I'm really curious to hear more specifically what examples you would reference for the above comments. I generally view your comments pretty favorably and value your opinion so it would be interesting to hear specifics. I totally agree with everyone that says the album is not completely polished and finished. I mean c'mon, the song Please starts with a baseline by Adam that is off key....among many other problems. That being said, their are many brilliant moments throughout the album. I just think the different sounds that were produced didn't allow the casual U2 fan to relate, and therefore the album suffered in the charts.
to be honest I don't find small edit issues etc too off putting
some small flaws like that can even end up adding some charm
to me the biggest flaw of POP was the way the band approached it - they got scared
I love MOFO, Please live was epic and the album version is good too, to me Do you feel loved and Velvet dress are very good album tracks, Miami worked really well and I even thought Discotheque was a great choice for a first single
on these songs the band aimed for something new and succeeded
somewhere along the line they got scared (for lack of better words) though and decided that the album needed some more 'vintage' U2 tracks so they added songs like Gone, Last night on earth, Staring at the Sun, If god ...
now, I don't rate any of these songs among the 30% best tracks U2 has done (even though Gone and Staring at the sun have some great lyrics), but what's even worse is that when trying to make these tracks sound more modern the production of these songs clashes with the essence of the song (well, IMO of course)
to me Staring at the Sun even improved dramatically when performed acoustically and I generally don't like it when U2 goes acoustic that much!
even more painful is that after the productional 'update' of these songs the album still sounds like 4 ep's thrown together
while the album does have some sort of lyrical theme it is musically incoherent
on a personal note I really rate If god ... and Playboy Mansion among U2's weakest output, mostly due to ill fitting lyrics (at least with Elevation the lyrics accompany a song meant to celebrate, I don't see why "the blind leading the blonde" "it's the stuff, the stuff of country songs" ever seemed a good idea to anyone)
after POP the band decided to set out a clear vision for the next album and follow it through and I would say it's hard for even the biggest All that you can't ... basher to argue they didn't succeed in that
the band did seem to feel All that you can't .... didn't rock enough so they tried to up the tempo on How to dismantle ...
unfortunately How to dismantle didn't manage to quite gel as an album and at certain points it sounds a bit too much like they are reproducing sounds from their own past
I'm looking forward to the band repairing those flaws on the next album