty other audio items hidden beneath the surface of the song. They spent a lot of time putting stuff in that song.

...exactly, not to mention those chants (middle-eastern or from native-americans? ) in the background... there's alot of hard work on that album...

 

[U2Kitten]

I can't find my copy, but in the issue of Revolver from fall 2000 with U2 on the cover, Adam was quoted as calling it 'a mistake'. Larry also made a comment something like that.

 

[miss becky]

I think it's pretty clear that while WUDM may not have been finished perhaps to the band's satisfaction, it definitely saw heaps of work - all of Van Diemen's Land is played backwards through the song and I believe rivergoat has isolated something like sixty other audio items hidden beneath the surface of the song. They spent a lot of time putting stuff in that song.

Whaaaa? Van Diemen's Land is in WUDM? Please explain.

I can't remember now where I read it, but I read somewhere that WUDM was originally a rocker. Full-on guitar. And I think it was Bono who had the idea to strip it all away and start over with minimal sound. And the band liked that new version so much, they went with it for the album.

*wishes she could remember the source of this*

 

[Axver]

Whaaaa? Van Diemen's Land is in WUDM? Please explain.

Yeah, it's hidden below the surface. I'm sure rivergoat can tell you more, he's the expert on this stuff. He even reversed Mofo and you actually get full lyrics rather than gibberish. There's another one that saw a LOT of attention in the studio.

I can't remember now where I read it, but I read somewhere that WUDM was originally a rocker. Full-on guitar. And I think it was Bono who had the idea to strip it all away and start over with minimal sound. And the band liked that new version so much, they went with it for the album.

*wishes she could remember the source of this*

Well, I haven't read that, but the earliest origin of the song is the appearance of the line "wake up, wake up dead man" in Take You Down, the rocking Axtung Beibi song that became The Fly and others.

 

[*sofia*]

"the material on that record is up there with our best. it´s just that we didn´t finish it." -bono

 

[rjhbonovox]

dig up the bone? try "pick up the phone." i don't know how Bono's voice could ever be cringeworthy. and the original "Sometimes" is totally missing something at the bridge, when Bono sings "Siiiing..." There's nothing there, it sounds empty. The final version is a masterpiece.

Sometimes is far from being a masterpiece. Since being a single release and hearing this song day after day, it bores the pants off me now. I used to think this song was a 9/10 but its definetly down to a 7/10. The only saving grace for the song is the middle Edge guitar to the end. The first 2 verses and choruses drag by and the falsetto bit in the chorus makes me cringe everytime I hear it, sounds like U2 doing Bon Jovi to me, so obvious, too bloody obvious! Yes, I think you can call me a certain SYCMIOYO hater!