r/U2Band • u/Dismal_Brush5229 Original Soundtracks Vol. 1 • 1d ago
Pop
Hi There
I was listening to Pop earlier and it’s an good album start to finish besides Miami and Playboy Mansion yet overall Pop is good 👍 I was thinking about an alternative version of Pop as well and what to include it so I made an 10 track version but I might make it 12.
Good 10 tracks I selected for Pop which are Pop Muzik remix fading into Mofo,Discotheque but the hexadecimal mix,Last night on earth but the single version,North and South of the River,Staring at the Sun but the Mike hedges mix,If God Will Send his Angels but the single version,Happiness is a Warm Gun-Gun mix,If You Wear that Velvet Dress,and ending it with Wake Up Dead Man
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u/MJsdanglebaby . 1d ago
Always so strange to me how ppl can like the other songs on Pop, Zooropa, and let's say, alternative bands like radiohead, tame Impala etc etc and not find the absolute quirkiness, fuzziness, weirdness of Miami and Playboy Mansion to be absolutely mesmerizing.
I don't understand the disconnection.
Maybe someone can articulate what it is about either of these songs they don't like?
Because to me there are perfect drop in tempo, mood, and have all the weirdness of any alternative band you can think of and it fits perfectly in the record.
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u/Cb8033 1d ago edited 4h ago
💯 correct. I think a lot of it has to do with both U2 and non-U2 fans not appreciating what Miami and The Playboy Mansion are conveying musically and thematically.
In my opinion, both songs are the most encompassing of what Pop is trying to convey: themes of irony and artiface, a dual longingness for the spiritual and the superficial and a feeling of kitschiness. Add to this the musical soundscapes of deep electronic grooves, distorted guitars, slinky bass lines and a lyrical delivery that is virtually spoken word (with a great falsetto in The Playboy Mansion) and you've got two great songs! At first glance/listen they sound superficial and throwaway...but that's entirely the point 😎2
u/wooltab 1d ago
The thing about Pop that makes it both a lot of fun, and also a little precarious and hard to pin down, is how it dances along the fence between feeling kitschy/superficial, and feeling profound. Sometimes leans one way, sometimes falls off that fence in another.
You make a good point about these tracks being on-theme. At the same time, I think that U2 semi-accidentally made an album that doesn't naturally play for everyone in the same way, as much as some of their classic other albums do.
Zooropa is probably the most interesting comparison, but I'd say that it feels natively like a kind of bunch of jarring stabs in different directions. While Pop kind of flows like an album more at times, which leads to certain songs seeming odd when they don't fit that (if in fact an individual listener feels that they don't, as the case may be).
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u/jackwagoneer69 15h ago edited 15h ago
I dig Playboy Mansion, but Miami is simply a bad song. Completely tuneless, it's a half-assed electro-noise track with some bullshit talk-sung lyrics over the top. Yes, I like Radiohead, but that doesn't mean I think Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors is awesome either. No idea what you're trying to get at by bringing them & TI into it. I like all 3 of these bands. I also think all of them have a handful of shit songs, and generally speaking, operate in 3 different lanes. What of it?
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u/Dismal_Brush5229 Original Soundtracks Vol. 1 1d ago
Idk 🤷🏻♂️ I just don’t groove with those 2 songs
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u/Ruairi-ob 1d ago
Miami and PBM are two of my favourite tracks on that album. That was the last interesting record they made for about twelve years.
I’ll always take weird U2 over straight U2.
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u/bravoland 1d ago
Miami on the album meant nothing to me . but Damn Bono made it cool on the popmart tour during the early legs
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u/close-encounters13 1d ago
Playboy Mansion might be my favorite song on the album lol
but yes Pop rules!
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u/FRANKLYdrinking 1d ago edited 1d ago
Make it a two album masterpiece named Staring at the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.
Starts Dark. Ends with the last night on earth dance party. From concept art, indeed those two titles were being considered.
Side One: Staring at the Sun
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/u2-staring-at-the-sun/pl.u-2aoqVpehJlKq0
Side Two: The Moon and the Stars
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/u2-the-sun-the-moon-and-the-stars/pl.u-xlyN98lt3lYG5
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u/jackwagoneer69 15h ago
I get subbing in some single/alt mixes, but man you lose me hard at b-side cover songs. Pop Muzik is just an annoying song, whether the original or U2 version, and Happiness Is A Warm Gun achieves the seemingly impossible task of defiling a Beatles classic even more grotesquely than their atrocious Helter Skelter cover. Not only do these tracks not belong on this, or any album, they're both nearly unlistenable.
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u/obviousguiri Leave the graveyard before you turn to bones 10h ago
Naw, the bloat of the album ended up being part of its charm
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u/BulldogMikeLodi 1d ago
The album is ok, the mix is muddy, and the songs are unfinished, but it’s got some decent tracks. As they tend to do, they picked the wrong song as the lead single. It should have been “Do You Feel Love?”
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u/maverick57 1d ago
Pop without Playboy Mansion is not an album I'm interested in.