Track Listing

1. Discotheque
2. Do You Feel Loved
3. Mofo
4. If God Will Send His Angels
5. Staring At The Sun
6. Last Night On Earth
7. Gone
8. Miami
9. The Playboy Mansion
10. If You Wear That Velvet Dress
11. Please
12. Wake Up Dead Man

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5257 in Music
• Published on: 1997
• Released on: 1997-03-04
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
Get one thing straight: Techno is merely the fairy dust sprinkled atop another massive, brilliantly conceived slab of dense, drug-like rock & roll from the only band this side of the Smashing Pumpkins who could pull off such a feat. Mainstream audiences are desperate for something fresh yet familiar, and this Warholian treatise on the plasticity of pop culture expertly mixes new sonic colors with the band's signature art-rock genius. "Discotheque" is an exhilarating opener, "Staring at the Sun" is their answer to relative upstarts Oasis's hit "Wonderwall," and "If God Will Send His Angels" has the makings of a crossover anthem. This is U2 in peak unit-shifting form. --Jeff Bateman

Album Details
The Japanese Version of Pop with One Extra Track- 'Holy Joe'(Guilty Mix).

Customer Reviews

Bono Princess of POP right next to John Mayer the mistress of POP
U2 are not a rock band they are pop, pop rock at best, and not that good at either.

Pop Me A Thumbs Up!
Yes, it's Amazon, but there is a reason I use Amazon. I've used it a few times which has been every single time I needed to order something online. I love it so much because they are efficient and so easy to use. My mom uses it and she doesn't even know where to exit out of a window! My favorite part though is that they always deliver earlier than they say. They say it'll come in 5 days, it usually comes in 4 or eve 3 days. For this U2 CD, I lost my other on the way to a trip to Disneyland--long story. But I couldn't find it anywhere, so I gave up. Fat chance getting me somewhere to buy it, so why no online? I only trusted Amazon and it came in 4 days. Pretty soon my craving was satisfied! Thanks again!

The Best
Horribly underrated! Pop is U2's most provocative album; it is ambitious, groundbreaking and deep. The music is awesome! Many devout U2 fans just could not handle the change in style, given the U2 pedigree up to this point. But this album features not only a wonderful new style, but the best damn lyrics Bono ever wrote.

"Discoteque" is a very fun, complex song. It features some of the best music the band ever wrote, and puts one in a "party" like mood. This sets the wanted tone, which is that of "taking what you get, because it's all you can find". The subsequent listenings will help the listener to understand this is Bono's parable not unlike "The Wanderer" from Zooropa. "Do You Feel Loved" is among the same lines; it is a look at superficial love and peoples lives just slipping through their fingers as they waste time. "If God Will Send His Angels" is not only beautiful, but poignant. It seems to tell a similar story as the first couple of tracks, but from an outside point of view. This is also Bono's real point of view. This is his portrait of the human condition in the post-modern world, where "the cartoon network turns into the news" and "Jesus was put in show business". It is more or less a prayer that spirituality will overcome the material world.

Cue "The Playboy Mansion" and "Miami". Miami is more of a portrait from that same outside point of view, where "surgury is in the air" and "big girl with the sweet tooth watches skinny girl in the photo shoot". Plus, the electronic drum beat and the ripping sound of Edge's guitar is some of the coolest music on the album. "The Playboy Mansion" is, like "Discoteque", true, but more subtly in its satirical telling of conditions. But it is two-fold. The song also stands as a bit of an allegory for finding spiritual enlightenment, which, as a paradox, makes complex and in my mind, one of the best songs. "It's who you know that gets you through the gates of that mansion..."

Then there is "Gone" and "Last Night in Earth". Again, two different characterizations. "Gone" is the honest Bono, talking about the life and dullness of true celebrity. "Last Night On Earth" is the character trapped inside the spiritless life, who trys to live as if it was his last night on earth. He "is not waiting on a savior to come", and also realizes "she'll be dead soon and then she'll sleep".

"Staring at the Sun" is also complex, but very likeable. Of any song on the album, it seems the most likely to me to be a hit single. What more do I say about this one? Great music and great lyrics. This is true Bono view again. Read the lyrics and think Plato.

"It You Wear That Velvet Dress" seems to me to not fit in thematically with the other songs, but this should bother you not. The music is wonderful. It is so atmospheric. This is one of the most intense and sexual sounding love songs I have ever heard. Edge's guitar is like a single, sexy voice that utters something but once and is followed audibly only by echoes and tingles in the listeners' ears. Bono's voice is so amazing and sexual. This is the kind of performance that makes me realize that I do indeed like women, because if I didn't, I would know it while listening to him.

"Mofo", "Please", and "Wake Up Dead Man" are hands down three of the best from the U2 catalogue ever. "Mofo" stands as one of the most complicated songs musically and lyrically for the men. It utters mixed themes; searching for love and spirituality and mourning the loss of a Mother are among them. "Please" is about violence and the lack of peace in the world. Again, it doesn't to me seem to fit thematically with the other songs about searching or not searching for God, but it remains as my favorite song on the album. "Wake Up Dead Man" is the most beautifully heartbreaking and poignant song ever written by U2. It is the honest Bono, and maybe in some way, the other character, having come to grips with the material and spiritual world crashing down around them. This does not end on a happy note. This is a heartwrenching song. It is a confession that the world is awful and human beings are a mistake. It is not only a confession, but a longing; where is the light and the hope (go back to "If God Will Send His Angels")?

If there is one U2 cd worth analyzing and giving hard thought to, this is certainly it. It is one of my favorites, and I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone.

Peace.