Studio album · No. 8
Pop Songwriting Credits by U2
Produced by Flood, Howie B, Steve Osborne · Engineered by Mark "Spike" Stent, Howie B, Steve Osborne, Alan Moulder, Rob Kirwan, Howie Weinberg
Holds writing credit on 12 of 12 tracks
Authorship Breakdown 12 / 12 documented
Scored across the 12 tracks with documented writers, by whether U2 carries a lyricist or composer credit.
Share of the 12 tracks where a band member is credited, by role.
By the Numbers
The credit line splits the songwriting in two: music to U2 as a group, lyrics to Bono and the Edge together. That second half is the change. Earlier U2 sleeves put the lyrics on Bono alone, and Pop is the record where the Edge's name sits beside his on all twelve tracks. Four songs carry outside writers as well, and every one of them arrives through a sample. Simon Pyke comes in on "Discothèque" through the Freeform track "Fame". "Last Night on Earth" takes from "Trayra Boia" by Naná Vasconcelos and Denise Milan. "The Playboy Mansion" quotes "You Showed Me" by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn. "Wake Up Dead Man" draws on "Besrodna Nevesta" by Nikolai Iankov Kaoufmane. The sleeve even lists a sample clearance credit, Deborah Mannis-Gardner, which says plenty about how this album was assembled.
Pop is U2's ninth studio album, recorded across 1995 and 1996 in Dublin, Miami and New York with Flood as principal producer alongside Howie B and Steve Osborne. Much of it was built from loops, samples and programmed drums while Larry Mullen Jr. recovered from back surgery, then reworked once he returned to the kit. A tour booked before the record was finished pushed the band to the wire, and the release slipped from Christmas 1996 to 3 March 1997.