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The Story of U2 - Part 8
1996 was spent developing yet another album and yet more changes of
direction and emphasis. As with Achtung Baby, the first single from
the new album (in this case Discotheque) brought more questions than
answers. The album itself was released in March 1997, and this too
dispelled any doubts created by its lead-off single. This time the
evolutionary process leans towards techno and dance influences. One
story is that techno samples were introduced to take the pressure off
Larry who had injured his back.
As with all U2 albums, Pop contains a mix of the brash and the
beautiful, the loud and the lyrical. I am left with a feeling,
however, that some of the brash bits don't work as well as their
predecessors. But when critics complain that their music "doesn't
sound like U2" the band's response is "but we are U2". The band chose
to use each album to explore and extend their own musical inclinations
rather than to trade on their past success. Mark Ellis (aka Flood),
who had been involved in the production of several earlier albums,
took the lead role on Pop.
In 1997 U2 embarked on their PopMart world tour, another massive
venture complete with a gigantic golden arch, a gigantic lemon, a
gigantic video screen and a gigantic convoy of trucks to transport it
all. The tour took in North America, Europe, America again (North and
South), Australia and Japan. Perhaps the high point came in September
1997, when U2 went straight from their biggest show in front of
150,000 people in Italy, to their most poignant in recently war-torn
Sarajevo. The tour ended on March 21st 1998 in Johannesburg.
In April 1998 the band took yet another new direction when they
appeared in the 200th episode of The Simpsons! After the PopMart tour
everyone expected U2 to take another hard-earned break, but they are
reported to be working on another album. A PopMart video of the
concert in Mexico City was released at the start of November, along
with a "Best Of U2" album covering the period from 1980 to 1990.