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  1. Originally posted by MattG:What they'd need to do to pull those shows off is make themselves harder to see. Don't do 5 nights (or even two) in any arenas...do one night in an arena, or even a theatre. Make tickets expensive. Make it so you're only there if you really, really want to be there. Not just because you love "Beautiful Day," or because "With Or Without You" makes you cry err'time.

    It would alienate certain fans. "Why are these shows so hard to get to?" "Why aren't they doing this in a way that's more accessible to me!"

    But it'd be the only way they'd really guarantee that the shows would be well received. Advertise them as shows full of rarities and it scares away casual fans.
    If they do just one night, even while playing only obsecure b-sides from before 1980 a lot of casual fans will still come.
  2. POP's sound works now, it didn't back then. Howie B, Underworld, Portishead, Prodigy, Roni Size, Massive Attack and others were not largely know yet. But so much electronic music came out since 1997 that it is, well everywhere. MATRIX movies exposed a lot (myself included) to a lot of electronic music.

    Do You Feel Loved is still one of my favorite songs off POP. It was played weird during POPmart (via the beetlogs) and never got the chance it needed. It was dead not long after Eugene. If Bono could have played Edge's rhythm part, Edge could have done that spectacular wahwah effect in realtime, instead of as a pre-recorded track.

    Discotheque, love this one. It's a cool song. I played this thing over 1000 times in less than 2 weeks when it came out. I was going through a U2 dry spell.

    Playboy Mansion, would have liked to have heard this live. The lyrics are fantastic all the way through. Nice harmonies and nice sad guitar from Edge.

    If You Wear That Velvet Dress, I listened to the different takes on the rehearsals before opening night. Quite a change from the one that ended up on tour.

    Holy Joe, would have been a neat one. Could have replaced Even Better Than the Real Thing on POPmart.

    If God Will Send His Angels, Larry royally messed this one up on opening night. He had it down during most of the rehearsals. It just became a snippet sized song by Oakland I.

    MOFO, mother trucking...yes, this one is awesome. I liked the way they played it album style during the rehearsals. Some epic rehearsals. The tour version I wasn't so excited about since I didn't even see them enter the stadium through the audience. I saw Edge's hat on stage. I missed the whole boxing shadows thing.

    These are the ones I'd like to hear live.

    And October, the 2nd most maligned album after POP. Scarlet and Gloria, the only two from that smorgasbord in recent memory. I love this album.
  3. *Sigh*...

    Again : Pop was a succes ; Popmart wasnt. If only the band could see that too.
  4. Yeah but it could be argued that Pop was a success because it was "the next U2 album".

    I'm not arguing against Pop, I've come to love it. I'm just pointing out why the band don't see it that way.
  5. "Expect Nothing...."
    "Expect Nothing....But the Best"

    I remember those U2 taglines in 1997 many months before the album came out. WIRE was alive with speculation over what those two taglines could mean.
  6. Pop was a success. It took a few years to grow on me, but I think at this point I can enjoy Pop as much as the next guy.

    But Popmart was a massive failure for one main reason: it did not resonate with American audiences. I've mentioned this before, but Popmart in the US was similar to Rattle and Hum in that they were both attempts of U2 trying to tell Americans what their culture was. The idea of consumer culture was so ingrained into American society that when this Irish band rolls up in this giant McDonalds sign and starts making fun of people spending money on stuff, Americans found it boring.
  7. If Popmart started in Europe, it would be more succesfull... US fans are too conservative... And didn't get the irony...
  8. Well the US fans didn't get the irony because consumer culture is an inherently American thing. It was widely embraced in all aspects of the media, so no matter where the tour started, the moment it landed on American soil it would have tanked. It has nothing to do with the fanbase itself and its reactions to U2 as a band, or even the songs themselves. If U2 kept the exact same songs and the exact same renditions of the songs, but didn't try to market the tour as a commentary on consumerism, it probably would have succeeded.
  9. I didn't saw the irony at first.

    An album called Pop, a flashy colorful album cover, a lead single called Discothéque, a video with mirror balls, dancing and village people, and an album with a "trending" techno elements... it all sounded too "real" for it to be just an ironic commentary.

    Basically a Fry meme of "not sure if serious or irony".

    That album is one of the most "dark" and serious they've made, yet it was advertised as the opposite.
  10. Aaaaand that's exactly why it's pure genious.
  12. Absolutely.

    But that's also why it was received with a "not sure if serious or not" reaction at first and ultimately led to it (still today) viewed by many people as a joke album and the band losing the north.
    For Hawkins, the "Discothèque" hatred wasn't and isn't just about the song itself – but also the musical and cultural shift Bono claimed it represented. "At that same time, when we were trying to go around and be a rock band still, Bono is going around saying, 'Oh, rock & roll is dead and it’s all about dance music now,'” and we were like, 'Fuck you, dude! Rock & roll is not dead! Fuck U2!'"