Jayson Wilson sent me on the 13:th of December 1997 the comment David Spade did on the Billboard music awards the other night What happened to Bono? He used to be the coolest guy in the world. Now nobody wants to have anything to do with him. I then responded with the following analysis.
I think that Pop and Popmart was intended as a sarcastic joke of irony of the lifes we live, if you understand what I mean, but people don't get that. They don't understand that U2 is pulling thier leg and laughing at them. It's the same thing as with ZooTV and Zooropa where they pointed out or bizar world where you could sit in your sofa watching people get killed in a war in an other part of the world. Here it is our lifes as consumers they are talking about. Bono said in an interview during ZooTV that the best way to point out how silly something is (like the rock-and-roll business' worship of a artist (New Kids On the Block, Backstreets Boys, Spice Girls etc.)) is to become it and act it out.
But since people don't get the serious point they try to make I think they have to pull out and do it an other way next time. I don't think, as some people suggest, that the music-business have corrupted U2 to produce moneymaking records (although they have to sell records to be able to tour and so on) for the _money_ and not the cause. U2 have been in to this for so long that they won't turn around _that fast.
This is more an analysis of the reactions to Pop and Popmart then actually an anlysis of the album itself.
Jonas Steverud (Maintainer of U2MoL) (contributed at an unknown date)
Jonas Steverud (Maintainer of U2MoL) (contributed at an unknown date)