Spiritualism with a beat: Pop goes the album, not U2

JAKARTA (JP): Don't believe the hype! They said it would be a dance album. They said it would be techno, hip-hop, a frenetic assault of '90s synthesizer-mixing board muzak.

Released worldwide amid immense anticipation last week, Pop is in fact one of U2's darkest albums, laden with themes of spiritual longing and social incongruity.

God gets an earful on this album and though less pretentious than their previous works, the band continues their discerning exploitation of rock 'n' roll as a vehicle for social interjection.

Despite the presence of Steve Osborne and knob-twister Howie B. helping long time U2 producer Flood, Pop does not transport the band into altogether new territory.

In many ways it continues the metamorphosis which began with the brilliant Achtung Baby and followed up by Zooropa. Pop completes the trilogy.

It begins with a barrage of near pulsing techno, a signature in the earlier two albums, but quickly shifts to atmospheric, mind-turning rhythms. A replete wasteland of disillusionment.

Pop kicks off with three propulsive numbers -- Discotheque, Do You Feel Loved and Mofo -- which attacks the senses.

First generation U2 fans, most of whom will be in their early to mid-30s and regard 1987's The Joshua Tree as holy scripture, may find it hard to digest. But if you liked The Fly, Discotheque should not be unfamiliar.

Released in February as the album's first single and currently rocketing up every music chart around the world, Discotheque is accompanied by a video in which the band dress up as the Village People.

Mofo, short for "mother f....r", features an electrifying double rhythm track from drummer Larry Mullen Jr., which proves that despite space-age gadgetry, no drum machine beats the real thing.

After a 16-minute sonic blitz from the three opening tracks, the first true gem is unraveled in the hypnotic If God Will Send His Angels.

Here U2 are at their finest. The band churns a gospel-like melody as vocalist Bono sings in angst: "God has got his phone off the hook/ Would he even pick up if he could?...../Jesus never let me down/You know Jesus used to show me the score/Then they put Jesus in show business, now it's hard to get into the door."

You can almost picture Bono standing at a gothic arch crying out: "If God will send his angels/I sure could use them here right now."

Next is Staring at the Sun, due to be released as the second single next month.

It's a catchy song with a background acoustic by guitarist The Edge reminiscent of One from the Achtung Baby album. However, it lacks the numinous proportions and lyrical grace which made One such a great number with its gradual ascendance of emotional emancipation.

This song just misses out being a classic U2 track. Still, don't think you'll be able to escape from it when it races up the charts in the coming months.

U2 ups the tempo with Last Night on Earth which was the last track they recorded for the album. The song features a snippet of a recording made by jazz trumpeter Don Cherry.

Gone is anchored by the heavy rhythm section of Mullen and bassist Adam Clayton. The lyrics are again quite dark, though less spiritual.

"You're taking steps that make you feel dizzy/Then you get to like the way it feels/You hurt yourself you hurt your lover/Then you discover, what you thought was freedom was just greed."

Miami is, well, a rather disturbing piece. Drummer Larry Mullen provides a nice shuffle though.

The next track,The Playboy Mansion, is a great example of a band not shy to experiment, playing it unsafe and succeeding.

Bono strings together a great opening line: "If coke is a mystery and Michael Jackson history/If beauty is truth and surgery is the fountain of youth/What am I to do?"

He continues to thread verses, building the song as a litany for modern day truisms using Hugh Hefner's pleasure mansion as a backdrop for life's final goal: "If perfume is an obsession and talk shows confession.../The banks they're like cathedrals, I guess casinos took their place."

The song progresses in a relaxed pace with touches of psychedelia. The feel is very late 60s, early 70s. A cool song.

It is followed up by an eerie ballad, If You Wear that Velvet Dress -- the atmosphere surreal.

Dim the lights, sit in a dark corner, drag on your cigarette, take a little something and play the two tracks back-to-back. The effects are frighteningly mesmerizing.

The album closes with Please and Wake Up Dead Man. It persists in the same mood as the previous songs. Please almost seems to be a cry for help: "You never felt wanted till someone slapped your face."

Wake Up Dead Man has Bono in a distorted radio voice carrying out a conversation with Jesus, as The Edge plays cowboy and casually strums in the background.

So is it a great album? Probably not, but it certainly is a very good one.

The main flaw here, compared to The Joshua Tree, for example, is that it lacks good anthemic songs. Too many compositions in Pop need a particular frame of mind to get into and the melodies too subtle. As mentioned earlier, neither does it break new ground for the band.

What is surprising is that despite their own attempts to apparently deflate their aura of sainthood by picking a light- weight album title like Pop and a video such as Discotheque, U2 continue, maybe unconsciously, to delve into subjects of sanctity.

Salvation

No more do you hear the cries condemning apartheid or wars in Central America. Pop is an honest album of U2's personal reflection, possibly even salvation.

With a bit of tongue-in-cheek, Bono displays exasperation when journalists bring up the question of the public's perception of their exalted role.

"Ah, it just won't go away, will it? No matter about all these miracles, all these stadium tours and tinsel and televisions we use, I'm always going to be the f**ker with the white flag as far as you are concerned ! Isn't that right?" he said at a recent press conference.

Despise it he might, but Pop's own liner notes betray their ideals with the now customary call to join Greenpeace and Amnesty International.

It also includes a note of remembrance for human rights activists Wei Jingsheng, who, in 1995, was handed a 14-year jail sentence in China and Fehmi Tosun who "disappeared" in Turkey.

Commercially the album will sell on the sheer name of U2 alone. Industry experts predict sales of up to 10 million.

Weeks before its release, records stores in countries like Singapore were already taking advance orders for the album. Their catalog of eight albums has sold a combined total of 60 million.

Just how many million this one will rake in will depend on the buying public and probably more important, the record company's promotional strategy.

But at this point in their career it seems doubtful whether Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton are overly concerned whether they sell one million or 10 million.

Borrowing a line from Staring at the Sun: "God is good but will he listen?" (mds)