U2
Pop

THE REVIEW

Let's leave aside Bono's "salvator mundi" poses for a moment, his multiple social and humanitarian commitments, the handshakes with the Pope, and the calls for debt cancellation of poor countries. Let's ignore everything that has made him more visible than any international politician and more involved than a scientific researcher. Let's focus on the music of his band, U2, and in particular on what the guys have been able to produce by slapping the title "Pop" on their most "experimental" album ever.

I remember that, at the time of its release, the single "Discotheque" really pleased me. I liked the song's energy, the groove, the strength it managed to convey to me. Not bad. Six years later, in 2003, I decided to give the album a chance, having completely forgotten about it in the meantime. It's not my style to analyze the intentions of Bono & co. when producing an album so influenced by dance electronica and grooves that often cite soul and hip hop atmospheres; it might be experimentation or pure and simple commercial opportunism, but, in the end, who cares? The album is, on the whole, well done, although excessively produced and played, and has no particular flaws except for the fact, for purists, of departing too much from the band's past. Being honest, though, this change isn't that profound: in the science-fictional gospel-soul of "If God Will Send His Angels" you can recognize the U2 of "Unforgettable Fire," while pieces of hallucinatory disco-psychedelia like "Last Night On Earth" (with a riff reminiscent of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus") somehow hark back to the epic glories of their early albums. If anything, the band's original sound is coated in thick layers of keyboards and synthesizers, and the guitar sounds are often "masked" by deafening distortions (like in the frenetic techno with vaguely industrial roots of "Mofo"), producing a sound that perhaps calling "experimental" would be excessive (the album's title is more serious than you'd think, in fact, it proves to be perfectly catchy) but is certainly different from what the band had produced up to that point. The real surprise of the album, rather, lies in the less "highlighted" tracks: "Miami" (hated by many of the band's fans but not by yours truly) is a trip-hop that could have come out of Massive Attack's catalog, if it weren't for that bizarre contrast between the threatening atmosphere created by the syncopated rhythm and background keyboards with Bono's almost childlike recitation, which narrates with irony and light-heartedness the vacation period spent by the band in the American city, and the beautiful "If You Wear That Velvet Dress," a stunning slice of "cosmic" and psychedelic lounge, focused on a seductive rhythm and a mysterious bass riff while accompanying Bono's warm and insinuating voice with discreet keyboards. "Please," perhaps the most famous song on the album, is fascinating but can become boring after a while, while "Do You Feel Loved" and "Gone" belong to the more driving and noisy thread of the album, borrowing hints from mid-'90s techno and brit-pop (particularly "Gone"). The album closes with the bitter and melancholic beauty of "Wake Up Dead Man," perhaps the most traditionally sounding song of the album, where Bono's voice seems like that of a drunk at the bar counter confessing his existential crisis (a sentiment that permeates much of the album's lyrics, that of uncertainty, towards everything and everyone, particularly towards religion). "The Playboy Mansion," gospel-tinted blues with a hip-hop rhythm (a puzzle...), is instead a perfect banality.

"Pop" is simply a good album. I say it bluntly, there's no need to investigate too much on the meanings of the title or the intentions of the band; after all, in the world of music, no one (or almost no one) does anything for the love of art. There is catchiness, there are fascinating sounds, there are lyrics that are sometimes poetic, sometimes just charming, but always worthy of an attentive reading, there are the classic U2 atmospheres dressed in a mantle of novelty. Well, for some, all this might not be enough, but if we think about the mediocrity of "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and the even more bland and inconsistent "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" (maybe U2 believe that albums with long titles are automatically better?) there is really something to cheer about.