“If You Wear That Velvet Dress” is a five-minute snoozer regardless of electronic influence, and the industrially focused “Miami” has always sounded grating and just a hair out of key. Bono’s vocal role shifted drastically as well, trading triumphant leads for whispers, warbles and verses nearly hidden beneath piles of production.Įxpectedly, all of this doesn’t always coalesce as the band would have liked, a fact members have publicly recognized over the last 20 years. Adam Clayton’s bass parts range from recognizable (“Staring at the Sun”) to completely overtaken by samples (“Mofo”). did, in fact, record many of the album’s drum parts himself, the finished product’s mechanized quality removes his flesh-and-blood playing almost entirely from Pop. Some credit here goes to the electro-versed co-producer Howie B., who in his first album with the band did well to shepherd the grinding thump of “Discoteque” and the musingly sexual “Do You Feel Loved,” where Edge’s guitar tone is completely deconstructed, and reassembled to appear rather coarse and robotic. Regardless of the economics, an unsatisfied U2 later went back to remix some songs the band’s Best of 1990-2000 compilation included new, cleaner versions of “Discoteque,” “Staring at the Sun” (perhaps the LP’s lone sing-along) and “Gone,” a tune whose siren-like guitar pings played more like a transmission from Tom Morello’s six-string than one from The Edge’s. and underselling its adventurous predecessors Achtung Baby and Zooropa worldwide (though the PopMart tour still made a cool at $170 million at the box office). The menacing chug of lead single “Discoteque” and funky Hollywood sarcasm of “The Playboy Mansion” act, at the very least, as welcome departures from the oversaturated radio anthems that suffixed the brief Pop era - “Beautiful Day” or “Vertigo” is probably playing on your local adult alternative station as we speak.Ģ0 Alternative Rock Hits Turning 20 in 2017īy U2’s lofty standards, the album marked a commercial crisis, barely squeaking out platinum status in the U.S. Listening today, and having been taught by countless artists that rock and electronic can get along just fine, Pop sounds surprisingly fashionable. It’s maddening that in 1997, a year that opened with Daft Punk’s lauded debut Homework trickling French house into the mainstream pop consciousness, U2 was panned by some for its exploration of European club music, sampling and drum machines. With that the moniker “Pop” was a tongue-in-cheek misnomer, an album utterly removed from Smash Mouth, Third Eye Blind and the other rock radio hits of the day. There is deliberateness in the theming electronica, hip-hop and funk were kept not just in mind but thrust to the melodic forefront.
The LP was, for better or worse, the furthest the band has ever strayed from their patented larger-than-rock personage, and wholly relinquished the sounds that brought members their ridiculous fortunes. Pop, which turns 20 on Friday (March 3), is unequivocally U2’s most neglected album - virtually none of has been played live in the last 15 years - and is ultimately the venerable group’s most undervalued. Yes, we speak of Pop, the daring techno-rock demonstration that baffled fans in 1997 with its opacity, punctuated the band’s period of conspicuous experimentation, and catalyzed the arena-ready “comeback” album All That You Can’t Leave Behind three years later. U2's 'Joshua Tree' Tour Is More Than Nostalgia, Its Inclusiveness Is Vital for 2017
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