1. NLOTH is such a nothing album. I have zero feelings. I’d rather hate it than have this void of no emotion towards it.
  2. Can we at least agree that the 360 tour was more successful than PopMart?
  3. I can’t speak for everyone else but I’ll agree with that. And a better tour as well I’d say.
  4. 360 was mega and better imo.
    I think both Popmart and 360 suffered due to the music not being quite up to the standard of the tours, although I'm a fan of NLOTH it lacked the kick to really take off live,which is probably why they ended up turning it into an Achtung type show.
    MOS was a great closer ,like LIB on Zoo.
    If only 360 had it's own Zoo Station/Fly to open
  5. Breathe/Boots don’t measure up?
  6. Pop did not have 5 hit singles.

    Discotheque- Sure, the “U2 is back” effect cause this to skyrocket on week 1, and then drop like a rock never to be heard from again. People really didn’t like this song outside of the fan base. The video really put everyone off.

    Staring at the sun- The only song from the album that made any sort of lasting impression. It got decent radio and video play. It’s a song casual fans could kind of get into, but ultimately it didn’t hold the public’s attention.

    Last night on earth- This single achieved literally nothing for them. All they did was piss off a lot of people in Kansas City by shutting down a highway to film a video that nobody ever watched, for a song that nobody ever heard. By this point, Discotheque and SATS had been dropped from the radio and video playlists, and Pop was essentially finished.

    Please- Next to zero radio and video play. Nobody outside of the fan base remembered this song. It really shouldn’t have been a single. The subject matter is too serious, and the hook isn’t strong enough. The fact that it’s an absolute beast of a live song is beside the point.

    If God will send his Angels- This song was actually a blip on the radar, unlike Please and LNOE. It was on a major motion picture soundtrack, so it got a fair amount of exposure. However, “Iris” was the clear breakout success from City of Angels, and U2’s song had no way of competing.
  7. Wonder how Mofo would've gone as the first single......
  8. Originally posted by podiumboy:Pop did not have 5 hit singles.

    Discotheque- Sure, the “U2 is back” effect cause this to skyrocket on week 1, and then drop like a rock never to be heard from again. People really didn’t like this song outside of the fan base. The video really put everyone off.

    Staring at the sun- The only song from the album that made any sort of lasting impression. It got decent radio and video play. It’s a song casual fans could kind of get into, but ultimately it didn’t hold the public’s attention.

    Last night on earth- This single achieved literally nothing for them. All they did was piss off a lot of people in Kansas City by shutting down a highway to film a video that nobody ever watched, for a song that nobody ever heard. By this point, Discotheque and SATS had been dropped from the radio and video playlists, and Pop was essentially finished.

    Please- Next to zero radio and video play. Nobody outside of the fan base remembered this song. It really shouldn’t have been a single. The subject matter is too serious, and the hook isn’t strong enough. The fact that it’s an absolute beast of a live song is beside the point.

    If God will send his Angels- This song was actually a blip on the radar, unlike Please and LNOE. It was on a major motion picture soundtrack, so it got a fair amount of exposure. However, “Iris” was the clear breakout success from City of Angels, and U2’s song had no way of competing.
    Outside of the US it was successful for a band from the 80s to have that level of success in the singles charts at that point in their career was pretty much unprecedented as they were competing with novelty acts and one hit wonders ,U2 are essentially an Album band most fans don't bother buying the singles they aren't some novelty bubblegum act who have that one big song or album, most of the big established bands never have big hit singles well into their career the first single maybe grabs people's attention but after that they get very little attention they generally use them as a way of promoting the album.
  9. Originally posted by popmarter:[..]
    Outside of the US it was successful for a band from the 80s to have that level of success in the singles charts at that point in their career was pretty much unprecedented as they were competing with novelty acts and one hit wonders ,U2 are essentially an Album band most fans don't bother buying the singles they aren't some novelty bubblegum act who have that one big song or album, most of the big established bands never have big hit singles well into their career the first single maybe grabs people's attention but after that they get very little attention they generally use them as a way of promoting the album.
    Didn’t they have similar success with NLOTH though? given that Boots, magnificent and I’ll go crazy all charted in certain countries at a time when they were even more up against it in the singles charts. And if they’re an album band then you would think album sales would be a much better way of dictating which album was more successful. NLOTH only selling 1 million copies less in 2009 compared to 1997 is a pretty overwhelming victory for NLOTH in relative terms I’d suggest. A look at year end charts seems to confirm this, NLOTH was the 7th highest selling album in the world in 2009. I can’t find a world figure for Pop but it was 45th highest selling in the states in 1997 and 25th highest in the UK. There is individual countries listed on Wikipedia as well. Pop was just nowhere near as successful an album as NLOTH.
  10. Is it because the great and the terrible cancel other out? Or do you just have no feelings for any of the tracks?
  11. I only have a soft spot for the title track, Cedars and Fez. As a whole I don’t think the album has any cohesiveness or identity. There was clearly a direction laid out during the Morocco sessions and that excited me. Some of the early clips of Magnificent for example really hinted at something entirely new and unique for the band but somehow we ended up with songs like Crazy Tonight and Stand up Comedy which are just at odds with where I think the band actually wanted to go.

    Songs like Unknown Caller and MoS should have been so much bigger than they ended up and the experimentation with Fez and Cedars in particular never went anywhere. It just ended up a big jumbled mess that I don’t think is worth the investment in time trying to digest or decipher.
  12. every time I see a video of a fan meeting the band members, I wonder if anyone has ever asked them why they ignore pop so much