Being the biggest band on the planet has its pros and cons; you have access to the best producers, equipment and studios. The largest media spotlight beaming at you permanently, a world full of fans queing at midnight to buy your newest release and you can hang out with any celebrity and get into any club you like. The cons are that you have to keep on producing the goods, absorbing and re-creating the cutting edge and staying ahead of the pack of young pretenders.

Since the quasi-U2 album "Passengers" that followed "Zooropa", U2 monitored the techno onslaught and decided to bring in Flood and Howie B to produce their latest album, thereby discarding their own "George Martin" Brian Eno. So one would expect a high-tech U2 album, but one would be wrong. "Pop" is really the third in the trilogy of albums that began with "Achtung Baby" and "Zooropa". The songs are the usual mixture of hard guitar rock , Bono balladeering and tight rhythm section. The producers have beefed up the sound with backround distortion and sound effects but basically there's no major departure from the solid songs that are U2's strength. The first single "Discotheque" implied a new direction but songs like "Staring at the sun", "If God will send his angels" and "The Playboy mansion" are classic U2.

"Gone" and "Miami" are hard and dirty while the two closing tracks "Please" and "Wake up dead man" could have been on 'The Joshua Tree'. As with REM, U2 always sound like they would like to try something completely different but what they have works fine so why deviate from a winning formula. Stuff Techno ! U2 are still the tightest and coolest band on the planet, the only Techno thing about this album is the cover. Jacques Brel said it takes great talent to grow old without growing up... Bono is still a child but NO ONE tells him no........its a good thing !!

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Allison Simkiss / Fetish management fetish@iafrica.com Or phone Allison at 021-618 120 The CD costs R79.99 plus R12.00 postage.