Fizzing ‘Pop’ U2 Shakes Up Highly Charged Sound In Newest Album To Blow The Cap Off Its Usual Style
“Pop” U2 (Island)
‘Discotheque” was just the beginning.
When it was released last month, the first single from U2’s brilliant, intense new album “Pop” - which comes out today on Island - marked what looked like a new era for the longstanding Irish megaband.
The song, a pounding homage/satire of disco dance music, is an almost comical departure for the often earnest, politically concerned band. The colorful, fast-paced video of the song underscores its brash iconoclasm, especially when it shows the four band members wickedly cavorting in Village People guise.
But “Discotheque” only hints at the careening social satire and loud, ear-shattering dynamics of “Pop” (this is one album that will really give high-end sound systems a workout).
The CD is akin to Beck’s landmark “Odelay” album in that it gleefully deconstructs pop-music conventions and puts them back together in a new way - only much more elaborately than Beck, with a decidedly U2 slant.
“Pop” takes the sonic experimentations begun with 1993’s “Zooropa” album into astonishing new territory. The studio has become an instrument for the band; it uses contemporary sonic wizardry to make music that is almost visceral.
At high decibel levels, it rattles walls and windows (just ask my neighbors). Elements of industrial and electronic music are interwoven into riff-based rock, but the technology never becomes dominant.
The enriched aural elements of “Pop” never overwhelm the music.
For all its Technicolor virtuosity in music and technology, the album also has a deeply spiritual component - as almost all U2’s music does at its core - and a serious message about the vacuity of pop culture (especially the aspect of celebrity worship the band knows only too well).
And, much like Bruce Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love” album, “Pop” seems to signal marital troubles for Bono, who wrote the lyrics (with help from guitarist The Edge). Song after song has references to love gone inextricably wrong and to a longing for a new, pure love.
Despite the refreshing, bracing originality and daring of “Pop,” it’s still very much a U2 album. A few cuts even sound like vintage U2 from a decade ago. In fact, “Pop” may be U2’s best album since 1987’s “The Joshua Tree.”
Along with “Discotheque,” the cuts that epitomize U2’s new direction include “Mofo,” a whirling wash of aural power, with lyrics about the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and the search for spirituality (as well as a reference to children and fatherhood that could be construed as Bono distrusting his wife); “Playboy,” a slap at pop culture and show biz, including stinging references to Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson and rapacious televangelists; “Gone,” which opens with glass-shattering high notes and includes more of Bono’s self-examination of fame and troubled marriage; and “Miami,” a seemingly sincere valentine to the garish city of “cigars and big hair” with nary a hint of sarcasm.
Bono’s fixation on marital love is most evident in “Do You Feel Loved,” which characterizes betrayal and another’s love as superficial. “Staring at The Sun” is a sweet reverie on idealistic summer love, with a simpler guitar and vocal, a classic U2 feel. “If You Wear That Velvet Dress” is especially romantic and sensual and one of the softest, most tender U2 songs ever.
“Pop” provides the kind of fired-up excitement pop music needs right now. Not only is it a creative boost that no doubt will inspire others, it also might help the industry out of its financial slump.