Here She Comes Now: U2’s PopMart Extravaganza Comes to DVD
I believe I mentioned in a previous post that I was late to the U2 bandwagon, brought against my will by the persistence of 11. What is it about me and persistent people when it comes to music? Anyroad, I got in on U2 with All That You Can’t Leave Behind and the Elevation Tour. That means I sat out U2’s largest tours – and some would argue their most interesting – those being ZooTV and PopMart.
For years, neither of those epics were available on DVD. ZooTV came to us last year and I quickly bought my copy. PopMart came to DVD on Tuesday, and I quickly snatched up my copy.
I love Achtung Baby and Zooropa, the albums behind the ZooTV escapade. Despise might be a bit strong, but I am not a fan of Pop. It’s lyrically vacant and is musically a mess. Some musical messes are good. Pop is messy in a bad way. The band has tacitly admitted Pop was a mess even if they won’t say so. Check out their Best of 1990-2000 set. They included songs from the album but no Pop song is on that collection in its album form, all of them having been remixed. They know they didn’t get that album right. Unfortunately, the remixes couldn’t save those songs. Pop wasn’t uniformly terrible, but it is more an EP with a lot of filler than an actual album.
Can a tour overcome its album? I wonder if U2 was thinking about that when they planned PopMart because they went out of their way to make the visuals so much bigger than the band and the music. They succeeded, and not just because of the visuals (which we’ll talk about later). The Pop songs do mostly sound better live than they did on record. What seems out of place is a lot of the band’s classic material. Songs from The Joshua Tree seem uncomfortable beneath the bombast of the big stage, big lights, and bad costumes. U2’s anthems have always been larger than life and need a big showcase, but PopMart goes beyond big. Other than “Bullet The Blue Sky,” none of U2’s classics sound as good in their PopMart arrangements as they did or do on previous or subsequent tours.
In spite of daft costumes (Bono’s boxer motif and Adam Clayton’s surgical mask) and the sense the band is trying to hard to do… something… you can’t help but be blown away by the explosion of PopMart’s colors. It’s big, bright, beautiful, mesmerizing, and ahead of its time. Keep in mind when you watch the DVD: this show is 10 years old. There are moments when it all comes together. There are moments when all those wonderful colors feel bright enough to be seen from outer space. They were on to something really cool… for another band.
There are bands who can take that kind of futuristic carnival atmosphere and make it work. U2 can’t. Bono is supposed to be writing songs about Africa and doing good deeds, dying for the very sins of the planet. That’s what he does. He can slip into characters like The Fly and Macphisto. He got lost somewhere in the middle of trying to decry the greed and perversity of our modern-day Sodom and Gomorra and it took the band four years to find their way back. “How far you gonna go before you lose your way back home?” Bono asked that as early as Achtung Baby (”Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World). Pop and PopMart were the answer to that question.
Pop and PopMart were supposed to be a commentary on global consumer culture and the idea that everything could be bought and sold – everything except Pop, which even the band’s fans largely ignore(d). Rather than condemning the corrosive effects of greed, Bono looks like he’s apologizing for his part in it. That’s not a lot of fun. It’s not very rock and roll.
Filed under: Tags: Musical Musings and Random Ramblings, U2
I’ll have to slightly disagree with you on one aspect of Pop - the remixes on the Best Of completely changed those songs and presented them in a much more U2 way. I think that, had they rereleased the album in this form, it would have been a much more solid, enjoyable effort. The remixes sound more like the way U2 should sound. I even read somewhere an interview with one of the guys that indicated that Pop would indeed be re-released in a two-disc format with the completely remixed album as disc 2. Who knows - maybe when the remasters finally come out . . . someday . . . they’ll do just that.
I saw this tour. It was overwhelming. I’m anxious to see if the DVD can even come close to replicating that feeling of being engulfed in the lights and video. It’s hard to believe a band like U2 could top Pink Floyd in terms of stage theatrics, but I have to give it to U2 for this tour. Truly stunning.
I’ll agree with 99 percent of this review. The biggest problem with the whole PopMart era comes down to one word: LYRICS. I have no problem with grooves and dance beats, but for most of the record, Bono simply doesn’t have much to say. Did he actually write ‘Do You Feel Loved?’ These songs took FOUR YEARS to compose?
Ironically, the song most readily targeted as a throwaway, ‘Discotheque,’ is still the most interesting, and those that the band expected to be added to their canon of great songs, i.e., ‘If God Will Send His Angels’ and ‘Staring At the Sun,’ are just snoozers.
‘Gone’ and ‘Discotheque’ work on the record, they work live, and the remixes on the ‘Best Of’ package also are good alternate interpretations. ‘Last Night On Earth,’ is killer live. The rest isn’t worthy of this fine band.
Sadly, remixing the whole album will only help if the lyrics to eight of the songs also are rewritten, and that would be a different record.
Let Pop and PopMart rest in peace. Go listen to ‘Zooropa,’ and repeat this sin no more.
Tom, I don’t disagree that the remixes were an improvement. I probably wasn’t clear about that. Even though they’re an improvement, I agree with Mr. Matt here. Remixes can’t cover for the lack of lyrics on that album. I like the remixed versions of “Discotheque’ and “Gone.” I like both versions of “Gone,” the original and the remix. I would like to hear “Last Night on Earth” remixed because it did sound better live than on record. Most of the rest of that record just can’t be forgotten quickly enough, even if they go back and get the sounds “right.”
I still see PopMart and most of the U2 canon as a mix that just didn’t work, regardless how breathtaking the look of PopMart could sometimes be.
I like the lyrics to Mofo, as we see the same “boy tries hard to be a man” who, even though he is Bono, still has Paul Hewson moments of doubt like we all do about fatherhood, his religion, the loss of his mother.
My favorite on the album is “Please.” Bono’s anguish over the continuing troubles in Ireland, which really applies to so many people and countries. Fuck, I am so sick of people killing each other over nothing. Sorry, had to get that out of my system.