I amble through the student lounge and up to a table where a couple of my friends are sitting. Pulling my earphones out of my ears,

and allowing the cacophony of twenty-something angst around me to enter my temporal lobes, I move to sit. As is the ritual when any sauntering mammal with an electronic device attached to an ear walks by, people suddenly become interested. I suppose it’s the exclusivity, as well as the solitary nature of the act of listening to music via a personal recording device, that causes the insecurity (“are they listening to something about me?”) that is at the heart of the question that inevitably follows: “Watcha Listenin’ To?” It comes from my left, before I’ve even had the chance to be seated.

“U2 POP” is the utilitarian reply.

“Shitty album,” is the response. It’s almost rhetorical by now.

The case is always the same when I mention U2’s Zooropa album, a brilliant and under-appreciated effort, but most people save their vehemence for POP. I’ve always been mystified by this, and I endeavored to dig a little deeper this time, to perhaps plumb the source of the collective hatred of what I consider to be the seminal album of the 1990s.

As my sole reason for being in a university student lounge is that I’m studying to become a lawyer, a spirited defense is right up my alley, and I pounce on what I consider to be my friend’s ignorance with a vengeance.

“You don’t realize that U2’s POP not only captures, it is the zeitgeist of our times. What better album pillories the rise of global consumer citizenship (in “Miami” Bono [Paul Hewson] sings of cheap petrol and handycams, and compares this ultimate consumer life, symbolized by the city of Miami, with maternity), but not stopping there, then physically takes the same message around the globe (on the POPmart Tour), framing their music on-stage with the world’s largest TV screen, cased by a giant arch reminiscent of McDonald’s.”

My friend to my right parlays: “Yeah, but it’s all techno.” (As Bono sings in “Last Night on Earth” The more you take the less you feel/the less you know the more you believe/the more you have the more it takes today/)

I respond: “What better genre to explore a society that has seen unprecedented economic growth in the last decade as the result of the explosion in computer technology?” The metaphorical potential is lost on my group of nay-sayers.

“Who cares?” the left of me answers, “What about the politics of The Joshua Tree? U2 really cared about things back then.”

I’ve got them on this one. “Apartheid has been overturned, El Salvador is a democracy, Pinochet is in jail.” I jump. “They’re still exploring themes of spirituality, and love (“If God Will Send His Angels” and “Do you Feel Loved”), It’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “With or Without You” for a new generation.” I gloat.

“Yeah, maybe so, but I’ve always hated Bono’s whining, facile attempts to push his religion and politics down our throats. At least it sounded good in the ‘80s” comes the reply from the right.

I know I’ve lost the battle. But I pull out my last card. “What about “Wake Up Dead Man?” I reply. “It’s sort of traditional U2, and mellow, and wow, what a powerful eulogy for the 20th century. It’s the fin de siecle piece par excellence.” My argument is exhausted , and I’m resorting to faux French expressions in order to score points.

The condemnation is almost unanimous. “It’s U2 that needs to wake up. They suck now.”

Realizing that my blistering rhetoric is going nowhere I decide to take the first straw man out of the conversation. “Hey guys, did you know that Britney Spears is coming to town?” I retort.

“Ok, she sucks, but what a body. Oh my. She’s so rad. Oh. Baby”

“Yeah, rad if you like teenagers. She’s practically a baby.” I answer. Conversation over.

“Baby, Baby, Baby Light My Way,” I think to myself as I get up from the table and reach for my CD player. Just before the music floods my brain with relief I hear from among the muddle, “I can’t believe he likes techno.”

I smile and ramble away.

Copyright © 1999 Robert Delamar

Robert Delamar is the Managing Editor of *spark-online. When he sings in the shower he pretends he’s Bono. He is a first-year student in the faculty of law at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada.