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February 22, 1997
"Shop Till You Pop"
Melody Maker, February 22, 1997
"Shop Till You Pop"
....The singer returns to the stage and U2 proceed to conduct a press conference with no little wit, panache and style. Bono does the majority of the talking, handling questions which vary from the perceptive and insightful to the teeth-grindingly tedious. The Edge also makes a few quietly-spoken interjections. Adam and Larry sit at the back on upturned K-Mart stacking crates and play the strong-but-silent rhythm section card they do so welI. Firstly, though, there's a snatch of performance. Bono winks at the compact crowd and yells, "Manhattan-this is the place ! PopMart and K-Mart ! We're here on business !". U2 pick up guitars and play the sheer heavily distorted "Holy Joe", the backing track to the "Discotheque" single, then there's a short photocall and hordes of snappers besiege the stage. When the question-and-answer session finally begins, a journalist from The Observer, um, observes that Pop Man appears an ambitious, expensive project. Who's paying?
Bono: "Well, as Imelda Marcos once said (laughter from the crowd)....what did she say about her shoes ? A million here, a million there, and soon it's big money ? Yeah, this is an expensive show and we're prepared to spend on it and people are prepared to spend to come and see it. (Pause. He indicates the band's gladrags). It costs a fortune to look this trashy !"
French radio joumalist: "Do you see U2's new sound as a fresh, danceable expression of the same ideals that your music has always had, or is it a radical departure ?"
Bono: "We still have the same ideals, we've just learnt to look like we don't. We've got a little smarter on that one."
The Edge: "Dance music ? Well, if you want to dance to our new record, you can dance to it. But we're still writing tunes. We have a great singer and a great lyricist. We've just taken on board some new ideas."
Daily Mirror: "Why are you launching your album in K-Mart ?" (Cue laughter from US hacks who wouldn't normally be seen dead in the downmarket, lo-price store)
Bono: "Well, we want to get to as many people as possible and we're a multi-outlet outfit ourselves. I can't quite remember how we got to the idea of taking a supermarket on the road but it made a lot of sense at the time ! I guess, basically, we're sitting here right now trying to sell our tour to the world, and there's nobody better than K-Mart at doing that."
CNN: "By holding your press conference in this setting, you surely don't mean to suggest that your music is flimsily constructed from cheap materials and that its discountable and ultimately disposable, do you ?"(Laughter)
Bono: (also laughing) I agree with every word you just said apart from 'discountable'."
The Edge: "We believe in trash, we believe in kitsch, and thats what we are up to at the moment."
US radio journalist: "Are you paying K-Mart for the right to use their name in PopMart ? And what do you think of K-Mart's policy of not carrying stickered albums carrying parental guidance labels warning of contents which are morally offensive ?"
Bono: "Oh, look, at least they're not selling guns, and that certainly helped in our choice. I have to say I'm genuinely amazed that K-Mart even let us in here today. They're being very kind and cool to us, we don't have to pay them anything, and stop being such a snob !"
Radio 1: "ZooTV was visually amazing - how are you going to top that onstage ? What are we going to see?"
The Edge: "Well, we've got some space junk, we've got the biggest TV ever devised...."
Bono: "....we're bigger, better, taller, wider more intimate, more spectacular ! But PopMart is just our latest window dressing. People who come to see us live come along to hear us play the tunes, and everything else we do is really just trying to make fun of having to play in very large spaces. If we tried to play small venues we'd be on the road for a very, very long time because a lot of people want to see us play. So when we go to these outdoor venues, we try to show that it is actually possible to turn these concrete and steel mausoleums into somethirig special - shopping malls, for instance !"
MTV Latin America: "In Latin America we've always been told that U2 wilI never play there because you'II never accept sponsorship from cigarette or alcohol firms. Now you're going to play Latin America, so whats happened ? Have you taken sponsorship ?" This is a topical question - a few US newspapers have suggested recently that U2 have sought a huge multinational firm to sponsor PopMart but failed to find one.
Bono: "No, we have no sponsor on this tour but its not like we've taken some high and mighty decision to that end. If we couId get someone to give us a load of money and not have to kiss ass we'd probably take it, but unfortunately we haven't been able to figure that out. "I think we're in a luxurious position, though, that we can afford to put on a show like this ourselves. It's one of the advantages of being....STINKO. I do believe in a few of the smaller countries, which may include Latin America, there'll be some sort of small association with companies, because without it we just can't go. We're prepared to go to places and not make money but we're not prepared to go to places and lose it because thats just condescending. "We've had some very good news today that we're playing Sarajevo, which is really good because we've been trying to organise that for a few years. But they're not interested in a charity event. Sarajevo is a cultured place, a smart place which has been nearly wiped out of Europe and they just want us to come and play. We're doing a real low ticket price but they don't want charity, man."
Mexican (Pepe Le Punk-style) journalist: What can the people of Mexico expect from your tour when you come in December ?"
The Edge: "We had a really amazing time when we were last in Mexico and we knew we definitely wanted to go back. It's the same production wherever we go. We don't believe in doing an A standard show and a B standard show. Wherever you go to see a U2 show, it's going to be exactly the same...."
Bono: (slyly eyeing up Edge's spangly disco shirt) "Mexico has been a very big influence on The Edge's gear actually...."
Boston Globe: "How much older material will you weave into your set on this tour ? On the last tour, it seemed to increase as you went along."
The Edge: "We started off last time playing about eight new songs and I think thats what we'll do this time as well. We'll obviously be playing a lot of favourite songs from previous records but we don't want this to be just a Greatest Hits tour. We'd find that pretty boring and I don't think our audience would like it much, either."
A Dublin magazine journalist called Brenda Donohue, who is close to the band, asks when the Dublin show will be finalised and tries to get the notoriously reticent Larry Mullen to speak.
Larry (grimacing) "I'll speak, but only for you, Brenda. We're still trying to find a place to play in Dublin. We've had problems with curfews at all the football grounds so we're trying to get Phoenix Park but there are problems with the license there. Phoenix is the people's park, though, so we're very helpful."
Donohue: (digging for gossip) "And who'll be packing your bags for you on these 100 dates ?"
Bono: "Well, if you think it wiII be AIi (Bono's wife) you're very mistaken, Brenda !"
Irish radio journalist: "By now U2 are into the second generation of people who have got into your music. Can anybody come into PopMart to shop and get something out of it, whether they're young or old ?"
The Edge: "Yeah, we've got something for everyone at PopMart. Everyone's welcome."
Irish radio joumalist: "And will there by any discount prices on the album ?"
The Edge: "No, there'll be no discounts. Maybe some special offers."
Toronto Sun: "Why did you all decide to dress up like The Village People (in the video for 'Discotheque'). Can we expect to see them out on tour with you ?"
Bono: "As far as that video was concerned, we didn't want our audience to think we'd gone all weird on them. We wanted to make a video which put its arms around people and said, 'Hey, its OK."
London journalist: "Can I just ask with regard to the size of Pop Mart - why is the squeaky nun so small ?"
Bono: "Because she's very large in our lives."
BBC Radio 5 Live: "'Discotheque' went straight in at Number One in the UK, four years after you last made a record. Did you find it very satisfying to find you were still at the top after so long away ?"
Bono: "The funny thing is that we seem to have been away for a few years but that wasn't really the intention. We've done a lot of stuff. We released....oh, fuck, what was it called ?" (Laughter from the crowd as Bono seems to have genuinely forgotten the name of the Passengers project) The Edge (in a stage whispers "'Passengers'.")
Bono: "Yeah,'Passengers', that's it. Well, that was originally going to be a new U2 record but they talked us down from that one. If it had been a new U2 record it would only be a year and a half now since our last album -but there again, we mightn't have had any fans left ! Oh, there's been various soundtrack stuff, such as the Batman theme, and (impishly)Larry and Adam are doing 'Mission: Impossible VII', or whatever it is, so thats very exciting for them ! To be Number One is great, though, obviously, and we've just learnt today that 'Discotheque' has gone in at Number 10 here in America. That's why we've called the album 'Pop' - we hope it might catch on !"
A South American journalist begins to ask a long and rambling question about U2's visit to her continent. Bono, bored of the formality of the event, leaves the stage and stalks down the aisle of the press conference, fixing the poor girl in his gaze. He comes to a halt sitting in the lap of the bemused journalist in front of the Argentinian girl as she stutters to a halt.
Bono: (kindly) "So whats that ? You've got a problem with your mother ?" (The room erupts as the poor girl tries again, clearly wishing herself back in South America)
Bono: "Yes, we've wanted to play South America for a long time but never managed to figure out a way of getting there, but now we have done. I think it'll be a highlight of the whole tour".
South American joumalist: "Why will it be a highlight ?"
Bono: (sweeping a hand through his hair contemplatively)."'Highlights ? Do you know, I think I might !" (He returns to the stage under cover of another gale of laughter)
Scottish radio joumalist: "On the Zoo TV tour you were phoning politicians or ordering pizzas from the stage. Will you be doing that again this time around, and who will you phone ?"
The Edge: "The pizza places are on to us now so that option's out."
Bono: "We made some great calls to politicians on the last tour. Calling Alessandra Mussolini so that 70,000 ltalians could sing 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' to her was definitely a high point. I don't know if we'll use the telephone as a weapon on this tour, but if we don't, we'll find something else."
Canadian TV joumalist: "You had some great support bands on the last tour. Do you have any plans for these dates yet ?"
Bono: "On the last tour we had a lot of great bands and on this tour we'll have the same. A lot of bands have shown interest and we're currently trying to sort it all out. I love listening to people like Underworld or The Prodigy, because l can hear a line there all the way back to Robert Johnson. They're where its at, really. The Prodigy are interested in doing some shows with us, but they haven't finished their record yet so I don't think they'll be involved in the early parts of our tour. We'll get back to you on who's playing with us, but we like to mix it up a bit."
US radio journalist: "That song 'Holy Joe' which you played to us earlier - is that title, together with the album name 'Pop', an attempt to deflate the aura of sainthood which has been around U2 for years and years ?"
Bono: (smiling broadly, and heavily tongue-in-cheek) "Ah, it just won't go away, will it ? No matter about all these miracles, all these stadium tours and tinsel and televisions we use, I'm always going to be the fucker with the white flag as far as you are concerned ! Isn't that right ?"
US radio joumalist: (defensively) "I'm not putting my opinion, just asking whether you're trying to deflate that perception."
Bono: "Yes. The honest truth is that U2 are still the bleeding hearts club. Our music is still painfully and insufferably earnest. We've just got really smart at disguising that fact and throwing people off our trail. If we'd called 'Achtung Baby' by any other name, I think we'd have been taken out and hung. But here we are, and it looks like you've copped onto us !"
US journalist: "How much will your ticket prices be this tour ?"
Bono: "Wow - a money question ! I think the average ticket price around the world is about $45 (about £30) which is pretty good. I mean, how much is the Superbowl ?"
US journalist: "That's different."
Bono: (mock-outraged) "What do you mean, 'that's different' ? With U2 you get the Superbowl every night"
CBS New York correspondent: "Is there any significance to holding this press conference on Ash Wednesday and staging the first date in Las Vegas ?"
Bono: (teasing) "A-ha - Ash Wednesday ! That's very well spotted ! I reckon the combination of Ash Wednesday and K-Mart just about sums U2 up, and therein lie our contradiction and the cross we carry. Carnival means a lotto me, because carnival should be the celebration of the flesh going into the denial which leads into Easter. Unfortunately, in Ireland we tend to forget about the carnival and go big on the denial ! Well, maybe we can be the carnival."
US magazine joumalist: "You are the first band to have been burglarised on the Internet (a reference to an early mix of 'Discotheque' being 'stolen' from U2's studio and posted on the worldwide web). Will you acknowledge the Internet on this tour and exploit that technology ?"
The Edge: "You mean, as compared to being exploited by it ? WelI, yeah, we did get - what did you say ? - burglarised, and we are interested in having a major presence on the Internet, but there's nothing definite yet."
Female US joumalist: (flirting) "What's your log-on, Edge ?"
The Edge: "Ah, you'll have to know me a bit better than that !"
US Sony Radio journalist: "How much input did you personally have on the design and look of the Pop Mart tour ?" (Bono seizes eagerly on this question)
Bono: "Well, everything, because thats what we do nowadays, basically. Why do you think its fucking taken us nine months to make the record ? Its been madness trying to put all this together and I honestly don't know how much longer we can carry on trying to assemble shows Iike this and Zoo TV. We're involved all hours of the night and day, and (U2 producer) Flood will tell you how frustrating he finds it to work with us on the music when we're constantly trying to work out the visual coefficient. Its very interesting how rock'n'roll is mutating into all kinds of things at the moment, though. We find it all very exciting. The bottom line is that playing a football stadium doesn't have to be like standing at the back of a muddy field in the Seventies. It can be an extraordinary event and it's very exciting for us to be aIlowed to do what we want to."
US magazine joumalist: "'Pop' is the first time in 13 years that you haven't worked with Brian Eno producing. Why the change ?"
The Edge: "I think going into the record we both figured that we were interested in doing fairly different things, so we came to the conclusion very painlessly that we wouldn't work together on 'Pop'. Brian felt the same as us: he wanted to concentrate on his solo work, and we wanted to concentrate on doing something we felt Brian wouldn't really be interested in. It was an easy decision to make. There was no problem."
Bono: (mischievously) "Plus Eno has a serious grudge against guitar players (The Edge blinks, twitches and mutters 'Well....) But he took a strong interest in 'Pop' and called us when he got sent a copy, which is....very cool of him, to remain interested on an outside level. Eno's great. Bands like us normally go to art college, but we never did - we went to Brian. He'll always be a part of us."
Polish radio journalist: "You are playing in Poland and the Czech Republic - was that difficult to organise ?"
Bono: "Yeah, because it was hard to fix a ticket price low enough to enable enough people to come to make the show make sense....(he looks concerned at the parochial nature of the question) Is this getting boring for people ? (Shouts of 'No' from the floor) Wow - are we really such funny, charismatic people ?"
Hollywood Reporter (US trade magazine): "How do you feel about the fact that Island, your record company, is not going to share promotional costs on 'Pop' with the retailer ? Will this affect album sales ?"
Bono: (wide-eyed in mock-shock a'la Bill & Ted) "Wow, dude ! Wow !"
Portuguese joumalist: "Do you plan to do anything in future along the lines of interactive TV ?"
The Edge: "No, the interactive TV idea we worked with about four years ago proved not to be very practical, so in the end we dropped it. Will we revisit it again - who knows ? At the moment Zoo TV is still an ongoing project, though."
Portuguese journalist: "In what way ?"
Bono: "We worked on some video games and we thought it might be interesting to take some of the characters from Zoo TV and set them off on their own. We wanted to turn Zoo TV itself into a TV station, and it may still happen - we have a few pilot shows coming up in the spring."
It's indicated that there is time for only one more question, and a US magazine journalist asks Bono to expand a little further on the choice of "Pop" as an album title and "PopMart" as the tour legend.
Bono: "Pop is just a great word, isn't it ? There's a big 'O' in the middle you can put your head right through ! I think it is an important point that 'pop' became a term of abuse during the Seventies and Eighties. In Europe, certainly, it was against the law to be Number One, and if you sold a lot of records you were regarded as having 'sold out'. That WAS the attitude in the UK and Ireland, and I'm glad it's over now because it led to a kind of miserabilism. As a band, U2 have always wanted to Write It Large. We don't share that dishonesty thing of white rock music where people just won't own up to having a vision and ambition. Hip hop, say, isn't like that, because those people want to see how far they can take everything, they want to take on the world and do it on their own terms. A lot of white groups have this whole thing about (affects a Cobain Vedder-style whine), 'Oh, I don't know how all this happened to me, I don't know how I signed to a major label and got myself a manager and got to be Number One, and l think I'd better go and kill myself !' (Uneasy laughter from the audience) Well, yeah, it is funny but it also ISN'T because its actually ultimately a political thing going on behind there. U2 have always wanted to be a band Iike The Beatles or The Who or The Sex Pistols - we've always just wanted to be BOLD. When I was 17 my mate Gavin Friday (Dublin poet/singer and long-time mucker of Bono) gave me the book 'A To B And Back Again' by Andy Warhol and I'd sit and read it for hours. I found great liberation in the way Warhol saw things. He never tiptoed around things, he just took them on. And that's what U2 want to do and to carry on doing."
Bono rises with a flourish. "Thank you very much."
Posted by Jonathan at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 1997
About Pop and more
The Guardian, February 14, 1997
Last November, out on the highway, U2 got mugged. It was on the information super- highway, of course, and there was no violence involved - just an intricate hack into their studio computers in Dublin which resulted in 30-second snatches of two unfinished songs from their new album being posted on the Internet, played by a US radio station, and then bootlegged on CDs which sold for £6 each.
There was a lot of bluster at the time, but in the end it did the group no harm: the finished version of Discotheque, one of the songs stolen, has just gone straight in at number one. Although the charts have been remarkably soft so far in 1997, with singles shooting to the top only to disappear a week later, this is only U2's third number one single and last week their record company, Island, sent 300,000 records - their biggest shipment ever - out into the shops to satisfy demand. Like the cyberspace robber, it's a clear indication of the excitement surrounding the band's eagerly awaited new album, Pop, a record which has been rumoured to be trip-hop, techno, even trance - but definitely moving in a new direction.
Pop had originally been scheduled for completion last September; but is now due in the shops on March 3. For a band as big as U2, this delay means more than disappointing the fans: when it was announced that the album wouldn't, after all, be ready for the lucrative pre-Christmas trading period, Island warned that it would be trading at a loss that quarter without the £30 million or so in sales the album was expected to generate, and shares in parent company Polygram fell as a result.
But for U2, this was important for other reasons. It was their first for almost a decade without Brian Eno as producer, a partnership that perhaps went as far it could go with Original Soundtracks Volume 1, an album released in 1995 under the alias Passengers and featuring U2 and Eno alongside Pavarotti and dance producer, DJ Howie B. Most of the band defend the project, but interviewed in Q magazine this month, drummer Larry Mullen made no attempt to conceal his dislike: "For me at least, there's a thin line between making interesting music and being self-indulgent. We crossed that line several times on Passengers. Mine is that it's a lot of very very bad, self-indulgent music".
This, and the current vitality of dance music, explains the new direction. Despite the sales approaching 70 million records, U2 have never been afraid to experiment. When they set out in 1978, their ambitions were unfashionably grand for a group influenced by the energy of punk. They wanted, from the start, to be one of the biggest bands in the world, and they succeeded. Their strategy of almost constant, gruelling touring of the US finally paid off when their album The Joshua Tree broke through there in 1987, eventually going on to sell 15 million copies world-wide. But by 1988, and the Rattle and Hum album, what had once sounded grand and swaggering had begun to sound pompous, and they were teetering on the edge of self-parody. They could easily have fallen victim to what is known as Simple Minds Syndrome, a disease whereby music echoes emptily around stadiums and causes those playing it to stagnate into huge, immovable fossils. But instead U2 imploded, introducing synthesisers and new technology into what had previously been a very orthodox guitar-led rock sound and triumphantly reinventing themselves with 1991's Achtung Baby.
Some tracks from this album were given to DJ Paul Oakenfold and his studio partner Steve Osborne to remix, making U2 one of the first big rock acts to dabble in the emerging club culture, and by 1993 they even had Oakenfold touring with them for nine months, warming up the stadiums instead of a support act. Which is why the rumours of a dance album were so readily believed, especially when Bjork/Madonna producer Nellee Hooper was brought in for a while. Eventually, however, U2 settled with the chaotic-sounding combination of Howie B and their regular engineer/co-producer Flood in the studio, plus Mark "Spike" Stent and Steve Osborne helping out on mixes.
"The basic premise was that they wanted to move on, that they couldn't repeat themselves," Flood told Music Week. "They wanted to bring in elements from the dance world and integrate them, not necessarily with the aim of turning it into a danceable album, but to synthesise a new sound. That's why different people came in; they wanted to experiment with different influences." "I began just playing tunes, old school hip-hop, that sort of thing and we talked," says Howie B. "Then we were jamming together in the studio. I was putting together beats and loops, digging out samples. It went off at magic tangents, and that was the best thing about it. Half the time I didn't have a clue what was going on. As long as you were able to react to what was happening and were honest, it was really exciting."
The result is not so much a dance album as an album influenced by the way dance records are put together. There are samples, sequencers and dense, layered textures, tunes built from samples and breakbeats, but there are also real drums, loud guitars and tracks that are far closer to Velvet Underground than The Prodigy. "You don't learn by drawing a line and saying these are the limits of rock'n'roll, or these are the size of the buildings you should play," Bono has said about the album. "Success is one thing in pop music, but staying relevant is a bigger challenge."
Ten years ago, U2 had no serious competition from their peers - no one really expected the likes of The Jesus And Mary Chain to go global. Now few doubt that groups like Oasis and Radiohead could, very soon, be packing in stadiums across America if they spend enough time there and work at it. And it is becoming ever more difficult for rock music to sound new. The weight of its history is pressing it flat, and with reissued CDs available in every record shop, the current generation is more aware of its legacy - which is why so much of the music they make verges on pastiche. With a group like Oasis, their youth, their attitude is what makes their retrospection seem fresh and exciting. But for groups like U2 and REM - men who are now in their mid-to-late thirties - it is more of a problem. Rock'n'Roll is still primarily an adolescent form, and both groups are struggling in their different ways to continue making music that is fresh without becoming parodies of their younger selves - like the Rolling Stones.
In Q, Bono admits that there was a ban on playing Beatles records in the studio during the making of the album, and that its title, Pop, is "a way of dodging the 'O' word, ie Oasis. Y'Know, what is rock music now ? What is it ? Because there once was a time when people hadn't heard the sound of an electric guitar overloading through a little printed circuit going into an amp. When people heard Hendrix, that was fresh. We're doing the same through sampling, just different little printed circuits. Using the technology, abusing the technology. It's the William Burrough's thing, that you cut up the past to form the future. There's a difference between liking something because it reminds you of something that was great. That karaoke aspect of where rock'n'roll is now."
Perhaps the most pertinent thing to be said about U2 is summed up in the final sentences of the potted biography they send out to the press. It reads, simply, "No one has ever left U2; no member has ever joined. The band remains in Dublin, Ireland where they grew up and met." U2 were school friends when they decided to form a band in 1978; almost 20 years later, they are still friends. There have been crises, of course, times when they looked like falling apart, but some of their best work (Achtung Baby, for instance), came out of these periods.
The band will not discuss their finances (such figures, their manager told me when I asked about the profits likely to be generated by their upcoming tour, "always look vulgar written down"), but are said to be worth something like £75 million each. They live in Ireland, away from the intrusions of the British tabloids. They don't welcome Hello! into their homes. They don't flaunt their wealth, their cars, their art collections, but nor do they sit around wringing their hands, complaining of Paradise Syndrome and whinging. Writing in his diary of 1995, A Year With Swollen Appendices, Brian Eno records warm, friendly dinner parties, late-night drinking sessions and people who seemed to be living proper, enjoyable lives without too much angst. In one entry he notes, "Fascinating to see that, after all this time, there is still such courtesy, understanding and love between them."
Their manager, Paul McGuinness, says the band have survived when many of their peers - The Pretenders, The Police - have fallen by the wayside because they are first and foremost friends, because they have managed to keep moving creatively, but most of all because they are "obsessively - sometimes annoyingly - democratic". All royalties are split between them five ways (McGuinness getting one share) , so there have never been the same conflicts about money and songwriting credits that tear many bands apart. All decisions are unanimous. Which is why, without someone like Eno to adjudicate, Pop perhaps took so long to finish.
Apart from a brief period when bassist Adam Clayton was engaged to Naomi Campbell, the band managed to supply the tabloids with remarkably little entertainment over the years. Clayton's relationship with the model was called off after he was reported to have gone on a bender in a London hotel, phoning out for prostitutes to party with him. In December 1993, he failed to turn up to a concert in Australia after unspecified "over- indulgence", and was replaced on stage by a roadie - the only time another musician has appeared on stage with the band. But even this, in the end, was undramatic. The band closed ranks, and rallied round in support. Clayton is now clean, sober, and not at all inclined to do the obligatory round of hand-wringing, confessional interviews now expected of celebrities in such circumstances. It is, he has said firmly, a personal matter.
If the press find reason to attack U2 at all, it is for being pompous, earnest or self- righteous, but even here they seem to have it wrong. Reviews of Pop will be mixed: sections of the rock press will resent the intrusion of dance music's technology, club culture will meanwhile complain of bandwagon-jumping and declare that it doesn't go far enough. In the end, neither will really matter. At a press conference in a K-Mart store in New York last Wednesday, U2 announced their Disco-Mart tour, playing 100 or so dates to an estimated five million people and selling their album to the world. Staging promises to be even more spectacular than the Zoo TV tour, with a screen half the size of a football pitch flashing images at the crowd, a 70-foot olive on a stick conveying the disco theme and the band arriving on stage inside a giant mirrorball. The circus will kick off in the US in spring, come to the UK at the end of summer, with dates at Wembley (August 22), Leeds (August 28), and Edinburgh (September 2), and will travel to places off the current world tour circuit like South Africa and Estonia. And despite speculation about involvement by Apple or Microsoft, once again there will not be a sponsor. "Sponsors," comments Paul McGuinness wryly, "tend to be rather needy." Fans used to paying £20 or more to watch their idols dancing around a giant soft drink or beer bottle on stage will tend to agree.
And Pop will sound good in stadiums. It isn't a trip-hop album, or a techno album. You can't dance to it, as the band proved themselves in their rather naff Village People parody video. What U2 have managed to do is something far more interesting. They've made a modern, relevant album that also sounds unmistakably like it was made by U2. "As Bob Dylan said, 'He not busy being born is busy dying,' and I think the death starts in your record collection," explains Bono. "I like to feel alive. I think I'm awake, and this is the noise that keeps me alive".
Copyright © 1997 The Guardian. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 1997
Searching For A Sound To Bridge The Decades
New York Times, February 9, 1997
Searching For A Sound To Bridge The Decades
by Jon Pareles
DUBLIN -- It was crunch time for U2. The Irish band's next single had to be finished within three days, and the deadline for the complete album, which had not yet been entitled "Pop," was less than a month away. U2, with its producers and engineers, was recording and mixing in two studios simultaneously. Workdays stretched to 14 and 16 hours. But even at that stage, everything was subject to change -- including, as it turned out, the final deadline. "We have trouble finishing things," said the Edge, U2's guitarist. The album, originally due last September as a pre-Christmas release, was finished in late December, with all-night recording sessions up to the last minute. It is to be released March 4.
During the nine months it took to make "Pop," U2 invited a few journalists in to watch the band record. This observer joined the group just as it was finishing the single, which was released last week. It was a rare chance for an outsider to see a process that usually takes place in private. For a band like U2, making an album is essentially a slow-motion improvisation in which ideas are seized and refined while the tapes roll. What state was the album in? "Chaos," said Bono, U2's lead singer. "Promise," said the Edge.
U2 was intent on renewing itself, determined to sound like neither its 1980's incarnation -- as the most achingly sincere, and sometimes self-important, band of the decade -- or the raucous, buzz-and-crunch rock band that has survived the short attention spans of the early 1990's. Like R.E.M. in the United States, U2 has been able to maintain the respect of alternative rockers while reaching a broader audience; unlike R.E.M., whose latest album was a commercial disappointment, U2 will wholeheartedly promote "Pop" with a world tour that begins in the spring. U2's label, Island, and much of the recording business hope that U2 is one group from the 1980's that can still sell like superstars.
U2 made "Boy," its 1980 debut album, when its four members, friends from high school, were still teen-agers. The combination of the Edge's echoing guitar, Bono's impassioned voice and the martial rhythms of Adam Clayton on bass and Larry Mullen on drums was an arena-size peal, as instantly recognizable as the sound of the Who. The music itself evoked idealism with the resonance of a cathedral while carrying lyrics about adolescent turmoil and mystical Christianity. U2 made honesty sound like a holy quest, and millions of listeners responded, hearing their own yearnings in choruses like "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
The band's old approach continues to reverberate in best-selling bands like Live. But in 1988, U2 reached a dead end with "Rattle and Hum." As it strained to create the sound of integrity, it ended up with awkward emulations of American blues and soul. So, a decade into its career, U2 transformed itself for its 1991 album, "Achtung Baby." It exchanged transparency for distortion and earnestness for a nervy ambiguity. "We were absolutely adamant that we didn't want to sound like U2," the Edge said. "We're so much better if we don't know what we're doing, because if it's too easy, then that's what it sounds like -- too easy."
For its Zoo TV world tour in 1992, U2 filled stadiums as it performed amid a barrage of television imagery, mocking and savoring both the global marketplace and U2's own celebrity. "Zooropa," released in 1993, certified that U2 wasn't looking back. "We're probably the only European band of our generation still releasing relevant records and still playing in large spaces," said Adam Clayton, U2's bass player. "We've grown up along with a section of our audience. But we've always been relevant to a younger audience, and we enjoy that position too much to give it up unwittingly. I think that in rock-and-roll, for a credible artist, the age limit may be about 35. But if you stay honest, you can push the age restriction a bit." Clayton and Bono are 36 years old; the Edge and Mullen are 35.
"Rock-and-roll is obsessed with juvenilia," said Bono. "But the sense of threat that rock-and-roll has is actually not about boys. There's nothing scary about a man trying to be a boy. Men are scarier than boys."
Before starting "Pop," U2 took a year off, then made "Passengers: Original Soundtracks 1," which was billed as a collaboration by Brian Eno and the four band members. It's an album of songs for real and imaginary films, full of eerie textures and juxtapositions; it eased the band back into the studio. By the time U2 started working on "Pop," the band's ninth full-length album, its members had grown fascinated by current dance music.
To make "Pop," U2 chose two producers. Flood, a soft-spoken Englishman, worked on "Zooropa" and has also produced albums for Depeche Mode and Smashing Pumpkins. Howie B., a disk jockey and remixer with his own independent label, Pussyfoot, is fluent in subgenres from acid jazz to trip-hop to techno to drum-and-bass to lounge. Potentially, Flood could shape the monumental tones and dynamics of arena rock; Howie B. could manipulate off-the-wall samples and sustain the abstract rhythms heard at after-hours dance clubs.
Like David Bowie, whose new album, "Earthling," embraces the chattering electronic rhythms of drum-and-bass dance music, U2 hears its future in up-to-date grooves. But it but doesn't intend to abandon melody.
"Musicians, painters, whatever, they have no choice but to describe where they live," said Bono, whose ordinary conversation is often true to a tradition of Irish bards. "Sometimes it may seem hard to keep your ear on the street because there's a lot of stuff you don't want to pick up. But as Bob Dylan said, 'He not busy being born is busy dying,' and I think the death starts in your record collection. I like to feel alive. I think I'm awake, and this is the noise that keeps me awake."
After "Pop" was finished, Bono described it as "a mixed-up kid of a record." Behind its surface exuberance, "Discotheque" broods over the elusiveness of love; from there, much of the album is moody and introspective. "Discotheque' is to get people dizzy so we can take advantage of them for the rest of the album," Bono said. The songs, consistent with U2's past, are often about searching: for love, for faith, for purpose. Amid the hipster drumbeats and rough-cut guitars, the songs are willing to confide their uncertainty. "That seems to be what U2 has to do now, to keep the context opposite the content," Bono said. "People think we're fun, but it's very personal music."
The title "Pop" was deliberately chosen. "Even though this record sounds like a sprawl, and the sounds are quite radical, there's a songwriting discipline at work here which is kind of pop," Bono said. "We were also annoyed at the word rock."
"It's a record about looking for some kind of transcendence as well as trash," he added. "And looking under the trash is where you seem to find that transcendence. In among the noise, that's where I hear that whisper."
But the concept was a matter of hindsight. In an era of 48-track recording, studio albums are less the execution of a conceptual blueprint than they are accretions of details: planned and improvised, inspired and accidental. A finished song is the residue of innumerable decisions, painstakingly assembled in the hope of sounding spontaneous and ineluctably right. "Sometimes a song is like a crystal," the Edge said. "Everything just develops in a clear and obvious way. But not very often."
The process can be wearying. "Options are the enemy," Bono said. "A door opens and you walk through it, and you're down a lane way, and there's a light on in somebody's bedroom, and you knock on a door, you're upstairs, you have a glass of wine, and the next thing you know you're in Italy. There are all these diversions, and they're so tantalizing."
In the studio, U2 keeps its options open. As its deadline loomed, the band had nearly two albums' worth of material in various stages of completion. Almost invariably, the words would come last, as Bono and the Edge responded to the mood of the music they had assembled.
"Sometimes it takes a few months for a record to focus," the Edge said. "You've got a lot of nearly finished ideas that could go lots of different ways, and then suddenly you see how things interact." On a board charting the progress of songs were notations like "Try new melody on chorus" and, for "Do You Feel Loved," the injunction: "Pop vs. rock ... discuss."
U2's policy is to discuss everything. The band makes its decisions by consensus, over lunches and dinners or in the studio. "Everybody gets involved in everything," Mullen explained. "Sometimes that can be a real pain, because everybody's got opinions. But we've fine-tuned it over the years, and we're all fighting for the same thing in the end, to make great songs."
Flood, who has seen all sorts of approaches to recording, was impressed by U2's insistence on unanimity.
"They're very egoless," he said. "The ego has to do with the four of them, not each of them separately."
For today's session, the first task was to wrap up the single. "Discotheque" would be the song to announce that U2 was back in action, with a jabbing, insistent guitar hook and echoes of dance hits from "Dance to the Music" to "Love to Love You, Baby." The song begins with the line, "You can reach but you can't grab it." Bono described it as "an earnest little riddle about love, though it comes off as bubble gum." "
For the past few days, Flood and U2 had been re-editing "Discotheque," shuffling its sections -- which had been assigned names like "Drugs" and "Religious" -- with a computer. Over lunch, listening to various versions, the whole band had approved a structure. But Bono wasn't happy with the way he had sung the word "tonight" three times in the song's last verse.
"All right, Conal, full disco!" Bono instructed the assistant engineer, who flicked some switches. In the control room, above the console, a spotlight illuminated a mirror ball; a machine projected a city skyline on the wall.
Bono clutched a microphone and started tapping his foot to the music. To record three words, he would sing the song all the way through; perhaps he would improve on the existing takes. He sang while half-climbing out of his chair, then stepped up onto a table and worked his arms and chest as if he were on stage. He tried singing in a big, melodramatic voice, and then in a gentle falsetto; he tried a slight hesitation before the third "tonight." Flood stayed poker-faced and silent until Bono asked what he thought. "The first line sounded good, the second ----" He shrugged.
Bono danced and shouted through the song again, working up a sweat by the time he was satisfied. The single wasn't done yet, however. Flood and the Edge would still be supervising alternate versions: one without vocals for television studio appearances, another without samples in case permissions weren't granted, and a third, four-minute version for radio stations. Mullen, who had avoided reading the lyric sheet, would listen to make sure he could understand the words. "I'm the lyric police," he said. The next night, the band would approve final mixes.
After his session, Bono decided to unwind with a Guinness at the local pub. A warning glance from U2's office manager turned out to be about his waistline. "Look," he said to her, pulling up his shirt. "Fat Elvis is gone." As he stood at the bar, a local man struck up a conversation about a house Bono used to live in. "You remember when you were robbed of a VCR and a couple of TV's?" the man asked. "That was me." Bono shrugged his forgiveness and asked the man what he had been doing since; he was regaled with a catalogue of petty crimes.
With "Discotheque" more or less complete, the single needed a B side: a finished second-echelon song not destined for the album. In U2's own studio, with a view of Dublin's Grand Canal basin, Howie B., Clayton and an assistant were working on "If You Wear That Velvet Dress," a smoky ballad filled with troubled longing. What it lacked was momentum, and Howie B. was trying to find it. Then, in the many arrangements the band had recorded, he did: a nudge from the bass at the end of one verse, a glimmering sample from a contemporary classical album in another, floating bell tones and the pi*ce de r*sistance: a hovering Hammond organ chord drifting in and out of the mix. Well after midnight, Clayton told Howie B. that the song didn't sound like a B side anymore; it could be an album track. Howie B. and his bleary-eyed assistant shared a gleeful high-five. Over lunch the next day, the band and both producers considered whether to make "Velvet Dress" an album track. Was it too similar in mood to other songs in the works? "It's really intense," Flood said, "and then you can't put anything else in that style on your album, which I think is really positive. It pushes you."
Two songs were complete. "Now we know how to finish the others," the Edge said. "Let's think of them all as B sides."
Since "Velvet Dress" was now headed for the album, the single still needed a B side, with the deadline two days away. "This is kind of a pressure situation," the Edge said. A new candidate for the B side was "Holy Joe," which in its current state was a three-chord rocker with no words beyond a few opening lines -- "I'm a humble guy/No, really, I try" -- and a chorus, "Come on, be good to me." Bono and the Edge were sequestered, trying to come up with the rest of the words. Flood, Howie B. and Mullen were going over the rhythm track, pulling out the punchiest sections, turning them into loops to use as the beat for the song.
Bono emerged with another B-side possibility: "North and South of the River," a song he wrote with Christy Moore, whom he calls "Ireland's Woody Guthrie." Written after warring factions in Northern Ireland announced a cease-fire agreement in 1994, it's a hopeful song about two lovers; the music merges the forthright marches of the old U2 with a hint of Motown backbeat. The song was complete, lyrics and all, although Bono would want to alter a few lines since the cease-fire hadn't put an end to the violence. The band gathered in the control room to listen to the song anew, and Bono asked for reactions. The song would be a serious flip side to the uptempo "Discotheque." Would the contrast be a good idea? The consensus was no; the song was too somber and political, too much like the old U2, for the band's re-emergence. Bono, biting his nails, went back to writing.
The Edge ambled into the control room with a guitar technician who hooked up an antique Gretsch guitar. He started to play along with the rhythm section: ferocious strummed chords, then choppier ones, then choked semi-funk, track upon track. "Holy Joe" was starting to sound like the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man."
Soon, Bono walked by with an open laptop; a few minutes later, he returned with a printout of the new lyrics. Edge scrutinized them with an editor's concentration. "It's just a sketch," Bono said, but Flood wanted him to record a vocal so that the band could build more music around it. Bono was looking for a rhyme for "precocious." When Clayton asked if "unctuous" has ever been used in a song, Bono misheard. "Anxious?" he said. "I'll take anxious."
He sang the new words, in high and low octaves, with other band members offering suggestions about tone and phrasing. But the song still wasn't crisp enough. As Bono and the Edge went off to refine the lyrics, Mullen decided to add percussion. An assistant brought in a djembe, an African hand drum. When Mullen hit it, the control-room speaker made a squawk of distortion.
Flood didn't hear a problem; he heard a noise to be exploited. Quickly, he and an assistant pointed a microphone at the tortured speaker, which emitted a raunchy, rhythmic hoot. Mullen added more layers of percussion: hand drums, egg-shaped rattles, maracas. Howie B., who had two turntables hooked up to the console, rooted through his record collection to find a useful sample -- horns from a Dean Martin album, perhaps? The Edge returned to try wah-wah guitar chords, then conferred with Clayton about what key the song was now in; each had his own theory. Bono sang up high, and then in a cackling whisper. The song had suddenly veered in a new direction, raw and rhythmic, and U2, with grins all around, was ready to chase it.
Copyright © 1997 New York Times. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:27 AM | Comments (0)
February 01, 1997
Ice Magazine Pop Preview
Ice Magazine, February 1997
NEW U2 ALBUM, POP, DUE IN STORES ON MARCH 4
The world's biggest rock band, U2, will release their highly anticipated new album, POP, on Island Records on March 4, worldwide. The album's first single, "Discotheque" has already been released to radio stations and video channels, and will be available in stores on February 4. Then POP, U2's first album since 1993's Zooropa, will almost certainly debut at the top spot in Billboard's album chart in mid-March, becoming the Irish band's fifth consecutive #1 album. A worldwide tour is planned to start shortly thereafter, probably in April, with early odds favoring Las Vegas, Nevada, as the tour's kick-off point.
The new album was recorded last year in Dublin, Ireland, at Hanover Studios, and was produced by Flood, the Englishman who co-produced Zooropa and, more recently, The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Additional production was handled by Howie B. and Steve Osborne.
The track list for POP, in order: "Discotheque," "Do You Feel Loved," "Mofo," "If God Will Send His Angels," "Staring at the Sun," "Last Night on Earth," "Gone," "Miami," "The Playboy Mansion," "Velvet Dress," "Please," and "Wake Up Dead Man." In addition, the commercial maxi-single for "Discotheque" contains the non-album track "Holy Joe."
As exemplified by the sound of "Discotheque," the new album is being touted as another change in direction for U2. One closely involved source tells ICE, "It's a rock record, but there are a lot of electronic/techno influences present. There are some stone-cold hits on it, much more accessible then "Discotheque," but there are some really risky tracks on it, too."
Hooman Majd, Island's Executive Vice President, tells ICE, "There are definitely elements of dance music; Howie B's influence is definitely felt on this record. That's exciting, because it feels like a modern record, without being forced in any way. U2 is one of the few bands that can do that."
"They have the amazing ability to look around at what's going on and to be affected and influenced by exciting new things, and they certainly have been on this record. They're very attuned to what kids listen to, and they've always been fans of good music, whatever the genre, which is key to maintaining creativity over the long haul. But there are definitely songs that can be viewed as traditional U2-type songs, too."
Adds Stacie Negas, Island's Director of Marketing and the album's product manager, "It definitely has a contemporary-rock feel to it, and no matter what the band does, it's very identifiably U2." Several sources also agree that the music on POP tends to be less accessible when first heard, but then grows on the listener, a U2 trademark in recent years."
At first glance, some of the song titles appear intriguing, such as "The Playboy Mansion." The song centers around trying to get through the gates of Hugh Hefner's famous mansion, but Bono's lyrics don't make it clear whether the song is written from a man's perspective or a woman's. "To me, it seems like a comment on society, and how the Playboy Mansion is held in such high esteem," Negas tells ICE. "But I think you have to listen to it and make up your own mind."
"Miami: was influenced by the band's stay in the Florida city before they commenced recording of POP. "You feel like you're in Miami when you listen to the song," one source tells ICE. "It does capture it really well. It's not just the scenery; it's more about the people there and what they're doing." Sample lyric "Big girl with a sweet tooth/Watches skinny girl on a photo shoot."
"Mofo" is described by Negas as "basically the most techno song on the album, maybe the one which doesn't sound too U2-like. Then some really ethereal, Edge guitars come out of nowhere and fly in on top of this wall-of-techno sound. It's really cool." For those wondering, Bono doest not sing the word motherfucker, the word for which mofo is slang abbreviation.
"Staring at the Sun" received accolades from several sources as one of the album's highlights. "It's their most Beatle-esque song," says one source. "Edges's guitar sounds a bit like George Harrison."
The cover of POP features highly stylized, Andy Warhol-ish portraits of the four group members - Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullin, Jr.-in primary colors on metallic silver. The CD booklet also contains individual panels with each band member's portrait, giving consumers a choice as to who they want on the cover - the entire band or just one member. The cover art is in keeping with the "pop" theme of the album's title, which refers to pop art (as opposed to a short, loud noise, a soft drink or someone's father.)
Copyright © 1997 Howard Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:23 AM | Comments (0)
Kitsch Of Distinction
New Musical Express, February 1997
Kitsch Of Distinction
RATING: 8 (out of ten)
"These days, I hear a lot of rock ... but where's the roll?" Keith Richards, 1995
YEAH, RIGHT. Chance would have been a fine thing. Pop? Pah! U2 were always a rock band. For all the bollocks they spouted about being a folk band, a blues band, a gospel band, a Gonzo Cod Doo Dah Band, they couldn't even truly be a rock-n-roll band, as they showed on 'Rattle & Hum' - they were too stiff, too sexless (for all Bono's leather keks and Jim Morrison schtick), too earnest to recognize the ridiculousness and fun and funk of it all. They didn't have the 'roll' part of the equation, as Sir Keef memorably defined it. But rock bands made in the '80s can't survive in the '90s without swotting up on some chapters from the pop survival book. The ones called 'Reinvention', or 'Staying In Fashion'. And particularly 'There's Always Been A Drum'n'Bass/Trip-Hop/Bergkamp Piss Pie Remix Element To Our Music'. The '80s breed of dinosaurs can't just lie on their sunbeds by the pool on Sunset and hope that their stray farts will fill Wembley. Besides, most of them come from post-punk stock, and they still care about things like 'credibility', 'integrity' and 'respect' in circles other than Mojo magazine. Ambition bites the nails of success, or something. And if Everything But The Girl can do it, so can you.
If U2 were one of the bands who defined the '80s, especially the latter half - stadium conscience rock, the Live Aid aristocracy, po-faced liberal austerity, authenticity chic, nuclear paranoia, American cultural hegemony, etc - then they are only too aware that they can only reflect aspects of the '90s - post-Cold War internationalism, eclecticism and dance crossover culture, irony, post-Thatch apathy, media saturation - from a humbly detached perspective. They wouldn't dare set themselves up as spokesmen for a generation any more. So, yeah, we'll let them in the end-of-millennium party. Not least because 'Pop' is a very fine record which proves they've still got a great deal to bring to it, as a revitalised, recycled, repackaged modern rock'n'roll band. So how could this happen? I mean, just how toe-chewingly awful were U2 in the '80s? Let us count the ways: the flag-waving rebel/icon posturing; the impeccably safe, vaguely hypocritical say-nothing platitude politics; the men-of-the-people pretensions; the authenticity-on-loan of 'Rattle & Hum'; the rubbish poetry; the endless empty rhetoric, empty gesturing and empty pomp and circumstance of the stadium rock anthem style they epitomised.
Smashing blokes, though, and when they concentrated on writing basic love songs (see 'The Unforgettable Fire', 'With Or Without You', 'All I Want Is You') they could breach the hardest of hearts. So, moderately awful then. Where did it all go right? No, it wasn't 'irony' that did it. It wasn't dance music, and it wasn't a pair of wraparound shades. It was around the turn of the decade, when they realized they were staring into a huge steaming abyss of naffness. U2 were officially uncool, and there was no point in pretending they could still be the band of the age, since they were so shackled to the '80s in their audience's minds. So it wasn't worth worrying about. Instead, they relaxed, loosened their belts and watched the world go by. More importantly, they relaxed sufficiently to allow a certain funk into their music, they dug into rich seams of genuine rock-n-roll sleaziness and even allowed themselves a taste of camp sexuality. Meanwhile, as by-products, a sense of drama and emotion emerged from the ashes of melodrama and bombast. And, don't choke on your Nicaraguan coffee, they had a laugh.
They were still trying too hard. But, for the most part, it worked. There was still a lot of pseudy bollocks and casual hypocrisy inherent in the Zoo TV and Zooropa shows ('Everything You Know Is Wrong'... shaaaadaaap!), but for all the snotty sniffing of the PC police (because we're too thick to deal with a bit of fascist imagery), they still managed to reconcile stadium rock with its contradictions and play with their own 'oeuvre' without, for once, looking like pretentious art-rock arseholes. But irony, postmodernism and kitsch are all too often the last refuge of morally bankrupt style whores. It's bourgeois slacker apathy in smart-arse hipster's second-hand clothing, and even though we needed a spoonful after the decade that U2 epitomised, it soon became an overdose. When the ultimate cultural achievement is a vacuous collage of coolness like Pulp Fiction, you know it's time for a reality check, our kid.
Fortunately, U2 have just about learnt to surf the Zeitgeist by now, if by hip design or natural devotion, and they've made a record which is as postmodern as it is heartfelt, as sexy as it is soulful, as hedonistic as it is political, as light as it is dark, and as humble as it is huge-sounding. You could argue all night about their motives, but whether they've had an honest conversion to dance music as the future of rock-n-roll or just jumped on the bandwagon and bought a ticket in the first-class section hoping some ideas will rub off, the result is some bloody marvellous music. You know 'Discotheque' by now. And in case you weren't aware, it's ... A DRUGS SONG! "You know you're chewing bubblegum/You know what that is but you still want some/You just can't get enough of that lovie dovie stuff". You know, love is the drug, music is the drug, E is the drug, but how the fuck are you going to satisfy your craving when it's all half-cut with cultural and sensual junk food? Not that we're listening until about the tenth hearing, because the crotch-hammering, hard-headed voodoo beats, techno-riffs and nasty urban noise are far too addictive.
Now, this is rock'n'roll dragged grooving and screeching into the '90s. And it's big, loud, euphoric music without ever being overblown. Who'd have thought it? Well, maybe Flood and Howie B, perchance, who are producer and assistant here. But the soundscapes owe as much to the new horizons of The Edge's post-nuclear guitar squall as a few repetitive beats. The likes of The Prodigy or Underworld might have thought of 'Mofo', but it would still do them proud. It's a white-knuckle, techno rock, car-chase through the apocalyptic streets of the nihilistic rock-n-roll night (note that sentence's similarity to old-style U2 lyric - clever wording, cheers) and it is fantastic. Meanwhile, Bono is growling angry rhymes about searching for his mother or something. And we don't mind! Because he doesn't sound like a wanker any more! But, while U2 are successfully discovering brave new worlds for themselves, there's still much of the old U2 here... only different.
Three tracks in the middle of the album have choruses destined to be sung in stadiums across the US mid-West, with arms stretched aloft. But somehow you won't feel like holding a lighter on the end of them. They're not the anthems of old, full of hollow hopeful truisms, because the themes are more searching, bleaker, asking us instead of telling us, evoking a feeling of yearning instead of yawning. 'Staring At The Sun' talks of being "afraid of what you'd find if you took a look inside", with a real sense of despair, now the old simple answers have been proved wrong. There's even a hint of apology for previous false messiahs, "'cos those who can't do often have to... preach". 'Last Night On Earth' then seems to suggest that, because "the future is so predictable, the past is too uncomfortable", we might as well party like it's 1999, because we aren't going to find catharsis anywhere else. 'Gone' continues in a similar philosophical vein: "Goodbye, you can keep this suit of lights/I'll be up with the sun, and not coming down/And I'm already gone". Jesus. Cheer up, it might never happen.
Well it probably already has, according to the final track, 'Wake Up Dead Man', appealing to the good Lord to come and have a go if he thinks he's real enough, or are we destined to wallow in this shit forever more? Like much of this record, the voice is startlingly fragile, desperate. And the politics, if you want to use such a scary word, are personal. Like on 'Please', a beautifully melancholic but also frantic appeal to a self-destructive, self-abused lover, or the midnight blue crooner 'If You Wear That Velvet Dress'. And the effect is more gut-wrenching and heart-stroking than you thought U2 could ever be. There's still patches of the postmodernist reference-juggling of 'Zooropa', most notably on 'The Playboy Mansion', but for all the namechecking of Michael Jackson, OJ and Big Mac, there's heart here, as a picture is painted of a man with his nose pressed against the ubiquitous shop window of the modern society, knowing he may never be allowed in.
The musical backing is stylish and rarely just stylized, dabbling in trip-hop and screeching riffno one minute, country blues, lounge and soul the next. Even 'Miami', a stream-of-consciousness sub-Tricky experiment, just about works. So, U2 in 'Still Relevant In 1997' shock? Oh yes. And maybe this record is 'Pop' after all. In the sense that it's seized the day by the short and curlies and spread its sleazy, insane, infectious juice all over their sound. They've successfully bastardised their own huge bastard vision of what rock-n-roll can look and sound like, and they've gone from "A red guitar, three chords and the truth" to techno modernism without any lingering shame. They still have the hunger, the passion and the compassion without having to make a big pointless point about it, and they've found new meaning without the 'We mean it, man' pious pomposity. Most importantly, after all these years, you can just about believe in U2. Now how ironic is that?
Copyright © 1997 New Musical Express. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:13 AM | Comments (0)
U2 Pop Out Un-Rock-Like album
Jam! Showbiz, February 1997
U2 Pop Out Un-Rock-Like album
By JOHN SAKAMOTO, Executive producer, Jam! Showbiz
ARTIST: U2
TITLE: Pop
IN STORES ON: March 4
LABEL: Island/PolyGram
TOTAL TIME: 60:13
RATING: *** (out of five)
Taking its cue from its fiendishly obvious title, U2's first bona fide album in four years fulfills the one criterion that's most precious to anyone who spends way too much time thinking about music: It is capable of absorbing any interpretation you'd care to impose upon it.
A mainstream rock band taking a brave left turn? Easy. Pop is virtually bursting with loops, samples, and other patently un-rock-like production touches.
A uniquely ironic celebration of pop culture? No problem. The first words out of Bono's mouth here are, "You can reach but you can't grab it," which, when you think about it, pretty much sums up both the appeal of, and eternal frustration with, pop culture.
Or how about that old, facile, rock-crit standby: the eternal struggle to reconcile the twin impulses of hedonism and spirituality. Hell, you could apply that to EVERY U2 album. Why should Pop be any different?
The trouble with that scenario is that it demands an almost infinite malleability. That's a characteristic that's perfectly suited to theorizing about music, but much less desirable when it comes to listening to it.
When U2 was near the end of recording its last proper album, Zooropa, the Edge observed that the band's recent output tended to fall into two distinct categories: groove-oriented material that arose largely out of extended jams; and "real" songs. Applying those two categories to Pop, here's how the 12 numbers break down:
JAMS:
- Discotheque
- Do You Feel Loved
- Mofo
- Miami
REAL SONGS:
- If God Will Send His Angels
- Staring At The Sun
- Last Night On Earth
- Gone
- The Playboy Mansion
- Please
- Wake Up Dead Man
SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN:
- If You Wear That Velvet Dress
The result of that split is that most of the "radical" stuff on which Pop's advance rep as a daring departure is based gets poured into the four "jams". That means the other two-thirds of the album consists of relatively conventional -- albeit highly accomplished -- songs that have been pushed and pulled in all sorts of directions that don't necessarily serve the piece of music in question.
Ultimately, Pop boasts five songs -- If God Will Send His Angels, Staring At The Sun, Last Night On Earth, Gone, and Wake Up Dead Man -- that deserve to immediately take their place among the very best music U2 has created.
And the rest? Well, 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.
Far from an exercise in daring self-indulgence, Pop is too often guilty of a much more serious offence: not going far enough.
Copyright © 1997 Jam! Showbiz. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:11 AM | Comments (0)
With Or Without U2?
Edmonton Express, February 1997
With Or Without U2?
By MIKE ROSS, Express Writer
ARTIST: U2
TITLE: Pop
IN STORES ON: March 4
LABEL: Island/PolyGram
TOTAL TIME: 60:13
Question of the day: Would Discotheque stink if it wasn't by U2?
If you've been listening to the radio, you've probably heard the new single a few times already. Now I challenge you to hum it.
Anyone?
Not so easy, is it? We dusted the poor thing for traces of a hook and came up blank. Basically, if you stripped away all the neat stuff - all the techno, funky, fuzzy whatnot that's so "in" these days - you'd have a whole lot of nothing where the song's supposed to be. Groovy beats on their own are never enough.
Like many tunes designed chiefly to be enjoyed on the dance floor, Discotheque seems to be on the subject of itself. Bono croons, "I want to be the song, the song that you hear in your head." What a card.
Unfortunately, U2's little joke isn't quite as popular at radio as some people thought it would be, which is possibly why you're reading a review of an album (and listening to it on the radio) that isn't in stores until March 4. With no explanation, the record label rushed Pop to the media nearly a week early.
Perhaps it was to allow more time to ferret out a good tune buried in all the hype.
Now the good news: the rest of Pop is not all like Discotheque. These guys may be full of it, but they're not stupid.
POP SONGS:
Do You Feel Loved: This one isn't like Discotheque - it's even more disco-sounding. The joke is funny once.
Mofo: Another techno-groove (relax, this is the last one) with a driving, genuinely interesting sound that's almost worthy enough on its own. Couched in grand, spiritual images, it seems to boil down to Bono complaining about how hard it is to be a rock star and still make important statements. Perhaps it's the punchline to the joke. In parodying a mainstream rock band, U2 has become one. They know it, too.
If God Will Send His Angels: Subtle and beautiful, this song slams corporate culture with lines like "they put Jesus in show business, now it's hard to get in the door." Good tune.
Staring at the Sun: We've discovered a hook, Jim. Carried by an almost folky feel, this song is another cryptic shot at the establishment. It looks like Bono is trying to keep the promise he made at the 1994 Grammys: "We will continue to abuse our position and f--- up the mainstream."
Last Night on Earth: This one's a winner: A snappy beat, thought-provoking lyrics and a solid rock chorus like the U2 we all know and love. What more could you ask for?
Gone: This fuzzy, meandering bit of filler lives down to its title.
Miami: By far the most horrible track on the album - an ugly portrait of the ugly American. An experimental, backwards-recorded rhythm track used throughout gets annoying real quick.
The Playboy Mansion: A metaphor for heaven. Clever, no? An effective blues feel, slide guitar and lovely background vocals make this another standout track.
If You Wear That Velvet Dress: Slow, sultry, hypnotic Latin groove underneath a dream-like tale of a mystery lover. Another highlight.
Please: Hey, real drums. This medium-paced, spooky-sounding song comes across as a lecture to a persistent ex-girlfriend. It contains this odd lyric: "your stick-on tattoos, now they're making the news." A shot at Pat Boone?
Wake Up Dead Man: Thick with religious significance, here's another song where you have to dig through self-indulgent wads of overproduction to find the melodies. It's hardly worth the effort.
To sum it up, Pop is a hit-and-miss affair that is by no means the worst album U2 has ever made. It's no Unforgettable Fire, but it's no Joshua Tree, either.
SOUND BITES
U2 CAN KNOW THESE FACTS:
ORIGIN: Solidified in 1979, U2's Paul Hewson (now Bono Vox, although who hears `Vox' any more?) and Dave (the Edge) Evans joined Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. in Dublin. Quick favorites with the press, the band's biggest early break came with War, the cover of which featured a harsh looking lad in a battlefield, an older version of the same face they had on their earlier Boy album.
The Joshua Tree vaulted them like space monkeys into superstardom.
PRE-DISCO-GRAPHY:
Boy: 1980. Sold 2.5 million copies worldwide. Hit single: I Will Follow.
October: 1981. Sold 2.5 million copies worldwide. Hit single: Gloria.
War: 1983. Sold seven million copies worldwide. Hit singles: New Year's Day, Two Hearts Beat As One, Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Under A Blood Red Sky: 1983. Live from Red Rocks album, sold 7.5 million copies worldwide.
The Unforgettable Fire: 1984. Sold 6.5 million copies worldwide. Hit singles: Pride (In the Name of Love), The Unforgettable Fire.
Wide Awake In America: 1985. EP, sold two million copies worldwide.
The Joshua Tree: 1987. Sold 15 million copies. Hit singles: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; With Or Without You; Where the Streets Have No Name. The Joshua Tree reached No. 1 album in 22 countries, later winning Grammy Awards for best album of the year and best rock performance. Widely considered their best album to date.
Rattle And Hum: 1988. Sold 9.5 million copies worldwide. Hit singles: Angel of Harlem; Desire; When Love Comes to Town, All I Want is You. Rattle and Hum was a double album of live tracks, Sun studio sessions and new material. Album accompanied concert film "U2 Rattle and Hum." Grammy for best rock performance and best video.
Achtung Baby: 1991. Sold 10 million copies worldwide. Hit singles: The Fly; One; Even Better than the Real Thing, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses; Mysterious Ways. Also well-loved.
Zooropa: 1993. Sold seven million copies worldwide. Hit singles : Numb, Lemon, Stay (Faraway So Close).
ADDITIONAL RECORDINGS:
MELON: 1995. An album of remixes given away to fan club members.
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me: 1995. This was a catchy song released for the Batman Forever soundtrack.
Original Soundtracks Volume 1: 1995. Under the name Passengers, U2 teamed up with Pavarotti, Howie B and Brian Eno. The album is a messy mix of instrumentals with limited vocals.
Theme from GOLDENEYE: Bono and Edge teamed up to provide Tina Turner with theme for the latest Bond flick.
Theme from Mission: Impossible: Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen teamed up to do the hit theme for the popular Tom Cruise movie.
U2 has also recorded with Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Johnny Cash, B. B. King and Frank Sinatra.
Copyright © 1997 Edmonton Express. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:10 AM | Comments (0)
U2's Disco Daze
Calgary Sun, February 1997
U2's Disco Daze
By Dave Veitch, Calgary Sun
ARTIST: U2
TITLE: Pop
IN STORES ON: March 4
LABEL: Island/PolyGram
TOTAL TIME: 60:13
When it comes to the appreciation of disco, North Americans and Europeans are oceans apart.
Generally, Europeans consider dance music viable and progressive.
However, ask North Americans about disco and often you'll be given the brusque response: "It sucks!"
But if those same North Americans are also fans of U2, they'll be in for a rude awakening when the band's new album, Pop, is released on March 4.
Seems like Bono and the boys have been soaking up the sounds of club culture in the four years since their last album, Zooropa. And Pop, though not full-blown disco album, shows techno and industrial influences to varying degrees throughout its 12 tracks.
Of course, U2 flirted with dance music on Zooropa and 1991's Achtung Baby, but this time the experiments are bolder and sexier.
Pop's first single and opening track Discotheque is a close cousin of The Fly, yet the latter sounds anemic compared to the booming rhythms, buzzing guitars and dense arrangement of the former.
Discotheque may be a studio-crafted concoction but, ironically, U2 has rarely sounded so loose and so free.
The next two tracks maintain the momentum. Do You Feel Love is carried by an in-your-face bass line that closely follows New Order's melody for Confusion; and Mofo, with its machine-gun-like blasts of electronic bass, is an all-out techno track that's unrecognizable as U2 until Bono starts to sing. It is, undoubtedly, Pop's boldest stroke.
After Mofo, U2 retreats a bit. Pop's middle three songs (Staring at the Sun, Last Night on Earth and Gone) still shuffle along to accentuated, syncopated rhythms, but they remain standard U2 rock tracks -- albeit fine, ingratiatingly tuneful rock tracks.
The tempo slows for the album's second half, with the electronically treated instruments painting ambient landscapes -- in fact, If You Wear That Velvet Dress even brings back the ethereal, ringing guitar style that earmarked U2's work on The Unforgettable Fire.
So, Pop isn't the band's most daring and adventurous album -- Zooropa maintains that title -- but it is deceptively substantial.
On the surface, U2 is aligning itself with the hedonism and moral ambiguity of dance culture, specifically Britain's Ecstacy-fuelled rave scene -- but only to point out how disconnected society has become to notions of God and faith.
In The Playboy Mansion, Bono plays the part of the Modern Thrill-seeking Man (or Woman) by making the gates of Hugh Hefner's palace of pleasure sound like the Pearly Gates. Pop culture, Bono suggests, has become our new object of worship; the pursuit of thrills and overstimulation our new religion.
And what has become of the mysticism that's been in U2's music from Day 1?
Bono -- who once declared, "Oh Lord, if I had anything/Anything at all/I'd give it to you" -- still pleads to the heavens, but now he sounds disillusioned.
"God has got his phone off the hook," he sings in If God Will Send His Angels, only to add: "Jesus never let me down/You know Jesus used to show me the score/Then they put Jesus in show business/Now it's hard to get in the door."
Later, on the closing track Wake Up Dead Man, Bono sings resigningly: "Jesus, I'm waiting here boss/I know you're looking out for us/But maybe your hands aren't free."
In the end, Pop is not about disco music or dance culture.
Ultimately, it's about being surrounded by people but feeling utterly alone and isolated; it's about having it all but feeling you have nothing; it's the sounds and moods of a pop-culture hangover.
Ten years have passed since U2 first declared: "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
They haven't stopped looking but, with Pop, they've decided to shake their booties while they continue the search.
Copyright © 1997 Calgary Sun. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:08 AM | Comments (0)