U2 -- Pop
7/10
The late 90's weren't an easy time to be a high school U2 fan. The band, in their 20+ year existence to that point, had maybe been cool for a minute in 1987 and 1991, but by 1997, had gained the reputation of being incredibly lame. The quartet's earnestness had really always put them in the "not cool" category. But now...now, they were in their late 30's, and seemed to be having mid-life crises. Their newest video had them acting fools on a disco set, even dressing up like the Village People at the end. Disco was what old people used to have sex to, and disco wasn't cool. Pop music, not cool. Pop as a title WAS NOT COOL! Bono humping the air in his policeman outfit wasn't cool. Disco wasn't going to be a thing again, and why was U2 even trying to make it one? What was this travesty against music?!?!?! LAME.
The thing is, going back to the album with at least a decade buffer, 1997's Pop really isn't all that weird. U2 really got most of their weirdness out in their Brian Eno added side-band, Passengers, and that project's sole album, 1995's Original Soundtracks 1 ("A beautiful Aphex Twin-like garden of sound that sometimes blooms songs, 7/10"-The Nicsperiment, right now). The band really only shoot their "we're a dance rock band!" shot on Pop's first three tracks, and they're all, surprisingly, pretty good songs. Opening, once travesty, "Discothèque" just comes across as a fun, upbeat track. "Do You Feel Loved" has some great textures, really some beautiful tones and space, and is a huge-sounding rock song with a dancey beat. "Mofo"'s breakneck pace is nearly metal. There's nothing wrong with these three tracks, and the crazy thing is, when they're over, the next nine songs compose a fairly standard U2 album.
"If God Will Send His Angels" features some interesting samples, but Bono's slightly muted singing, Adam Clayton's standard "this song would fall apart without my presence" bass, Larry Mullen's boppy drum pattern, and Edge's chiming guitar tones wouldn't be out of place on any U2 album released over the last 30 years. Ditto for the "let's recapture those 'One' vibes" "Staring at the Sun."
"Last Night on Earth" brings a little bit of the dance vibe back, but it still
mostly just feels like a big, anthemic U2 song. Then, Edge has never quite
pushed the dentist drill tone quite so hard as he does on "Gone," but the song
ends up just feeling like your by-the-numbers mid-tempo U2 quasi-ballad--and
that's not a bad thing!
"Miami" comes across as a weird, overlong interlude. Then there's "Playboy Mansion," a slowed-down, fairly boring track, with some fun, interesting, twangy guitar accents spicing things up. It turns out that Bono's comment among the album starting at a party and ending at a funeral are extremely apt. It's apparent that from "Miami" onward, the album is seriously winding down. "If You Wear that Velvet Dress" is a quiet, sultry, seductive song, thriving on a sensual vocal from Bono, and a big bass groove from Clayton. Edge's echooey guitar becomes more pronounced throughout the song and feels intentionally drunk. Then, "Please" comes in, and while it does have a much bigger, more intense rhythm than the last few songs, it feels somehow even more muted and bleak. But wait! There's more bleakness to end things with "Wake Up Dead Man," where Bono pleads for a seemingly silent Jesus to intervene in mankind's self-destructive insanity. This is really where a perspective for the album becomes clear.
"Miami" comes across as a weird, overlong interlude. Then there's "Playboy Mansion," a slowed-down, fairly boring track, with some fun, interesting, twangy guitar accents spicing things up. It turns out that Bono's comment among the album starting at a party and ending at a funeral are extremely apt. It's apparent that from "Miami" onward, the album is seriously winding down. "If You Wear that Velvet Dress" is a quiet, sultry, seductive song, thriving on a sensual vocal from Bono, and a big bass groove from Clayton. Edge's echooey guitar becomes more pronounced throughout the song and feels intentionally drunk. Then, "Please" comes in, and while it does have a much bigger, more intense rhythm than the last few songs, it feels somehow even more muted and bleak. But wait! There's more bleakness to end things with "Wake Up Dead Man," where Bono pleads for a seemingly silent Jesus to intervene in mankind's self-destructive insanity. This is really where a perspective for the album becomes clear.
I think Pop is a solid, but overstuffed album. The band complained they ran out
of time to fine-tune things, but the fact of the matter is, they fine-tuned
things too much, and would have only needed some more time to cut this album with an exacto
knife. Pop is over an hour long! That's simply not necessary, especially
for an album titled Pop. There really is thematic depth here, both in the
lyrics, which sound more like the heavier Psalms than anything the band have
done, and in the way the band incorporate so many nifty samples and creative
tones into the music. But there's too much here, and not everything
sticks--though there's a simple solution!
Just cut out "Miami" and "The Playboy Mansion!"
That's nearly ten minutes of music, and puts the album's running time into the
range of Pop's surrounding U2 albums. This also does not hurt the album
flow, which grinds to a halt at "Miami," and never quite gets back on track,
considering the rest of the songs are more muted and darker. If "Gone" went
straight into "If You Wear That Velvet Dress," it would be a stark and striking
segue into the album's later third, but would also ensure that final third doesn't wear
out its welcome, as it's no longer a final "half." Plus, and I think this is a
pretty objective opinion, "Miami" and "The Playboy Mansion" are the worst songs
here by a pretty large margin.
With these two songs included, though, the more fun and interesting experimentation on Pop gets drowned out a bit, as well does the rest of the album's solid song-writing. As a result of its over-stuffed nature, Pop feels more like noise, noise that I believe U2 were attempting to fight against throughout the 90's.
My overall personal feelings, though: I've been able to enjoy Pop for the last decade or so. There are a lot of great late 90's textures here that feel pretty timeless; for instance, moments like the intro to "Do You Feel Loved" or the post-choruses for "Last Night on Earth" feel like they nail the zeitgeist of the late-90's. It's like the wallpaper of the latter part of the decade, and I mean that as a compliment--they're almost reminiscent of some of the textures The Dust Brothers explored on the Fight Club: Original Motion Picture Score in 1999. So many samples and guitar moments Edge touches upon are extremely memorable. I really enjoy the opening salvo of songs. I do think "Staring at the Sun" feels like a diet version of "One." I do think, as I mentioned, that second half drags. If I was being subjective, and if I could cut out those two songs I mentioned, I'd give this album an 8. But those songs are there, and I am trying to be objective. Pop is a mostly fun album, with some interesting ideas, but it is heavily flawed.
P.S.: It's weird that this album received immediate praise from critics, then a more soured response seemingly immediately after that, then a slow "okay, maybe it's not so bad" that's unrolled over the last 15 years or so. What I find interesting is that my opinion went from "Yuck!" to "It's okay" and skipped that "IT'S GREAT!" initial phase. I do find a lot of late-90's nostalgia in the textures the band find consistently throughout this album. As much as the band didn't quite succeed in creating a top tier U2 album, I think they contributed meaningfully to the aural texture of the latter third of the 90's with this, and I wonder if Pop was maybe a bit more influential culturally than its low sales would imply. I already kind of said that, so I'll end on Bono's religious lyricism here, which continues the more difficult searching Bono seems to be doing in the noisy late 90's:
With these two songs included, though, the more fun and interesting experimentation on Pop gets drowned out a bit, as well does the rest of the album's solid song-writing. As a result of its over-stuffed nature, Pop feels more like noise, noise that I believe U2 were attempting to fight against throughout the 90's.
My overall personal feelings, though: I've been able to enjoy Pop for the last decade or so. There are a lot of great late 90's textures here that feel pretty timeless; for instance, moments like the intro to "Do You Feel Loved" or the post-choruses for "Last Night on Earth" feel like they nail the zeitgeist of the late-90's. It's like the wallpaper of the latter part of the decade, and I mean that as a compliment--they're almost reminiscent of some of the textures The Dust Brothers explored on the Fight Club: Original Motion Picture Score in 1999. So many samples and guitar moments Edge touches upon are extremely memorable. I really enjoy the opening salvo of songs. I do think "Staring at the Sun" feels like a diet version of "One." I do think, as I mentioned, that second half drags. If I was being subjective, and if I could cut out those two songs I mentioned, I'd give this album an 8. But those songs are there, and I am trying to be objective. Pop is a mostly fun album, with some interesting ideas, but it is heavily flawed.
P.S.: It's weird that this album received immediate praise from critics, then a more soured response seemingly immediately after that, then a slow "okay, maybe it's not so bad" that's unrolled over the last 15 years or so. What I find interesting is that my opinion went from "Yuck!" to "It's okay" and skipped that "IT'S GREAT!" initial phase. I do find a lot of late-90's nostalgia in the textures the band find consistently throughout this album. As much as the band didn't quite succeed in creating a top tier U2 album, I think they contributed meaningfully to the aural texture of the latter third of the 90's with this, and I wonder if Pop was maybe a bit more influential culturally than its low sales would imply. I already kind of said that, so I'll end on Bono's religious lyricism here, which continues the more difficult searching Bono seems to be doing in the noisy late 90's:
From "Mofo"
"Lookin' for to save my, save my soul
Lookin' in the places where no flowers grow
Lookin' for to fill that God-shaped hole
Mother, mother-suckin' rock an'roll
...Lookin' for the baby Jesus under the trash"
From "If God Will Send His Angels"
"God's got his phone off the hook, babe
Would he even pick up if he could?
It's been a while since we saw that child
Hangin' round this neighborhood
See his mother dealing in a doorway
See Father Christmas with a begging bowl
And Jesus' sister's eyes are a blister
The High Street never looked so low...
Jesus never let me down
You know Jesus used to show me the score
Then they put Jesus in show business
Now it's hard to get in the door"
From "Wake Up Dead Man"
"Jesus, Jesus help me
I'm alone in this world
And a fucked-up world it is too
Tell me, tell me the story
The one about eternity
And the way it's all gonna be
Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man
Jesus, I'm waiting here, boss
I know you're looking out for us
But maybe your hands aren't free
Your Father, He made the world in seven
He's in charge of heaven
Will you put a word in for me?"
1997 Island
1. Discothèque 5:19
2. Do You Feel Loved 5:07
3. Mofo 5:49
4. If God Will Send His Angels 5:22
5. Staring at the Sun 4:36
6. Last Night on Earth 4:45
7. Gone 4:26
8. Miami 4:52
9. The Playboy Mansion 4:40
10. If You Wear That Velvet Dress 5:15
11. Please 5:02
12. Wake Up Dead Man 4:52
1. Discothèque 5:19
2. Do You Feel Loved 5:07
3. Mofo 5:49
4. If God Will Send His Angels 5:22
5. Staring at the Sun 4:36
6. Last Night on Earth 4:45
7. Gone 4:26
8. Miami 4:52
9. The Playboy Mansion 4:40
10. If You Wear That Velvet Dress 5:15
11. Please 5:02
12. Wake Up Dead Man 4:52
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