U2 - Pop
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Free Music Notes for Pop
Free Music Review: underrated U2 album
Hit: 4 Stars
It's not their best, but this was one of U2's better albums...so long as you like electronic music.Free Music Review: Like a fine, complex wine
Hit: 5 Stars
A friend of mine told me this was his favorite U2 album. I liked it, mostly, when I first heard it. I recently listened to it again after months of not touching it, and have rediscovered the incredible complexity of the art that makes up this album. As a result, I have fallen back in love with U2 in a new way. Beautiful in its obnoxiousness, shifting between the bawdiness of "MOFO" and the subtle beauty of "If you wear that velvet dress", this is a true gem.
Also, as a bass player myself, I have to appreciate the fact that this is by far Adam's best album. He is reborn in many ways with this release.
Free Music Review: It grows on ya
Hit: 4 Stars
I actually HATED both Europa and Pop when they first came out. I was not amused by the whole "sound of 4 guys chopping down the Joshua Tree" concept. Then a funny thing happened. Both albums grew on me. I do agree that it is an un-even album and I have long thought that by culling Europa and Pop for the gold, they would have had a killer record.
Discotheque and Mofo are total guilty pleasures. Staring at the Sun and If God Will Send His Angels are gorgeous.
Is POP as good as Actung Baby? Nope, but it has enough on it that I find myself listening to it once a month at least.
Free Music Review: Give it a chance.
Hit: 4 Stars
I would basically have to reiterate some of the other reviews posted here in saying that Pop has been needlessly maligned. Sure, it's over-processed, like pepperoni cheese, but like pepperoni cheese, it has its own unique flavor. I have to part company with some of the other reviewers in saying that this is nowhere near my favorite U2 album. If you're used to the more bare-bones U2 of the 1980s, you might find the veneer of slick production value on this product to be unpalatable, but give this a chance. The melodies go deeper than that, and the lyrics, while occasionally a little trite stylistically, are as cutting as those on any other U2 album. For those of us who prefer our music with little or no artificial additives, All That You Can't Leave Behind was certainly a refreshing departure from the technological apex that was reached with Pop, but Pop could hardly be said to have crossed the line into over-the-top fluff.
Don't gloss over Pop--it's hardly U2's best effort, but just as no big Pink Floyd fan can pass over The Piper at the Gates of Dawn for being a foreshadowing of greater genius to come, no big U2 fan should shrug off Pop for being coated in thick polish (apples to oranges, I know, but I hope I've made my point).
Free Music Review: U2 goes "Pop"
Hit: 4 Stars
"You can reach, but you can't grab it," Bono sings at the start of "Pop." That statement is a fitting summary of U2's explorations into electronica and "Britpop" which hesitantly began with 1991's "Achtung Baby," continuing through 1993's highly-experimental "Zooropa" and on to "Pop." Bono and the gang sound considerably more confident with their new sound at this point, but they aren't holding on to it too tightly; they sound like they could shed it at any moment and move on to something new, like a snake shedding its skin. Though the common cliche is that David Bowie, who was going through a similar phase in the 1990s, is a "musical chameleon," U2's trio of deeply explorative records suggests them as a band more fit for the title.
Because whereas Bowie's more recent records have little in common with early masterpieces like "Hunky Dory" and "Ziggy Stardust," U2 continues to effortlessly swim with the flow of time, setting down one sound and picking up another, and yet still crafting albums which are unmistakably the work of U2. Comparing "Pop" to the album which preceded it ten years earlier, the now-classic "Joshua Tree," there is little similarity on the surface. Bono has ceased his spiritual wailings, his cries of "I still haven't found what I'm looking for," his search for a deeper meaning in everything, and replaced it all with superficial reflections on selfish desires. He even seems to be afraid to look inside anymore, with admissions like, "To the ones staring at the sun/afraid of what you'll find if you take a look inside/not just deaf and dumb ... staring at the sun/I'm not the only one who'd rather go blind." But although this less introspective and more what-you-see-is-what-you-get U2 could easily make an effort like "Pop" fail miserably, it's clear that the band is still searching on the inside, and this is just a stage of their eternal quest for self-discovery: later on in the same song, Bono asserts, "I'm staring at the sun/not the only one who's happy to go blind."
Perhaps the group was having an early mid-life crisis. The subject matter of the songs, below their shallow exteriors, deals with a number of more meaningful issues. In "Do You Feel Loved," it's deception in relationships; in "Mofo," a man cries for the loss of his mother (Bono lost his own mother when he was 14 years old); he muses that things would be better "If God Will Send His Angels"; and in the album closer, the more earthbound "Wake Up Dead Man," we see the group at their most lost. "Jesus, Jesus help me," Bono whails, "I'm alone in this world, and a f---ed up world it is too." The most pertinent explanation of the group's stumble into more superficial territory is "Gone," each verse a more sincere and pained admission.
But the band can be silly as well as serious. The pounding, grunting opener, "Discotheque," is a blast, a perfect melding of the "dance pop" which was taking Europe by storm at the time, and the tough, full-strength-ahead razor rock which propelled much of "Achtung Baby" upward at such a sturdy pace. Unquestionably, though, the silliest songs on the album are "Miami" and "The Playboy Mansion." "Miami" is the most ridiculous song the band has ever written (the chorus finds Bono singing "Miami my mammy," and one can just imagine him doing so with a wide smirk on his face). But despite the lyrics, which are just short of trash (with the exception of "Her eyes, all swimming pool blue," which Bono delivers with a shaky-kneed whine), the song is sonically a delight, bringing the group closer to achieving the "superficial pop hit" that they strive for throughout the record. The dreamy sway of the Edge's guitar on "The Playboy Mansion" and the heavy bounce of the drums are more than enough reason to overlook the enormously cheesy lyrics, and even establish the song as one of the best on "Pop."
Any U2 album where a song titled "The Playboy Mansion" is one of the highlights seems like it should be avoided and, hopefully, forgotten as soon as possible. On the contrary, "Pop" is a valuable record. Its distinctly intricate sound and apparently shallow (but truthfully very meaningful) lyrics make it one of U2's most unusual and, therefor, fascinating efforts. There are moments of no-holds-barred nonsense, like Bono contemplating whether he will be permitted entry into the Playboy Mansion while musing that "if Coke is a mystery/and Michael Jackson ... history," what must the world be coming to, but there are also moments of unparalleled beauty, like the Edge's utterly heavenly guitar solo in the divinely sensual "If You Wear That Velvet Dress." At the very least, it's important because it was the group's final venture into the 90's electronica buzz, and the point where Bono sang, "What you leave behind you don't miss anyway." The group stayed in their new terrain just long enough, because as they realized upon "Pop"'s aptly-titled successor, there are some things you can't leave behind.