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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Underrated climax to U2's Zoo trilogy (1991-1998)..., 15 Jul 2004
Many fans and especially rock-critics slated this album when it first appeared back in 1997, due in part to U2's previous diversions into pulsating electronica & wayward experimentation - with career peak Achtung Baby setting something of a template, whilst the criminally underrated Zooropa followed to even greater disdain, before the band even went as far as to dash off a full-experimental album under the pseudonym, The Passengers. The negativity also had a lot to do with the era that this was released... with 1997 being the apex of Britpop; a time when bands were supposed to be playing things down, going for the stadiums and producing the kind of music that drunken louts could sing-along to with their lighters out. It was certainly no time to be embracing a band that performed on the roofs of supermarkets with giant TV screens, costume changes and a 10 ft luminous lemon.The music press would evoke notions of progressive-rock and cite self-indulgence as the cause of the band's behaviour and, as a result of this negativity, ticket & album sales began to dwindle, prompting the band to disappear once more... then - faster than you could say Joshua Tree - they returned with a new album of straight rock ballads and a MOR sound that the critics and fans, unsurprisingly, devoured with glee. I see this as a shame really, since the albums produced during this era (1990-1998) represent the peak of U2; coming across as edgy and creative, without prostituting their sense of melody and expert musicianship. Pop would be both the summation and the climax of this period, with half the songs sounding intense, free-wheeling and utterly post-modern, whilst the other half of the album seemed like a compromise, with those typical 80's style U2 ballads creeping in; but advanced on, by the inclusion of dance-beats and state of the art production. This is hardly a problem though, as the ballads remain amongst my favourite tracks on the album... whilst the overall sound of the record is great. I remember the first time I saw the video for lead-off single (and first track on the album) Discothèque and thought it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen or heard in my life... with the band gleefully parodying the Village People, whilst female dancers in skin-tight body-suits paraded around under mirror-balls and strobe-lights! The guitar sound is great, with the Edge taking the whole song into the realms of funk, with dirty distorted bar-chords continuing the fuzzy sound developed in the production, whilst Bono's vocals alternate between growls and falsetto, to enliven his nonsense lyrics. Next track, Do You Feel Loved? seems like an attempt to ape the previous track, whilst also calming things down a little... though, in all honesty, it lacks focus and, to some extent, sits uneasily in front of track three, the blistering and funked-up Mofo! The production here is intense, as the dance rhythms return, pulsating from left to right speaker as the Edge does some of his most subtle-distorted guitar work since Zoo Station from Achtung Baby. This leads into the first, for lack of a better word, U2 ballad, If God Will Send his Angels, which points towards future tracks like Stuck in a Moment (& that one with Samantha Morton in the video), whilst also looking back to classics like With or Without You & Bad. Once again, the production is great, whilst the use of instrumentation (the drums and guitar are the standouts) create a languid and melancholic atmosphere for Bono to croon over. The next two tracks were both singles and remain my favourite tracks on the album, with Staring at the Sun following the same aural design as the previous track, with striped down instrumentation highlighted by the bells & whistles of Steve Osborne's production and the Edge's always interesting guitar work. For all it's musical memento though, the lyrics are perhaps Bono's most simplistic ever, with the chorus, "you're not just deaf and dumb, staring at the sun, I'm not the only one..." being worlds away from some of the oblique, poetic couplets from Achtung Baby tracks like The Fly and Acrobat. Last Night on Earth is even better though, and has probably the dirtiest guitar riff in U2 history, or at least, one that brings to mind something like Even Better than the Real Thing or Numb. From this point things begin to lose their way a little, with certain elements failing to come together, or various ideas and ideologies feeling strained or incomplete. I personally think this is where the record company started to step in and U2 felt the pressure to deliver that trademark 80's sound, so rebelled with something that was slightly more out-there, in terms of funk and dance stylings, though, were maybe a little more half-arsed with it than some of their earlier experiments. I don't know. Maybe they were just getting bored. At any rate, songs like Miami and The Playboy Mansion are a little off the mark, and don't really hold up to the songs that came before, whilst If You Wear that Velvet Dress is possibly the biggest waste of a great title on a mediocre song in the history of pop (no pun!). It takes the song Please to finally restore some order, and a classic Achtung Baby sound, and it leads us nicely into the final track, Wake Up Dead Man, which remains another highpoint from this album. Pop still has some problems, largely in it's cohesion and in it's track sequencing, and really, there were probably better songs laying around the studio than Miami and Do You Feel Loved? However, it has dated brilliantly, with the overall sound seeming completely alien, even when we compare it to similar electro-dance-arty-types like Goldfrapp and even the post-punk indebted likes of the Rapture and Franz Ferdinand. Half the tracks are absolute classics, whilst the other half, though miles away from some of their previous master-pieces, still have a lot of interesting elements that do become enjoyable with repeated listens. Pop may be something of a come down following the euphoric highs of Achtung Baby and Zooropa, though, suffice to say, it's certainly a more worthwhile purchase than 2000's supposed return to form, All That You Can't Leave Behind.
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