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  2. It still makes perfect sense in my head!
    as I was writing it I was planning to make one of each album, that was a project which was dropped faster than Songs of Ascent.
  3. Originally posted by germcevoy:Christ. I just gave this a run through for the first time in at least five years. Wow this album has legs. So easy to listen to but so much depth.


    Therein lies its genius. And why I am just as happy about them playing Staring at the Sun this tour as Acrobat, acoustic version or not. At least they are acknowledging the album again.
  4. Right, but I hope you get the "this was kind of our psychedelic period" is rather a therapeutic acknowledgement, then a recognition of greatness
  5. I've been thinking about this fantastic article in about Pop's 20th anniversary recently - especially in light of how the band has been talking about the album during the SOE tour.

    I think this article is spot on - you can split their career in half: pre-POP U2, and post-POP U2. Everything made post-POP has been done in reaction to that album...a trauma to their collective ego that (I think) has paralyzed them ever since.

    I think each album after POP is risk-averse, overthought, overproduced, second guessed, re-worked, and (ironically) over hyped by the band. They're not all bad, but there is something almost neurotic and uneven in the way they made every post-pop record that undermines what it could have been. Not to mention each post-pop album has been years, and years, and years in the making...a lot of time I imagine is taken up by second guessing and nail biting because they thought POP failed because they rushed it.

    And almost every post-POP album has been slagged off by the band just one release later ("it's overproduced"..."that really wasn't our best work, but THIS new album is"...etc)...seemingly in an effort to get ahead of any criticism. Or sabotaged on the last lap by not sticking to their original vision (I think NLOTH would have been FANTASTIC if they stuck to it being a fully U2/Eno/Lanois album instead of bringing in those awful Steve Lillywhite / Will.i.am songs in what was a blatant last minute freak out by the band).

    On the SOE tour they talk about POP like a distant, hazy memory (Bono claiming he forgets writing Staring at the Sun, etc)...a sort of amnesia that I seriously doubt. "Oh that album? Oh yeah, we NEVER think about it! Really...not at all! In fact...boy...I even forget recording it! Don't you guys? Yup...we NEVER think about it! That's our psychedelic period and we don't remember it AT ALL! Hey - want to hear Elevation again?"

    It's really unfortunate...one of those great "what ifs"...what if POP and POPMART was a hit...really wonder what the band would be like. We probably would at LEAST have gotten a Passengers Original Soundtracks 2
  6. Yeah, SUCH a great article - I swear I linked it a while back here somewhere...

    But yes, it's so spot-on.
  7. I really love this interview, and I think keeping it in mind helps to put the album and the band in perspective.

    KOT: It sounds like "Pop" didn't work for you because it didn't sell. To my mind, it worked because it was a good, daring album. There's no shame in not selling.

    BONO: It didn't communicate the way it was intended to. It was supposed to change the mood of that summer [1997]. An album changes the mood of a summer when you walk out of a pub and you have those songs in your head. And you hear them coming from a car, an open window. It changes the mood of the season. Instead it became a niche record. And I know you're a man who appreciates the niche. And I'm glad you appreciate that one, but that's not what it was intended to be. It's not about sales; we don't need the cash. It's about your ambition for the song. With "Pop," I always think if we'd just had another month, we could have finished it. But we did a really bad thing. We let the manager book the tour, known in this camp as the worst decision U2 ever made, and we had to wrap up the album sooner than we wanted. You don't need an album to communicate for you to enjoy it, you don't need it to be trimmed of fat to enjoy it, because you're enjoying the ideas, the textures. But for me to enjoy it, I need it to do that [communicate on a wider level].
  8. Wow, that's actually incredibly insightful on how the band views it, and also why the band took the direction they did after All That You Can't Leave Behind DEFINITELY communicated on that wider level Bono refers to. That being said, I don't think that's happened since Bomb. SoI only did because of the negative PR surrounding its release, but the music itself didn't really do anything in that regard.

    Maybe they don't really care about that anymore.
  9. Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:Wow, that's actually incredibly insightful on how the band views it, and also why the band took the direction they did after All That You Can't Leave Behind DEFINITELY communicated on that wider level Bono refers to. That being said, I don't think that's happened since Bomb. SoI only did because of the negative PR surrounding its release, but the music itself didn't really do anything in that regard.

    Maybe they don't really care about that anymore.
    I think that's all they care.
    They've been trying to do it, the sometimes called "relevance".
    All they want is their songs to be heard by as many people as possible, and I think that's what they've been trying to do all this time, including SOE.

    And I think SOI achieved that somehow... at least it definitely did in their perspective. (it reached people that usually wouldn't have cared about that album).
    They want their music to be "accessible", as opposed to be "edgy" or "experimental".

    ---

    Also, check the rest of the (old) interview, it has no waste:
    "Experimenting in rock is at its best when you dream from the perimeters and bring it back to the center."
  10. I'm honestly still shocked that they're doing SATS in any form....or anything from POP.

    Bono still talks about how the Mexico City release is one of his favorites. We'll see where this goes.
  11. I think that interview answer is total post-rationalization of where they were in their career when he answered it ("relevance is king")...I'd point back to this video of MTV covering opening night of ZooTV - especially at 3:40 when Bono says:

    “we might lose some of the pop kids - but we don’t need 'em.”

    Of course (playing devils advocate to myself) that may have been exactly the right thing to say to STAY relevant until suddenly it wasn't...and ironically POP lost the "pop kids" and since then their entire career has been one big plea to have them come back.

  12. Originally posted by robotsandmonkeys:I think that interview answer is total post-rationalization of where they were in their career when he answered it ("relevance is king")...I'd point back to this video of MTV covering opening night of ZooTV - especially at 3:40 when Bono says:

    “we might lose some of the pop kids - but we don’t need 'em.”

    Of course (playing devils advocate to myself) that may have been exactly the right thing to say to STAY relevant until suddenly it wasn't...and ironically POP lost the "pop kids" and since then their entire career has been one big plea to have them come back.

    [YouTube Video]
    I don’t know..based on that interview above, it sounds like the band views their musical direction post-2000 as progressive for the sake of still being a band who gets in a room and writes songs, and their 90s output as too out there and not focused enough. So I’m not so sure it’s about trying to “stay relevant” so much as most U2 fans just wish U2 were still making “unfocused” music, as per Bono’s definition.
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Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.