Pop (U2 album)

Pop is the ninth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Flood, Howie B, and Steve Osborne, and was released on 3 March 1997 on Island Records. The album was a continuation of the band's 1990s musical reinvention, as they incorporated alternative rock, techno, dance, and electronica influences into their sound. Pop employed a variety of production techniques that were relatively new to U2, including sampling, loops, programmed drum machines, and sequencing.

Recording sessions began in 1995 with various record producers, including Nellee Hooper, Flood, Howie B, and Osborne, who were introducing the band to various electronica influences. At the time, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. was inactive due to a back injury, prompting the other band members to take different approaches to songwriting. Upon Mullen's return, the band began re-working much of their material but ultimately struggled to complete songs. After the band allowed manager Paul McGuinness to book their upcoming 1997 PopMart Tour before the record was completed, they felt rushed into delivering it. Even after delaying the album's release date from the 1996 Christmas and holiday season to March 1997, U2 ran out of time in the studio, working up to the last minute to complete songs.

In February 1997, U2 released Pops techno-heavy lead single, "Discothèque", one of six singles from the album. The record initially received favourable reviews from critics and reached number one in 35 countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the album's lifetime sales are among the lowest in U2's catalogue, and it received only a single platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. Retrospectively, the album is viewed by some of the music press and public as a disappointment. The finished product was not to U2's liking, and they subsequently re-recorded and remixed many of the songs for single and compilation album releases. The time required to complete Pop cut into the band's rehearsal time for the tour, which affected the quality of initial shows.

Background and writing

In the first half of the 1990s, U2 underwent a dramatic shift in musical style. The band had experimented with alternative rock and electronic music and the use of samples on their 1991 album, Achtung Baby, and, to a greater extent, on 1993's Zooropa. In 1995, the group's side-projects provided them an opportunity to delve even deeper into these genres. Bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. recorded "Theme from Mission: Impossible" in an electronica style. The recording was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 and was an international top-ten hit. In 1995, U2 and Brian Eno recorded an experimental album, Original Soundtracks 1, under the moniker "Passengers". The project included Howie B, Akiko Kobayashi and Luciano Pavarotti, among others.

Bono and the Edge had written a few songs before recording started for Pop in earnest. "If You Wear That Velvet Dress", "Wake Up Dead Man", "Last Night on Earth" and "If God Will Send His Angels" were originally conceived during the Zooropa sessions. "Mofo" and "Staring at the Sun" were also partly written already. The studio was designed to be more of a rehearsal space more than an actual studio. Mullen was unable to drum properly during this period, forcing U2 to abandon their usual methods of songwriting as a group but also allowing them to pursue different musical influences. Sessions ceased temporarily in January 1996 to allow Mullen to rehabilitate.

Pop features tape loops, programming, sequencing, sampling, and heavy, funky dance rhythms. The Edge said in U2's fan magazine Propaganda that, "It's very difficult to pin this record down. It's not got any identity because it's got so many." Bono has said that the album "begins at a party and ends at a funeral", referring to the upbeat and party-like first half of the album and sombre and dark mood of the second half. According to Flood, the production team worked to achieve a "sense of space" on the record's sound by layering all the elements of the arrangements and giving them places in the frequency spectrum where they did not interfere with each other through the continual experimenting and re-working of song arrangements.

"Do You Feel Loved", which was considered for a single release, Bono originally thought the song was too soft and asked to "fuck it up," saying "I thought, this is, like, pure. Now drop acid onto that." In 2005, Q magazine included the song "Miami" in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists". However, Andrew Unterberger of Stylus Magazine acknowledged the inclusion of the song in Q's list and said "I’m pretty sure they gave this album some super-glowing review when it was first released, so clearly they’re not to be trusted in the first."

"The Playboy Mansion" starts out with mellow, wah-wah guitar playing from Edge. Along with Mullen's drumming, there are breakbeats and hip-hop beats on the rhythm track, which were recorded as loops by Mullen. Howie described the loops thus; "Larry went off into a side room and made some sample loops of him playing his kit, and gave the loops to me and Flood. It was the same with the guitars; there's a guitar riff which comes in the verse and chorus, which is a sample of Edge playing." Bono's lyrics are a tongue-in-cheek account of pop culture icons.

"If You Wear That Velvet Dress" features a mellow, dark atmosphere. Marius De Vries played keyboards on this track, contributing to the ambient feel. Mullen uses brush stroke style drums for the most part. When news first broke of U2's work in the studio, it was reported the band were recording a trip hop album; writer Niall Stokes believes that "The Playboy Mansion" comes close to the assertion due to Hooper's heavy hand. Flood stated that Hooper "started things off" but did not finish the track due to his time constraints.

"Please" features Bono lamenting The Troubles and the Northern Irish peace process, pleading with the powers that be to "get up off their knees". Mullen uses martial-style drumming, similar to "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Flood put guitar work through the ARP 2600 on the song. He explains, "For ages the rhythm track played all the way through the track. It's a fairly tight groove/bass thing, and then we suddenly decided to drop out the rhythm section in the middle and add a load of strings and these weird synthetic sounds at the end of that break." The single releases and live performances of the song were different from the album version, with more prominent guitar playing and a guitar solo to end the song.

"Wake Up Dead Man" began as an upbeat song from the Achtung Baby sessions in 1991. It evolved into a darker composition during the Zooropa sessions, but it was shelved until Pop. One of the band's darkest songs, "Wake Up Dead Man" features Bono pleading with Jesus to return and save mankind, evident in the lyrics "Jesus / Jesus help me / I'm alone in this world / And a fucked-up world it is too". It is also one of only a few U2 songs to include profanity.

Release

thumb|U2 and manager Paul McGuinness meeting with US President [[Bill Clinton at the White House during the PopMart Tour in May 1997]]

Pop was originally scheduled for a November 1996 release date, but after the recording sessions went long, the album was delayed until March 1997. This significantly cut into the band's rehearsal time for the upcoming PopMart Tour that they had scheduled in advance, which impacted the quality of the band's initial performances on tour. Though the band settled on the album name Pop, many working names and proposed titles for the album, including Discola, Miami, Mi@mi, Novelty Act, Super City Mania, YOU2 and Godzilla, went as far as having artwork made for them, while the names Pop for Men and Pop Pour Hommes were also considered. Pop was dedicated to Bill Graham, one of the band's earliest fans who died in 1996, famous for suggesting to Paul McGuinness that he become U2's manager. As with Rattle and Hum, it was also dedicated to the band's production manager Anne Louise Kelly whose dedication message, "4UALKXXXX", is hidden on the playing side of the CD where the matrix number is found.

On 26 October 1996, U2 became one of the earliest bands to fall victim to an internet leak when a Hungary-based fansite leaked clips of "Discothèque" and "Wake Up Dead Man", creating a buzz which built quickly on the internet, as radio stations played the snippets as a means to introduce listeners to the album. The clips were traced back to Polygram, where an executive had shared a VHS tape with previews of the tracks to marketing managers worldwide; one writer said that "from there it got into the hands of a label employee's friend." On 26 April 1997, American television network ABC aired a one-hour prime time special about Pop and the PopMart Tour, titled U2: A Year in Pop. Narrated by actor Dennis Hopper, the documentary featured footage from the Pop recording sessions, as well as live footage from the opening PopMart show in Las Vegas, which took place the night before. The program received poor reception, ranking at 101 out of 107 programs aired that week, according to Nielsen ratings, and became the lowest rated non-political documentary in the history of the ABC network. Despite the low ratings, McGuinness appreciated the opportunity for the band to appear on network television in the first place, stating that the small audience for the television special was still a large audience for the band, as it was much larger than any audience that could be obtained by MTV.

Singles

Pop featured six international singles, the most the band has released for a single album. "Do You Feel Loved" and "Gone" were also considered for release.

|rev5 = NME

|rev5score = 8/10

|rev6 = Orlando Sentinel

|rev6score =

|rev9 = Spin

|rev9score = 9/10 David Browne of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B rating, saying: "Despite its glittery launch, the album is neither trashy nor kitschy, nor is it junky-fun dance music. It incorporates bits of the new technology – a high-pitched siren squeal here, a sound-collage splatter there – but it is still very much a U2 album". Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times rated Pop four-stars-out-of-four, judging the album to benefit "from the tension of... competing influences, sometimes leaning more on the electronic currents, elsewhere showcasing the more melodic and accessible songwriting strengths". He praised the group's musical experimentation, saying, "It is such boldness that has enabled U2 to remain at the creative forefront of pop music for more than a decade." James Hunter of Spin rated the record 9/10, writing, "Pop realizes a symphonic transcendence for which the band's earlier stabs like The Unforgettable Fire could only wish." He added, "They are now experts at wringing genuine emotion, and even a few smirks, out of random sounds, letting their roots filter up from below." Bernard Zuel of The Sydney Morning Herald praised the album's understated tracks and the influence of Howie B, and said that the band avoided making the same mistake as rock counterparts of "trying to slap a traditional bottom-end on top of a metronomic beat and calling it dance". He said that despite not being "the future of rock'n'roll", Pop was "a genuine snapshot of its present by a band bright enough to keep exploring, smart enough not to abandon its past and big enough to make it palatable to radio programmers" resistant to dance music.

Other reviews were more critical. Neil Strauss of The New York Times wrote that "From the band's first album, Boy, in 1980, through The Joshua Tree in 1987, U2 sounded inspired. Now it sounds expensive." He further commented that "U2 and techno don't mix any better than U2 and irony do." Parry Gettelman of the Orlando Sentinel rated the album two stars and found the band's attempt to merge rock music with dance rhythms underwhelming, saying, "U2 lacks the zest for experimentation that has helped make electronic music so appealing to music fans weary of formulaic rock". John Sakamoto of Jam! Showbiz said, "Far from an exercise in daring self-indulgence, Pop is too often guilty of a much more serious offence: not going far enough." He added, "as with so many elements of the ephemeral culture it both disparages and celebrates, it ends up being something considerably less than has been advertised." Village Voice critic Robert Christgau rated it a dud, indicating a bad album unworthy of a review.

Commercial performance

Pop was initially a commercial success, debuting at number one in 27 countries, including the UK and the US. In its first week on sale, the record sold 349,000 copies in the US. In its second week in the US, the album's sales fell 57 per cent, selling 150,000 copies. Pops lifetime sales are among the lowest in U2's catalogue. It was certified RIAA platinum once, the lowest since the band's album October. The PopMart Tour grossed US$171,677,024.

Legacy

Following the PopMart Tour, the band expressed their dissatisfaction with the final product. Between the album's various singles and the band's The Best of 1990–2000 compilation (and disregarding dance remixes), Although he reiterated his belief that the album was rushed, the Edge still viewed Pop as a "great record," and said, "I was very proud of it by the end of the tour. We finally figured it out by the time we made the DVD. It was an amazing show that I'm really proud of." In the same interview, Edge also stated: "We started out trying to make a dance-culture record and then realized at the end there are things we can do that no EDM producer or artist can do, so let's try and have it both ways. In that case, we probably went too far in the other direction. We probably needed to allow a bit more of the electronica to survive."

The band took a considerably more conservative, stripped down approach with Pops follow-up, All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000), along with the Elevation Tour that supported it; All That You Can't Leave Behind featured a "more traditional U2 sound". Pop was viewed as U2's "most neglected album" with the band "effectively [disowning] the record by purging its material from setlists."

Retrospectively, Pop is viewed in the music press and public as a disappointment. In a 2013 article, Spin was more critical of the album than in the magazine's original review, calling it "U2's nadir period" and a "weirder, bolder, nervier record than its garish exterior would suggest... if you can tune out Bono's mugging, which of course you can't, which was the whole problem. The stupidity of all this subsumed the prescient bravery of it..." Caryn Rose of Vulture said that "A lengthy book could be written about the disaster that was Pop and the subsequent tour." Nonetheless, the album has been praised, including from Elvis Costello who included it in his 2000 list of "500 Albums You Need", and from Hot Press which ranked the album at number 104 on their 2009 list of "The 250 Greatest Irish Albums of All Time". Similarly, in 2003, Slant Magazine included the album in their list "Vital Pop: 50 Essential Pop Albums," with reviewer Sal Cinquemani saying "the reason why Pop wasn't a bigger hit in the U.S. is a mystery" and said the record was "better (and deeper) than anything on U2's much-ballyhooed 'return' to pop, All That You Can't Leave Behind." Bobby Olivier of Billboard believed that Pop was the band's "last legitimately courageous project," saying that "all we see is a group that chose not to coast." In 2018, BBC included it on its list of "acclaimed albums that nobody listens to any more".

In March 2018, U2 announced that Pop would be reissued and remastered on vinyl alongside Wide Awake in America (1985) and All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000) on 13 April 2018.

Track listing

Notes

 – additional production
"Discothèque" contains a sample from "Fame" performed by Freeform and written by Simon Pyke.
"Last Night on Earth" contains excerpts from "Trayra Boia" written by Naná Vasconcelos and Denise Milan.
"The Playboy Mansion" contains excerpts of "You Showed Me" written by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn.
"Wake Up Dead Man" contains excerpts of "Besrodna Nevesta" written by Nikolai Iankov Kaoufmane.
The Malaysian edition of Pop has a censored version of "Wake Up Dead Man", omitting the word "fucked (up)" from the song, a rare instance of the band using profanity in their music.

Personnel

Personnel taken from Pop liner notes.

Bono – lead vocals, guitar
The Edge – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, organ
Adam Clayton – bass guitar
Larry Mullen Jr. – drums , percussion, programming, loops

Additional performers

Howie B – decks , loops , keyboards
Steve Osborne – keyboards
Ben Hillier – programming
Flood – keyboards
Marius De Vries – keyboards

Production

Flood – production , mixing
Steve Osborne – production , additional production , engineering, mixing
Howie B – production , recording , mixing , additional mixing
Mark "Spike" Stent – recording , mixing
Alan Moulder – recording , mixing
Ben Hillier – mixing
Rob Kirwan – recording assistance , mixing assistance
Fernio Hernandez – recording assistance
Richard Rainey – mixing assistance
Conal Markey – mixing assistance , recording assistance
Robin Ball – mixing assistance
Howie Weinberg – mastering
Deborah Mannis-Gardner – sample clearance

Design

Stéphane Sednaoui, Anja Grabert – photography
Nellee Hooper – photography

Charts

Weekly charts

{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ Weekly chart performance for Pop

!scope="col"|Chart (1997)

!scope="col"|Peak position

!scope="row"|Danish Albums (Hitlisten)

!scope="row"|Irish Albums (IRMA)

!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)

!scope="row"|Portuguese Albums (AFP)

Year-end charts

{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|+ Year-end chart performance for Pop

!scope="column"|Chart (1997)

!scope="column"|Position

!scope="row"|Australian Albums (ARIA)

|39

!scope="row"|Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)

!scope="row"|Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)

|28

!scope="row"|Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)

|26

! scope="row"| Canadian Albums (Nielsen Soundscan)

|26

!scope="row"|Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)

|17

! scope="row"|European Albums (Music & Media)

!scope="row"|French Albums (SNEP)

|16

!scope="row"|German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)

|29

!scope="row"|New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)

!scope="row"|Spanish Albums (AFYPE)

|22

!scope="row"|Swedish Albums & Compilations (Sverigetopplistan)

|30

!scope="row"|Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)

|18

!scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)

|25

!scope="row"|US Billboard 200

|45

Weekly singles chart

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Weekly chart performance for singles from Pop

! rowspan="2"| Year

! rowspan="2"| Song

! colspan="6"| Peak

! style="width:50px;"|IRE

! style="width:50px;"|AUS

! style="width:50px;"|BE (Fl)

! style="width:50px;"|UK

! style="width:50px;"|US

|rowspan=6|1997

|"Discothèque"

| style="text-align:center;"|1

| style="text-align:center;"|3

| style="text-align:center;"|14

| style="text-align:center;"|1

| style="text-align:center;"|10

|"Staring at the Sun"

| style="text-align:center;"|4

| style="text-align:center;"|23

| style="text-align:center;"|46

| style="text-align:center;"|2

| style="text-align:center;"|3

| style="text-align:center;"|26

|"Last Night on Earth"

| style="text-align:center;"|11

| style="text-align:center;"|32

| style="text-align:center;"|29

| style="text-align:center;"|4

| style="text-align:center;"|10

| style="text-align:center;"|57

|"Please"

| style="text-align:center;"|6

| style="text-align:center;"|21

| style="text-align:center;"|31

| style="text-align:center;"|10

| style="text-align:center;"|7