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40-Foot Lemon: The Complete Story of U2's Pop & PopMart
The Definitive Account of U2’s Most Interesting Era
When U2 released Pop in 1997, the Irish quartet had been on a decade-long run of hits that included The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. The band’s Zoo TV tour in the early 1990s was a multimedia extravaganza that dazzled critics and sold out venues the world over. But Pop turned out to be U2’s worst-selling album, and the accompanying PopMart tour played to half-filled stadiums and earned the nickname “Flop Mart” in the press. The Pop era was left behind, but many U2 fans never forgot what Bono once called the “best thing we've ever done.”
40-Foot The Complete Story of U2's Pop & PopMart takes readers into the studio and onto the stage during U2’s most experimental and ambitious era. It chronicles the difficult and expensive yearlong recording of Pop, where the band worked with five producers in multiple studios on two continents, striving to create a masterpiece. Instead, with tour dates already booked, U2 handed in an unfinished album.
40-Foot Lemon follows U2 around the globe on PopMart, the biggest tour in rock history, and featuring the world’s largest TV screen, a 10-story golden arch, a sofa-sized olive on a 100-foot martini stick, and a giant lemon disco ball that did all sorts of tricks. When it was working. PopMart struggled to fill seats in the U.S., but it shattered records in Europe and South America, playing to packed stadiums and making history from Sarajevo to Santiago. 40-Foot Lemon is the definitive account of U2 at their most interesting.
When U2 released Pop in 1997, the Irish quartet had been on a decade-long run of hits that included The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. The band’s Zoo TV tour in the early 1990s was a multimedia extravaganza that dazzled critics and sold out venues the world over. But Pop turned out to be U2’s worst-selling album, and the accompanying PopMart tour played to half-filled stadiums and earned the nickname “Flop Mart” in the press. The Pop era was left behind, but many U2 fans never forgot what Bono once called the “best thing we've ever done.”
40-Foot The Complete Story of U2's Pop & PopMart takes readers into the studio and onto the stage during U2’s most experimental and ambitious era. It chronicles the difficult and expensive yearlong recording of Pop, where the band worked with five producers in multiple studios on two continents, striving to create a masterpiece. Instead, with tour dates already booked, U2 handed in an unfinished album.
40-Foot Lemon follows U2 around the globe on PopMart, the biggest tour in rock history, and featuring the world’s largest TV screen, a 10-story golden arch, a sofa-sized olive on a 100-foot martini stick, and a giant lemon disco ball that did all sorts of tricks. When it was working. PopMart struggled to fill seats in the U.S., but it shattered records in Europe and South America, playing to packed stadiums and making history from Sarajevo to Santiago. 40-Foot Lemon is the definitive account of U2 at their most interesting.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
280 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 30, 2024
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28 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 26, 2025
I am a lifelong fan of U2. That does not mean I love everything they do, but I give a listen to everything they produce. I am one of the few who really enjoys the album Pop. I still listen to it, the last time being maybe a month ago. I bought Pop the morning it was released, was sitting in my car outside the record store about 15 minutes waiting for them to open. I listened to the entire album immediately as I was on the road for an hour. And then I listened several times more within those first few days. The album just worked for me, and it works for me still.
I saw PopMart in Tampa, and it was a gas. I loved the corny, kitschy, cool, over-the-top production, and the boys were on point, tight and practiced. That was on the tour's third leg, after they had worked out the kinks that seemed to plague the tour's early shows. I know I was fortunate to see the show when it was hitting full throttle as I had been reading and hearing the negative reviews that were popping up everywhere. I believe I still would have enjoyed the show were it to have been sputtering; it just met me in a place where I was irritated with the world, being in my early 20s, in college, questioning everything and everyone, and the show mocked much of what was bothering me.
I think this book can work for those who enjoyed the album and the tour, and for those who didn't, as it’s a glimpse behind their curtain, regardless of your feelings. It's a dialed-in look at a period in time when U2 was changing, which they do a lot, and that's one reason I love them. Ultimately, for me, this book was an enjoyable read, a nostalgic reminder of my younger days when I first heard the album and saw the show.
I saw PopMart in Tampa, and it was a gas. I loved the corny, kitschy, cool, over-the-top production, and the boys were on point, tight and practiced. That was on the tour's third leg, after they had worked out the kinks that seemed to plague the tour's early shows. I know I was fortunate to see the show when it was hitting full throttle as I had been reading and hearing the negative reviews that were popping up everywhere. I believe I still would have enjoyed the show were it to have been sputtering; it just met me in a place where I was irritated with the world, being in my early 20s, in college, questioning everything and everyone, and the show mocked much of what was bothering me.
I think this book can work for those who enjoyed the album and the tour, and for those who didn't, as it’s a glimpse behind their curtain, regardless of your feelings. It's a dialed-in look at a period in time when U2 was changing, which they do a lot, and that's one reason I love them. Ultimately, for me, this book was an enjoyable read, a nostalgic reminder of my younger days when I first heard the album and saw the show.
June 14, 2024
forgot to interview me, but that oversight aside, a new U2 canon essential.
masterfully achieves that tricky balance of truthfully capturing the absurdity and floundering but through the lens of bemused love it deserves, without falling into the trappings of a fluff piece. meticulously researched, i can't even imagine how many bootlegs were watched and re-watched in service of this.
never has so much fond exasperation been communicated in objectively reporting things like "and then he switched into his costume for his new character, Walking Target, donning a pork pie hat", and etc. i'm laughing, i'm yelling "what are you doing?!" at my e-reader, i'm nodding sagely at last minute interventions with the album version of Discotheque. a book that deserves way better than this self-published looking cover and titling font.
were i Bono, i would promote this book in his classic style, with: "it's the greatest music book ever written, it's a perfection of the biography subgenre. maybe you'll hate it, though, i don't know. i'm sorry."
forever shopping at popmart!
masterfully achieves that tricky balance of truthfully capturing the absurdity and floundering but through the lens of bemused love it deserves, without falling into the trappings of a fluff piece. meticulously researched, i can't even imagine how many bootlegs were watched and re-watched in service of this.
never has so much fond exasperation been communicated in objectively reporting things like "and then he switched into his costume for his new character, Walking Target, donning a pork pie hat", and etc. i'm laughing, i'm yelling "what are you doing?!" at my e-reader, i'm nodding sagely at last minute interventions with the album version of Discotheque. a book that deserves way better than this self-published looking cover and titling font.
were i Bono, i would promote this book in his classic style, with: "it's the greatest music book ever written, it's a perfection of the biography subgenre. maybe you'll hate it, though, i don't know. i'm sorry."
forever shopping at popmart!
December 12, 2024
I realize when I say that I love the "Pop" album, I'm in the minority. But we're not here for album reviews, are we? As fast and easy of a read as this is, it's packed with behind the scenes info about U2's exit from the 90's. This book takes you on tour with the band, date by date with insight on how both the band and the public felt about The Popmart Tour. Youtube is a great companion, as many of the things mentioned in the book are documented on YouTube. I suspect that even U2 fans who dislike this era of the band will find this to be an interesting read.
January 20, 2025
I've been a fan of U2 since their Joshua Tree/Rattle and Hum days. To me, they've never made a bad album. Some I like better than others, but to me, none of them are stinkers. I've always felt "Pop" was underrated and it's one that I go back to fairly often. I also really enjoyed their PopMart tour stop at Franklin Field in Philly, though I may be biased since that was my first ever concert and really had nothing else to compare it to. With all of that in mind, I picked up this book with great interest, and for the most part, it didn't disappoint. It's a comprehensive overview of U2's Pop/PopMart era and contains a lot of interesting information in it. My main gripe with the book is that it feels like a term paper more than a book. It reports on facts and statistics but doesn't really craft much of a narrative. Also, the author repeats himself a lot. How many times does he have to mention that "Do You Feel Loved?" was dropped from the setlist early in the tour? How many times does he have to keep referencing the underperformance of "Pop" on the charts or the low-ticket sales for the tour? Those points were made quite clearly in the early goings, so there was no need to keep hammering them in. Overall, I did like this, but this could've used a little more editing as well as a more conversational tone.
December 29, 2024
This book does exactly what it sets out to do, which is tell the story of perhaps the most maligned album the band ever put out (before 2014, at least), and the tour that followed. The play by play description of the tour does get a little boring at times, and I think there might have been an 80 page gap between mentions of Adam. But I am at heart a serious U2 fan despite it often being hard to be a fan of their latest and greatest ideas at every turn, and this book encouraged me to listen to Pop with a fresh ear. I've always loved Mofo, but I'm willing to give the rest another shot. Now if Geoff can somehow redeem No Line on the Horizon...
November 20, 2024
Well researched and fluently written, this book is a welcome addition to the ever-growing re-evaluation of the POP-era. A fun and interesting read that sheds a fresh perspective on this often maligned project and invites a rediscovery of the music and its subsequent tour. Here's hoping for a 30th anniversary POP & POPMART Deluxe Boxset in 2027🤞
January 8, 2025
this was good. not as good as i remember U2 at the End of the World being. but POP was the album that came out right when i was getting into u2, and POPMART was my first concert so it has a special place in my heart.
April 12, 2024
Great take on U2’s “Pop” era! Truly enjoyed this book!
I’m a huge fan of that underrated album and loved the tour. I was very fortunate to have experienced Popmart at Foxboro.
I’m a huge fan of that underrated album and loved the tour. I was very fortunate to have experienced Popmart at Foxboro.
June 23, 2024
A fun, concise summary of the time the biggest band in the world nearly became Spinal Tap.
August 3, 2024
A quick, fun read through U2's Pop/PopMart era.
October 5, 2025
Interesting and well-written, and some added detail for sure though not (to me, a fan) a lot of groundbreaking information.
April 23, 2025
To adapt the "tree falls in the forest..." philosophical thought: "If Achtung Baby and ZooTv were not accepted by the masses, does that make them any less great?"
My personal rabbit hole.
I consider Pop and PopMart to be U2's apex, and sincerely wish to glimpse for 5-minutes the alternate universe in which these were as widely accepted as The Joshua Tree, so I may appreciate how the ensuing 27 years would have looked for this band.
Not the most well-written book. While there's a loose narrative structure, most of it reads as a chronological summary of all the newspaper snippets and quotes the author came across. As a reading experience, I rate it a 3.
However, perhaps ~50 solid things I learned about the band's inner workings during this period that I otherwise would have never known. That in and of itself was worth the purchase and time. And considering my satisfaction that a university professor felt this worthwhile enough in 2024 to write and publish... happy to give it a 4.
My personal rabbit hole.
I consider Pop and PopMart to be U2's apex, and sincerely wish to glimpse for 5-minutes the alternate universe in which these were as widely accepted as The Joshua Tree, so I may appreciate how the ensuing 27 years would have looked for this band.
Not the most well-written book. While there's a loose narrative structure, most of it reads as a chronological summary of all the newspaper snippets and quotes the author came across. As a reading experience, I rate it a 3.
However, perhaps ~50 solid things I learned about the band's inner workings during this period that I otherwise would have never known. That in and of itself was worth the purchase and time. And considering my satisfaction that a university professor felt this worthwhile enough in 2024 to write and publish... happy to give it a 4.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews