Album · U2
Pop by U2
Pop is an album by U2, released in 1997. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 49 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Staring At The Sun”, on 25 lists with a best position of #23.
Pop, U2's ninth album, landed on Island on 3 March 1997, the last leg of the band's '90s reinvention and the one where they dove headfirst into the club. Flood, Howie B and Steve Osborne produced, and the record is full of tools U2 had barely touched before: samples, loops, programmed drum machines, sequencers. The sessions were a slog. Larry Mullen Jr. was sidelined with a back injury early on, songs refused to come together, and once the PopMart Tour was booked the band had a deadline they couldn't dodge; even after pushing the release back past Christmas, they were still finishing tracks at the buzzer.
"Discotheque", a techno-charged lead single, kicked it off, and "Staring at the Sun" and "Last Night on Earth" kept it on the radio. It went to number one in 35 countries, but its lifetime sales rank among their lowest, and the band were unhappy enough with it to rework many of the songs later.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Pop on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Staring At The Sun | 25 | #23 | – | 1997–2022 | |
| 2 | Discotheque | 14 | #41 | – | 1997–2022 | |
| 3 | Last Night On Earth | 10 | #62 | – | 1997–2005 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.