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  1. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]Exactly, that's the great thing about the greatest albums (the greatest things, in general)... You love it, or you hate it. And once you've defined your position, you fight for it

    No need to fight. It's just music. It's nothing really that important.

    Alex
  2. Personally it's best for me when driving. I love it (except Miami obviously....)
  3. The only reasen i both the album is that iam a U2 collecter.And i was thinking that i could love it if i just listen it.
    Didden't work that way.
  4. Some people consider this album the most experimental U2 has ever done. They are wrong imo. Zooropa is the most experimental record U2 have ever made. Of course, Pop was experimental but it was closer to their primary sound than Zooropa.
  5. Originally posted by dieder:Some people consider this album the most experimental U2 has ever done. They are wrong imo. Zooropa is the most experimental record U2 have ever made. Of course, Pop was experimental but it was closer to their primary sound than Zooropa.


    You have a point: the songs from Pop do resemble their earlier work more than those from Zooropa do, in a way that the heavy bass and guitar rhythms look a lot like those found on say Boy or War. Last Night on Earth for example has a very recognisable bass pattern, just like Two Hearts Beat as One. But Zooropa has a more atmospheric sound on songs as Zooropa or Lemon, which in a way resemble The Unforgettable Fire. Of course both Zooropa and Pop are packaged with a lot electronic(ish) sounds, but through that you can hear similarities with earlier work. So it all kind of depends on with what you compare it to.
  6. Originally posted by henk360:The only reasen i both the album is that iam a U2 collecter.And i was thinking that i could love it if i just listen it.
    Didden't work that way.


    So you're not a fan of it, then? I guess it depends....but sometimes the best approach is to take the best songs, program them in a certain order (however you like) and go from there.

    For me, that would be:

    Do You Feel Loved
    Mofo
    Staring At The Sun
    Last Night On Earth
    Gone
    Miami
    The Playboy Mansion
    If You Wear That Velvet Dress
    Please
    Wake Up Dead Man

    Then you listen to the ones you don't like and you get to listen to the whole album, just not in the way it was intended. Sometimes it works even better with the single mixes. That would be Please for single mixes, only for me, but for others, they might like the 1990 - 2000 mixes or even the dance versions - I can't say I liked either. In fact, I thought they totally sucked arse.

    I don't think it's stood the test of time as well as, say, Zooropa or OST1 has, which were the better two of the decade. The overuse of electronics, club sounds and processing makes it sound dated, which is a real shame. But the deeper meanings and the open interpretations is what makes it truly unique. There is no other song by U2 that sounds like Mofo or Gone, and certainly not Miami. It also references several of my favourite things in pop culture - which is another big plus.

    Going by the 1997 music releases on Wikipedia, it'd be maybe one of five albums I could actually appreciate for what they were, not what they were commercially recognized as (How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, All That You Can't Leave Behind...the list goes on...) for the critics, sales figures, awards won etc. It is no failure, but it sparks healthy debate for many a reason. It is just one of those things - you like it, you love it, you hate it or you bloody well disown it. Even though the recent mixes show that U2 didn't like it the way it was received, and may see it as unfinished, but there's no way, today, I could think of how to finish it off - and I don't think they could top the original mixes. It's true art, and a masterpiece, to me. A masterpiece, I'd define as having 85% good songs and 100% potentially brilliant ideas. Pop was that.

    I also wonder why people call the entire album techno / dance / club / whatever so-called genres. The first three songs, maybe, have a hint or three of it. The rest is standard, if you want to call it, unusual for U2, rock-fare. Nothing more, nothing less.

    If it was released in 2009, I couldn't see it as a success. If No Line is having trouble getting to the masses and interesting them, I think guarantee Pop would do far worse. The problem is that people want a three-minute song on the radio, on downloads and whatever else people get their music through nowadays. The first four songs are over five minutes long. The album is an hour...they wouldn't stop to listen.

    The thing that I never truly liked about it (and kept me away for a while), and to this day, still don't, was the cover. I don't know why, but it just looks totally odd and stupid. Some may see it as art, but I see it as...not pompous...but very pop-cultured. Sometimes it can be a good thing, sometimes it sucks.

    All in all, it's a brilliant masterpiece, even if the critics and U2 don't think so. Enough ranting from me...
  7. Originally posted by drewhiggins:[..]
    Sometimes it works even better with the single mixes. That would be Please for single mixes, only for me, but for others, they might like the 1990 - 2000 mixes or even the dance versions - I can't say I liked either. In fact, I thought they totally sucked arse.


    Discotheque, IGWSHA and LNOE all had single mixes as well. IGWSHA is an improvement on the album version. Discotheque is subtle and doesn't change that much. Can't honestly remember what the difference was with LNOE.

    I use

    Discotheque (Album)
    Do You Feel Loved
    Mofo
    IGWSHA (Single)
    Staring At The Sun
    LNOE (Single)
    Gone (1990-2000 Remix)
    (Miami) (miss this out)
    Playboy Mansion
    IYWTVD
    Please (Single Strings Remix)
    Wake Up Dead Man
  8. Originally posted by djrlewis:[..]

    Discotheque, IGWSHA and LNOE all had single mixes as well. IGWSHA is an improvement on the album version. Discotheque is subtle and doesn't change that much. Can't honestly remember what the difference was with LNOE.

    I use

    Discotheque (Album)
    Do You Feel Loved
    Mofo
    IGWSHA (Single)
    Staring At The Sun
    LNOE (Single)
    Gone (1990-2000 Remix)
    (Miami) (miss this out)
    Playboy Mansion
    IYWTVD
    Please (Single Strings Remix)
    Wake Up Dead Man


    Last Night On Earth had a different middle section.
  9. Originally posted by drewhiggins:[..]

    So you're not a fan of it, then? I guess it depends....but sometimes the best approach is to take the best songs, program them in a certain order (however you like) and go from there.

    For me, that would be:

    Do You Feel Loved
    Mofo
    Staring At The Sun
    Last Night On Earth
    Gone
    Miami
    The Playboy Mansion
    If You Wear That Velvet Dress
    Please
    Wake Up Dead Man

    Then you listen to the ones you don't like and you get to listen to the whole album, just not in the way it was intended. Sometimes it works even better with the single mixes. That would be Please for single mixes, only for me, but for others, they might like the 1990 - 2000 mixes or even the dance versions - I can't say I liked either. In fact, I thought they totally sucked arse.

    I don't think it's stood the test of time as well as, say, Zooropa or OST1 has, which were the better two of the decade. The overuse of electronics, club sounds and processing makes it sound dated, which is a real shame. But the deeper meanings and the open interpretations is what makes it truly unique. There is no other song by U2 that sounds like Mofo or Gone, and certainly not Miami. It also references several of my favourite things in pop culture - which is another big plus.

    Going by the 1997 music releases on Wikipedia, it'd be maybe one of five albums I could actually appreciate for what they were, not what they were commercially recognized as (How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, All That You Can't Leave Behind...the list goes on...) for the critics, sales figures, awards won etc. It is no failure, but it sparks healthy debate for many a reason. It is just one of those things - you like it, you love it, you hate it or you bloody well disown it. Even though the recent mixes show that U2 didn't like it the way it was received, and may see it as unfinished, but there's no way, today, I could think of how to finish it off - and I don't think they could top the original mixes. It's true art, and a masterpiece, to me. A masterpiece, I'd define as having 85% good songs and 100% potentially brilliant ideas. Pop was that.

    I also wonder why people call the entire album techno / dance / club / whatever so-called genres. The first three songs, maybe, have a hint or three of it. The rest is standard, if you want to call it, unusual for U2, rock-fare. Nothing more, nothing less.

    If it was released in 2009, I couldn't see it as a success. If No Line is having trouble getting to the masses and interesting them, I think guarantee Pop would do far worse. The problem is that people want a three-minute song on the radio, on downloads and whatever else people get their music through nowadays. The first four songs are over five minutes long. The album is an hour...they wouldn't stop to listen.



    All in all, it's a brilliant masterpiece, even if the critics and U2 don't think so. Enough ranting from me...


    Almost my thoughts, succinctly put. Just to add, I'd swap your lack of Discotheque and IGWSHA for (yes, I know it's typical) Miami and PM - BUT that riff in Miami is somewhere at the top of my favorite Edge riffs, and if they had constructed the song differently around that riff, the song easily fall into my favorites.

    A masterpiece, I'd define as having 85% good songs and 100% potentially brilliant ideas. Pop was that.


    Perfect. Yes yes and yes.


  10. A shortened intro as well, leaving out Bono's mumbling, if I remember correctly.
  11. Originally posted by drewhiggins:...but sometimes the best approach is to take the best songs, program them in a certain order (however you like) and go from there.

    Hmm, I've never gone about altering the sequence of an original album playlist personally, I think half the experience is listening to how the band envisaged their work playing out to an audience - it's that little feeling you get when one song comes to an end and you're already humming the opening notes of the next one . That said, I often get confused with the 90s albums because my first concentrated effort made to listen to any 90s U2 stuff was the 1990-2000 Best Of, so sometimes my predicting goes a bit awry! It's also a little bit too much effort for my liking I have enough trouble putting together my own bleeding playlists, never mind reordering a brilliant album. The only times I've slightly altered any album have been when I experimented with putting TUF and JT together as one entity, i.e. seguing MLK in WTSHNN and also putting God Part II into Achtung Baby (in between Mysterious Ways and The Fly, I think?).

    Pop is definitely a grower of an album, and I only really clicked with it a year or so after buying it, but I now listen to it quite a lot. I'd like to see if they ever rework it and re-record each song as the finished articles, as I think Bono mentioned in U2 by U2 - as with most of their work, I usually think about the live versions before actual album edits quite a lot, and I tihnk Pop re-recorded as they ended up live (well, most of the songs) would be great. That said, would it be a case of flogging a dead horse, i.e. some people like the fact it's a bit of a flawed beauty, and maybe re-recording it would take that sense away?
  12. Originally posted by WojBhoy:[..]
    Hmm, I've never gone about altering the sequence of an original album playlist personally, I think half the experience is listening to how the band envisaged their work playing out to an audience - it's that little feeling you get when one song comes to an end and you're already humming the opening notes of the next one . That said, I often get confused with the 90s albums because my first concentrated effort made to listen to any 90s U2 stuff was the 1990-2000 Best Of, so sometimes my predicting goes a bit awry! It's also a little bit too much effort for my liking I have enough trouble putting together my own bleeding playlists, never mind reordering a brilliant album. The only times I've slightly altered any album have been when I experimented with putting TUF and JT together as one entity, i.e. seguing MLK in WTSHNN and also putting God Part II into Achtung Baby (in between Mysterious Ways and The Fly, I think?). Yes [/i]

    Pop is definitely a grower of an album, and I only really clicked with it a year or so after buying it, but I now listen to it quite a lot. I'd like to see if they ever rework it and re-record each song as the finished articles, as I think Bono mentioned in U2 by U2 - as with most of their work, I usually think about the live versions before actual album edits quite a lot, and I tihnk Pop re-recorded as they ended up live (well, most of the songs) would be great. That said, would it be a case of flogging a dead horse, i.e. some people like the fact it's a bit of a flawed beauty, and maybe re-recording it would take that sense away?


    Bono chirps on about this sort of thing from time to time but I do think it's best left. You can use remixes if you like, there's enough out there. He's mentioned doing Boy again too.

    Leave them alone and concentrate on the new material Mr B!
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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.