U2 "POP" : "U2 By U2"

[zoopop]

I just finished reading the section about the POP era from “U2 by U2” and I never realized how unhappy & inconclusive they were on POP. Seems like each member (including Paul) had a different excuse on why the album came off so poorly produced/received.

I’m a little disappointed the band feels this apathetic towards an album, which I think is one of their best. After reading this section I clearly see why POP isn't represented in the live realm anymore

 

[trevgreg]

I read that same part recently as well. I guess it wasn't the easiest time for them, considering the deadline pressures and Larry's back problem among other things. I actually saw some of the "A Year In Pop" special last night on Youtube, and it's kinda surprising to see them speaking highly of it at the time as well.

Yet again, they've never really bashed the album as a whole, but just said a few times that it deserved a few more months of studio time to make even better. It's certainly not a bad album, imo.

 

[Moser]

Bono's voice problems, musical irrelevance, Larry's back, prebooked tour...it was difficult time time for the band. The sheer amount of musical experimentation though in that album......

Nothing to be ashamed of boys, nothing. You guys released a gem.

 

[Muldfeld]

I just finished reading the section about the POP era from “U2 by U2” and I never realized how unhappy & inconclusive they were on POP. Seems like each member (including Paul) had a different excuse on why the album came off so poorly produced/received.

I’m a little disappointed the band feels this apathetic towards an album, which I think is one of their best. After reading this section I clearly see why POP isn't represented in the live realm anymore

I kind of agree, though I think there's plenty to be disappointed about with that and later albums.

The problem with U2 is that it doesn't have as strong a sense of itself as it used to. Notice how the book constantly justifies artistic success by pointing to chart numbers? It's a real travesty that the band has grown this superficial. In 2002, The Edge's notion of improving Pop songs was making them more mainstream and boring. I was never a huge fan of "Discotheque" but the guitar textures and other effects (except maybe the "boom-cha"s) were not what needed to go and were actually the best parts. "Staring at the Sun" was also worsened and "Numb" was brutally assulted by Edge's boring 2000s guitar sound. At the time, The Edge also felt that "The Fly" hadn't aged well.

I think that, had the album met greater commercial success, the band would have praised it more in retrospect and that says a lot of sad things about the band.

In 2007, Bono castigated his past lyrics, each of which he wrote in an hour, when comparing them to post-2000 stuff. He actually thinks Vertigo and Beautiful Day have better lyrics than "Bad", which he says doesn't have proper lyrics. The guy's mad.

The only criticism I agree with is Bono saying that his voice was too tired to pull off "Do You Feel Loved?" (my favorite on the album); when I got the album, I kept wanting his voice to soar at the end, but assumed it hadn't because the band wanted it that way. Mofo is pretty awesome, though.

I'm gonna put those 2 on my ipod before I go to the gym today.

Other than those and the single version of Please (though I'm torn between the superior guitar melody and solo on this and the rough texture, including Bono's sadder singing, on the album version), the album suffered from poor melodic contributions by The Edge. Miami is a great rhythm song in search of a worthwhile guitar melody by The Edge.

 

[65980]

I kind of agree, though I think there's plenty to be disappointed about with that and later albums.

The problem with U2 is that it doesn't have as strong a sense of itself as it used to. Notice how the book constantly justifies artistic success by pointing to chart numbers? It's a real travesty that the band has grown this superficial. In 2002, The Edge's notion of improving Pop songs was making them more mainstream and boring. I was never a huge fan of "Discotheque" but the guitar textures and other effects (except maybe the "boom-cha"s) were not what needed to go and were actually the best parts. "Staring at the Sun" was also worsened and "Numb" was brutally assulted by Edge's boring 2000s guitar sound. At the time, The Edge also felt that "The Fly" hadn't aged well.

I think that, had the album met greater commercial success, the band would have praised it more in retrospect and that says a lot of sad things about the band.

In 2007, Bono castigated his past lyrics, each of which he wrote in an hour, when comparing them to post-2000 stuff. He actually thinks Vertigo and Beautiful Day have better lyrics than "Bad", which he says doesn't have proper lyrics. The guy's mad.

The only criticism I agree with is Bono saying that his voice was too tired to pull off "Do You Feel Loved?" (my favorite on the album); when I got the album, I kept wanting his voice to soar at the end, but assumed it hadn't because the band wanted it that way. Mofo is pretty awesome, though.

I'm gonna put those 2 on my ipod before I go to the gym today.

Other than those and the single version of Please (though I'm torn between the superior guitar melody and solo on this and the rough texture, including Bono's sadder singing, on the album version), the album suffered from poor melodic contributions by The Edge. Miami is a great rhythm song in search of a worthwhile guitar melody by The Edge.

Nice post, and I pretty much agree with all of this (and thanks for pointing out the travesty of the 2002 version of "Numb"!). Wasn't Edge actually going through his divorce in 1996-97? Maybe that was too much distraction for him. I do agree that his contribution to Pop is somewhat less than on most of the major studio albums. Certainly the melodic aspects of the guitar are lesser on Pop than almost any U2 album.

When evaluating their own success/failure, U2 have a tendency to focus (too much) on the US market. Yeah, I realize this is their biggest market, but there are other perspectives from which to view how their music is received.

About the whole Pop thing, I have nothing against the music (other than, as I said above, it was rather less melodic than usual), but I do think the band, in particular The Edge, were putting on a hat that ill-suited them. You need only look at Edge at the PopMart/K-Mart press conference to see how he was forcing himself to go along with the hyper-irony-let's-put-on-a-show aspect of the whole thing, and it really fell flat in the USA. I think it's more this aspect of it than the musical aspect of it that the band looks back on with disappointment today.

 

[digitize]

Bono's voice problems, musical irrelevance, Larry's back, prebooked tour...it was difficult time time for the band. The sheer amount of musical experimentation though in that album......

Nothing to be ashamed of boys, nothing. You guys released a gem.

Yeah... this exactly. I often consider Pop the greatest album ever made.

 

[Catman]

I was most surprised by McGuinness' view of "Zooropa" - he seemed to be the one most appreciative of that record while everyone else was somewhat lukewarm. There was a quote from him where he mentioned how he enjoyed it when the band went out of their comfort zone. McGuinne$$, maybe not?

 

[lazarus]

Well considering it was made in such a short period of time, maybe he's just thinking about how much it relatively returned on investment. 9 million copies worldwide for an album that wasn't toured in the western hemisphere and was that experimental is pretty damned impressive.

 

[Achtung Ya'll]

Pop was one of the best albums of the 90s and may just be my favorite U2 album ever.

 

[monsieur fly]

The band's views on Pop are pretty strange in my view. Edge dismisses LNOE, claiming if it was that good 'we'd still be play it now'. I'm sorry but I think that is utter drivel. And according to Bono, Gone worked better acoustically and Velvet Dress was airport lounge music. Very disappointing- especailly as they then go on and on about their love for HTDAAB.

 

[U2girl]

Bono's voice problems, musical irrelevance, Larry's back, prebooked tour...it was difficult time time for the band. The sheer amount of musical experimentation though in that album......

I think Pop gets a bad rap for the bad start of the tour, mostly (and about 3 or 4 separate sections musically in those 12 songs on the record).

If you're U2 you really should not be having such a bad opening night of the tour. And people just didn't respond to Popmart the way they did to Zoo TV.

 

[nielsgov]

There are a few songs on Pop that sound a little rough but as a whole it's great album with songs like Gone, Please, Mofo...
It really seems as if the band don't understand what they were doing with Pop and I sometimes wish that they would be back in that mindset again.

 

[BVS]

The band's views on Pop are pretty strange in my view. Edge dismisses LNOE, claiming if it was that good 'we'd still be play it now'. I'm sorry but I think that is utter drivel. And according to Bono, Gone worked better acoustically and Velvet Dress was airport lounge music. Very disappointing- especailly as they then go on and on about their love for HTDAAB.

They don't really go on and on about HTDAAB now do they?

I would have thought you people would have figured this out already, U2 always speaks of the current album as if it was perfect and always find fault in previous albums, even JT and AB.

Velvet Dress is airport lounge, it was always suppose to be, I think he even described it that way while hyping the album.

LNOE, good song but not great, Edge is right.

And I don't remember Bono saying that about Gone, seems suprising if he did, given that it was a staple on the Elevation tour...

 

[zoopop]

^^I was shocked when Bono stated "Gone" would have worked better acoustically. That seems very superficial of him to think that but it's in the book. I mean "Gone" is arguably a top 10 song for U2....I think

 

[Popmartijn]

The band's views on Pop are pretty strange in my view. Edge dismisses LNOE, claiming if it was that good 'we'd still be play it now'. I'm sorry but I think that is utter drivel. And according to Bono, Gone worked better acoustically and Velvet Dress was airport lounge music. Very disappointing- especailly as they then go on and on about their love for HTDAAB.

I kinda understand where the band is coming from. Whenever this argument pops up (as it does regularly on Interference ) I'm always reminded of an Elvis Costello interview. He was once asked why he always trashed his own album Goodbye Cruel World as his worst record. (And I don't think it is, it's not one of his best, but certainly not his worst)
He answered that during the recording of that album he was in a very messy breakup of his first marriage and growing tension within the band. So that album brings back to him many negative emotions associated with the writing and recording of it. Hence his view of it as his worst record.

I think the same can be applied to U2 and their recording of Pop. They had some problems (Larry's back surgery, a search for a direction and some other tensions) and then they ran out of time. So for them, the emotion associated to this record is different than how we feel it. So I won't dismiss their views on the record as drivel.

 

[djerdap]

LNOE, good song but not great, Edge is right.

Fucking monster of a song, especially live. Both you and Edge are wrong.

I would very much like to spend the night on an airport where a beautiful track like Velvet Dress is playing.

And yeah, all four of them are full of shit when it comes to Pop, but let's not get into details.

 

[zoopop]

The only person who sounded somewhat proud of Pop was Larry.

I guess U2 never felt they redeemed Pop on the Popmart? The songs came alive during their live representation. Sure they dropped DYFL & IGWSHA, but with due time U2 would have made them into worthy live tracks as the others. These guys are too hard on themselves sometimes.

 

[subnet]

heavy heavy bass tracks on Pop.....so, you gotta love adam for his part in that.

i wish there would be more flea vs. adam commentary here

 

[nathan1977]

I think some of the songs on POP hold up as some of the best they've ever written, but the songs just don't really translate live, which probably plays more than a little into the U2 revisionist history. Perhaps because the songs are among the more personal they've ever written. The big U2 anthems are more accessible -- everyone gets "Pride" or "One" or "Beautiful Day", for example. "Please", by contrast, is ambiguous; "Gone" is really a middle finger to those who want U2 to do what they've always done; "Discotheque" is more of a sketch than a completed thought. "Velvet Dress" suffers from "Blue Room" syndrome -- it's delicate, and delicacy has never really been on the U2 live menu. The songs were very personal ("Wake Up Dead Man" was written by Edge in the driveway of his house his first night back from Zoo TV), and the audience just couldn't get there. U2 lives for the live experience, and PopMart let them down.

 

[VintagePunk]

I didn't get U2 by U2 until quite a while after it was published, so it was only a year or so ago that I read it, and although I can't remember specifics, I was surprised at how critical they are of quite a bit of their older material. It was almost like reading an Interference thread. If memory serves, I think Edge was the most critical, followed by Bono. There were several instances where I wanted to collectively shake them and say "no, you have it wrong, that's a phenomenal song!" I guess their humility is what makes them unique though, and part of what keeps them striving to be better and better this far into their career.

 

[MEAT10AF]

I think POP's percieved failure was one of the most damaging events in U2's history.

I personally love the album. It keeps coming back to me in one way or another. U2, however, saw it as a substandard disgrace.

Let's be realistic here. For a band to go from giant lemons and eclectic color barrages to a comparatively drab, bare bones stage over the course of only three years speaks volumes on its own.

I think POP left U2 feeling without purpose. The early days were about just getting known, the first days of breakthrough success (mid-late 80's) were about sharp political commentary, and the 90's were about messing up the mainstream.

I think after the Vegas debacle and several other POPmart mishaps, U2 wondered if they had become a parody of their own parody.

Three years after POPmart, Bono wasn't the slick, bird-flipping, persona making frontman anymore. Instead, he had embraced the "so earnest you can't stand it" perception that he had spent about a decade living down. The same goes for the rest of the band to an extent. Suddenly, "pushing the envelope" became making predictable, not entirely unique rock songs (HTDAAB is especially guilty here.)

If U2 had stayed the course, I think things would be tons different. Maybe the world would still be in love with Bono/U2 instead of constantly telling them to take their donation pleas elsewhere.

Alas, it is what it is. I also think it will be very interesting to see how NLOTH is looked back on. I have a hunch U2 may not be very kind. That's a shame.

 

[theedgeu2]

I haven't read this part...yet. However I think that they are wrong about Pop. It's a good album. Their best? Maybe not but it is different and daring. I actually kind of like the Pop era and a lot of those songs. It's funny looking from ZooTV to PopMart and seeing a sort of totally different band. If they look back and call all their old material "incomplete" and "garbage" then they are truly mistaken. Look at the success most of it has brought you. I do sort of agree on the word of some songs not being completely finished. I think Pop is good and imagine it had they spent more time working on that album!?

 

[BVS]

Let's be realistic here. For a band to go from giant lemons and eclectic color barrages to a comparatively drab, bare bones stage over the course of only three years speaks volumes on its own.

How does it speak volumes?

I think after the Vegas debacle and several other POPmart mishaps, U2 wondered if they had become a parody of their own parody.

See, you seem to get it here. Not that I believe they had become their own parody, but they straddling the line, and I think for the common fan they had.

Three years after POPmart, Bono wasn't the slick, bird-flipping, persona making frontman anymore. Instead, he had embraced the "so earnest you can't stand it" perception that he had spent about a decade living down. The same goes for the rest of the band to an extent. Suddenly, "pushing the envelope" became making predictable, not entirely unique rock songs (HTDAAB is especially guilty here.)

So how is it you seem to get it with the portion I quoted above, but then completely ignore it now? If they would have stayed the course they would have become self indulgent jokes.

It was a blessing and a curse, but don't ever think for one minute they could have stayed doing what they were doing in the 90's. Of course there were several other routes they could have done, but no point playing what if...

 

[MoodyJ]

The only person who sounded somewhat proud of Pop was Larry.

I guess U2 never felt they redeemed Pop on the Popmart? The songs came alive during their live representation. Sure they dropped DYFL & IGWSHA, but with due time U2 would have made them into worthy live tracks as the others. These guys are too hard on themselves sometimes.

It is so true that the songs really did come into their own during the latter portion of Popmart, and I agree about DYFL & IGWSHA.

 

[lazarus]

It was a blessing and a curse, but don't ever think for one minute they could have stayed doing what they were doing in the 90's. Of course there were several other routes they could have done, but no point playing what if...

Right, but I think M$H is an indicator of a third option. It's the subtle experimentation with fresh sounds but not so in your face. And let's be clear: it wasn't the actual music or lyrics of POP that pushed the band to the verge of self-parody, it was the way it was packaged and marketed and the tour that went with it. You take away the visual aspect, the the songs are for the most part (excepting Miami and The Playboy Mansion) very serious, sober, and dark, with a few admittedly flashy flourishes.

I think the vibe on The Ground Beneath Your Feet and Stateless can be traced back to those sessions (particularly on something like WUDM or Velvet Dress), but tonally they're a little moodier, and a whole album of those types of songs may have been a more natural transition to the back-to-basics of ATYCLB. It probably wouldn't have sold much but the band usually makes room for a decent single or two so you never know.

 

[65980]

See, you seem to get it here.

So how is it you seem to get it with the portion I quoted above, but then completely ignore it now? If they would have stayed the course they would have become self indulgent jokes.

...don't ever think for one minute they could have stayed doing what they were doing in the 90's.

See BVS, it's not the points you make or the opinions you hold that irk me. It's the constant tone of talking-down to other posters that rubs me the wrong way. You consistently give the impression that you know everything (at least in your mind), and that everyone else is playing catch up to you (for example: "See, you seem to get it here." Er, I'm sure he thanks you.)

Just don't think that you're actually fooling anyone into believing you.

Incidentally, I found Meat's post more insightful that anything you've posted since I've been on this forum.

 

[phommel]

...
The problem with U2 is that it doesn't have as strong a sense of itself as it used to. Notice how the book constantly justifies artistic success by pointing to chart numbers? It's a real travesty that the band has grown this superficial.
..........
I think that, had the album met greater commercial success, the band would have praised it more in retrospect and that says a lot of sad things about the band.

I completely agree on this! Probably in few years time, U2 will be very disappointed on NLOTH...

PLEASE and GONE are AMAZING LIVE!!!!

 

[Salome]

I think U2 will always be proud of No line as they achieved on the album what they set out to achieve
when reading U2 by U2 it feels that's what bothers them about a lot of their previous albums (pop being just one of them really, but perhaps the clearest example since October), that it didn't turn out like they intended it to

 

[BVS]

Right, but I think M$H is an indicator of a third option.

I didn't get that from his post at all, he seemed to have wanted to keep the "giant lemons and eclectic color barrages" along with the "slick, bird-flipping, persona making frontman". I agree with you about TGBHF, but they had to go back to being earnest and stop playing with irony because they had lost their way a little during Popmart and blurred the line, then stepped over it.

See BVS, it's not the points you make or the opinions you hold that irk me. It's the constant tone of talking-down to other posters that rubs me the wrong way. You consistently give the impression that you know everything (at least in your mind), and that everyone else is playing catch up to you (for example: "See, you seem to get it here." Er, I'm sure he thanks you.)

Just don't think that you're actually fooling anyone into believing you.

Incidentally, I found Meat's post more insightful that anything you've posted since I've been on this forum.

You know why I love your posts? Because I'm a huge fan of irony.

Maybe you should stick to giving factually incorrect lectures about what makes acoustic music or not

 

[lazarus]

I didn't get that from his post at all, he seemed to have wanted to keep the "giant lemons and eclectic color barrages" along with the "slick, bird-flipping, persona making frontman". I agree with you about TGBHF, but they had to go back to being earnest and stop playing with irony because they had lost their way a little during.

Right, the tone has become more serious again, but instead of being completely earnest I find more mystery in those M$H songs than any kind of in-your-face sermonizing, or however critics of the 00's stuff want to describe Bono's lyrical approach/promo persona.

There's some middle ground between the satire and the cliched earnestness, and I think that space is a diffusing one. But again, it's important to recognize that most of the irony was in Popmart and not on the album it came from. Had they staged that tour as a colorful, delirious spectacle without the tongue in cheek stuff, it may not have been received so poorly. Despite being a big fan of the Discotheque video, that put more casual fans off than anything else and many never came back.