I was somewhat surprised at this too!
As said above, the Pop singles are gold dust and having easy access to this when you have none of the singles is brilliant (Pop was well before my time), especially if you are into the 90s electronica at the time. To mainstream listeners, delving into all their influences around this time gives people a better sense of what they were trying to do, and the remixes drive that point home further.
Am argument could be they didn't push it enough; maybe it's not as experimental and electronic focused for the underground listener, and it ain't mainstream enough for the casual listener. Perhaps its stuck between a rock and a hard place. But the album is a fascinating experiment nonetheless. For all its flaws, it's very much a 'what if' album in the vein of No Line, albums that you can come back to and see the germinations of a bonafide brilliant album.
Both albums lack that unifying smash hit single, and both lack cohesion. But whereas No Line suffers from self-sabotage with the inclusion of the 'terrible trio' in the middle, Pop's flaws are not as obvious. For me personally, there's no terrible track on Pop but I think similarly to No Line, it falls down when it tries to be mainstream. For example, Staring At The Sun is a fine track but it doesn't feel in keeping with the concept of that album. The dark and sinister characteristics of the more electro influenced and restrained songs in the last third is interrupted by a typical sounding U2 song. You get away with that break in mood if its a blinding smash hit but this one isn't quite there, and sometimes that's why the mood trip that album is supposed to be doesn't deliver with as much conviction as it should.
As I say, in isolation, good track but it's probably an album that should just maintain that moodiness all the way through.
