Pop - U2's secretly good album ruined in poor production (Music Monday)

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Hello new subscribers, thank you for following. On Monday I do Music Monday, and Wednesday is What I’m Listening To Podcast Recommendations. The other days are whatever is on my mind. Since today is Monday….music!

U2’s 1997 album Pop is as if the band said - oh you thought we were annoying and pretentious? We’ll show you what pretentious is!!!!

The album starts with Discotheque which is so so Try Hard. That said, it has a killer bass line and it is catchy as hell. How it came out of the Sunday Bloody Sunday guys is beyond me, but as a record it’s a good time.

Here's the thing - Pop isn't bad, it's just... muddy. Like someone threw a wet blanket over Bono's voice and turned the bass up to "Dublin nightclub at 2 AM." But underneath all that musical fog, there are some genuinely great songs trying to break free.

“Gone” and “Please” are gems. “Last Night on Earth” is in my Top 5 U2 Songs.

“Staring at the Sun” is interesting. Since it first came out, I felt like I knew what Bono was trying to do, but there’s something just off about the chorus. It feels like Bono should be heading for high notes, but he pulls it down, and it just quite doesn’t land. Is there a way to go back in and help this song?

Listen, I'm not saying Pop is The Joshua Tree. (Though imagine if they'd given "Gone" the same production values as "Where The Streets Have No Name" - we might be having a very different conversation.)

Mike Hedges remixed "Staring at the Sun" and "Gone" for the greatest hits collection, and it was like someone finally cleaned the windows. Suddenly you could hear what these songs were supposed to be. The single version of “If God Will Send His Angels” sounds more like U2 than the Village People, which is kind of what I want out of a U2 Album.

The album suffers from "1997 Syndrome" - that period when everyone thought more layers meant better music. It's like they took perfectly good U2 songs and decided to run them through every filter available in the studio. "Hey Edge, what if we made your guitar sound like it's playing underwater? While a DJ scratches? In a wind tunnel?"

When your signer’s nickname is Good Voice, maybe don’t bury him in the mix.

But here's where it gets interesting - Pop has aged better than anyone expected. Songs like "Please" and "If God Will Send His Angels" feel more at home in 2024 than they did in '97. Maybe we've finally caught up to what the band was trying to do.

What Pop needs isn't a reissue - it needs a rescue mission. Strip away some of those layers, let Bono's voice actually reach our ears, give Edge's guitar some room to breathe. You know, actually let it be a U2 album instead of a U2-meets-The-Chemical-Brothers-in-a-dark-alley album.

I'm not asking for much - just clean it up, remix it, maybe throw in some of those B-sides that were actually better produced than the album tracks. (Looking at you, "Holy Joe.") Give Pop the production it deserved but never got because the band was too busy trying to make their tour deadline.