title: Baby-led weaning

text: A more recent study at the University of Nottingham by Ellen Townsend and Nicola J. Pitchford suggests that baby-led weaning may lead to less obesity in childhood. The authors conclude that the "results suggest that infants weaned through the baby-led approach learn to regulate their food intake in a manner, which leads to a lower BMI and a preference for healthy foods like carbohydrates.". Feeding specialist, Kary Rappaport, OTR/L, SWC, CLE also concludes that a BLW infant, who leads their own food exploration and is exposed to a consistent variety of tastes, textures, and smells at an early age is more likely to develop positive interest in food. This may decrease “picky” eating behaviors in toddlers and young children.


title: Baby-led weaning

text: Researcher Joel Voss, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University states, "The bottom line is, if you're not the one who's controlling your learning, you're not going to learn as well". When an adult takes control of the activity, the inherent love of exploration and discovery is lost. BLW allows for natural, developmentally appropriate interaction and play with food, which has the potential to develop a lifelong curiosity with food.


title: Baby-led weaning

text: As of June 2019, it was suggested that long-term studies need to be done on the effects of BLW on nutrition adequacy and safety in addition to previous evidence that it is useful in self-regulation of feeding with low risk of choking.


title: Baby-led weaning

text: American Academy of Pediatrics (2013). Ages & Stages: feeding & nutrition. Accessed 10 October 2013. http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/feeding-nutrition/Pages/default.aspx.


title: Baby-led weaning

text: Case-Smith, J & Humphry, R. (2005). Feeding Intervention. In J.Case-Smith (Ed.), Occupational therapy for children (pp. 481–520). St Louis, MO: Elsevier.


title: Baby-led weaning

text: Morris, S.E, & Dunn-Klein, M.(2000).Pre-feeding skills: A comprehensive resource for mealtime development (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: PRO-ED, Inc.


title: Baby-led weaning

text: Rapley, G. & Murkett, T. (2005). Baby Led Weaning: the essential guide to introducing solid foods and helping your baby to grow up a happy and confident eater. New York, NY: The experiment, LLC.


title: Abyssal plain

text: An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between and . Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth's surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest, and least explored regions on Earth. Abyssal plains are key geologic elements of oceanic basins (the other elements being an elevated mid-ocean ridge and flanking abyssal hills).


title: Abyssal plain

text: The creation of the abyssal plain is the result of the spreading of the seafloor (plate tectonics) and the melting of the lower oceanic crust. Magma rises from above the asthenosphere (a layer of the upper mantle), and as this basaltic material reaches the surface at mid-ocean ridges, it forms new oceanic crust, which is constantly pulled sideways by spreading of the seafloor. Abyssal plains result from the blanketing of an originally uneven surface of oceanic crust by fine-grained sediments, mainly clay and silt. Much of this sediment is deposited by turbidity currents that have been channelled from the continental margins along submarine canyons into deeper water. The rest is composed chiefly of pelagic sediments. Metallic nodules are common in some areas of the plains, with varying concentrations of metals, including manganese, iron, nickel, cobalt, and copper. There are also amounts of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and silicon, due to material that comes down and decomposes.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Owing in part to their vast size, abyssal plains are believed to be major reservoirs of biodiversity. They also exert significant influence upon ocean carbon cycling, dissolution of calcium carbonate, and atmospheric CO concentrations over time scales of a hundred to a thousand years. The structure of abyssal ecosystems is strongly influenced by the rate of flux of food to the seafloor and the composition of the material that settles. Factors such as climate change, fishing practices, and ocean fertilization have a substantial effect on patterns of primary production in the euphotic zone. Animals absorb dissolved oxygen from the oxygen-poor waters. Much dissolved oxygen in abyssal plains came from polar regions that had melted long ago. Due to scarcity of oxygen, abyssal plains are inhospitable for organisms that would flourish in the oxygen-enriched waters above. Deep sea coral reefs are mainly found in depths of 3,000 meters and deeper in the abyssal and hadal zones.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Abyssal plains were not recognized as distinct physiographic features of the sea floor until the late 1940s and, until recently, none had been studied on a systematic basis. They are poorly preserved in the sedimentary record, because they tend to be consumed by the subduction process. Due to darkness and a water pressure that can reach about 750 times atmospheric pressure (76 megapascal), abyssal plains are not well explored.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The ocean can be conceptualized as zones, depending on depth, and presence or absence of sunlight. Nearly all life forms in the ocean depend on the photosynthetic activities of phytoplankton and other marine plants to convert carbon dioxide into organic carbon, which is the basic building block of organic matter. Photosynthesis in turn requires energy from sunlight to drive the chemical reactions that produce organic carbon.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The stratum of the water column nearest the surface of the ocean (sea level) is referred to as the photic zone. The photic zone can be subdivided into two different vertical regions. The uppermost portion of the photic zone, where there is adequate light to support photosynthesis by phytoplankton and plants, is referred to as the euphotic zone (also referred to as the "epipelagic zone", or "surface zone"). The lower portion of the photic zone, where the light intensity is insufficient for photosynthesis, is called the dysphotic zone (dysphotic means "poorly lit" in Greek). The dysphotic zone is also referred to as the "mesopelagic zone", or the "twilight zone". Its lowermost boundary is at a thermocline of , which, in the tropics generally lies between 200 and 1,000 metres.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The euphotic zone is somewhat arbitrarily defined as extending from the surface to the depth where the light intensity is approximately 0.1–1% of surface sunlight irradiance, depending on season, latitude and degree of water turbidity. In the clearest ocean water, the euphotic zone may extend to a depth of about 150 metres, or rarely, up to 200 metres. Dissolved substances and solid particles absorb and scatter light, and in coastal regions the high concentration of these substances causes light to be attenuated rapidly with depth. In such areas the euphotic zone may be only a few tens of metres deep or less. The dysphotic zone, where light intensity is considerably less than 1% of surface irradiance, extends from the base of the euphotic zone to about 1,000 metres. Extending from the bottom of the photic zone down to the seabed is the aphotic zone, a region of perpetual darkness.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Since the average depth of the ocean is about 4,300 metres, the photic zone represents only a tiny fraction of the ocean's total volume. However, due to its capacity for photosynthesis, the photic zone has the greatest biodiversity and biomass of all oceanic zones. Nearly all primary production in the ocean occurs here. Life forms which inhabit the aphotic zone are often capable of movement upwards through the water column into the photic zone for feeding. Otherwise, they must rely on material sinking from above, or find another source of energy and nutrition, such as occurs in chemosynthetic archaea found near hydrothermal vents and cold seeps.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The aphotic zone can be subdivided into three different vertical regions, based on depth and temperature. First is the bathyal zone, extending from a depth of 1,000 metres down to 3,000 metres, with water temperature decreasing from to as depth increases. Next is the abyssal zone, extending from a depth of 3,000 metres down to 6,000 metres. The final zone includes the deep oceanic trenches, and is known as the hadal zone. This, the deepest oceanic zone, extends from a depth of 6,000 metres down to approximately 11,034 meters, at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on planet Earth. Abyssal plains are typically in the abyssal zone, at depths from 3,000 to 6,000 metres.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Oceanic crust, which forms the bedrock of abyssal plains, is continuously being created at mid-ocean ridges (a type of divergent boundary) by a process known as decompression melting. Plume-related decompression melting of solid mantle is responsible for creating ocean islands like the Hawaiian islands, as well as the ocean crust at mid-ocean ridges. This phenomenon is also the most common explanation for flood basalts and oceanic plateaus (two types of large igneous provinces). Decompression melting occurs when the upper mantle is partially melted into magma as it moves upwards under mid-ocean ridges. This upwelling magma then cools and solidifies by conduction and convection of heat to form new oceanic crust. Accretion occurs as mantle is added to the growing edges of a tectonic plate, usually associated with seafloor spreading. The age of oceanic crust is therefore a function of distance from the mid-ocean ridge. The youngest oceanic crust is at the mid-ocean ridges, and it becomes progressively older, cooler and denser as it migrates outwards from the mid-ocean ridges as part of the process called mantle convection.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The lithosphere, which rides atop the asthenosphere, is divided into a number of tectonic plates that are continuously being created and consumed at their opposite plate boundaries. Oceanic crust and tectonic plates are formed and move apart at mid-ocean ridges. Abyssal hills are formed by stretching of the oceanic lithosphere. Consumption or destruction of the oceanic lithosphere occurs at oceanic trenches (a type of convergent boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary) by a process known as subduction. Oceanic trenches are found at places where the oceanic lithospheric slabs of two different plates meet, and the denser (older) slab begins to descend back into the mantle. At the consumption edge of the plate (the oceanic trench), the oceanic lithosphere has thermally contracted to become quite dense, and it sinks under its own weight in the process of subduction. The subduction process consumes older oceanic lithosphere, so oceanic crust is seldom more than 200 million years old. The overall process of repeated cycles of creation and destruction of oceanic crust is known as the Supercontinent cycle, first proposed by Canadian geophysicist and geologist John Tuzo Wilson.


title: Abyssal plain

text: New oceanic crust, closest to the mid-oceanic ridges, is mostly basalt at shallow levels and has a rugged topography. The roughness of this topography is a function of the rate at which the mid-ocean ridge is spreading (the spreading rate). Magnitudes of spreading rates vary quite significantly. Typical values for fast-spreading ridges are greater than 100 mm/yr, while slow-spreading ridges are typically less than 20 mm/yr. Studies have shown that the slower the spreading rate, the rougher the new oceanic crust will be, and vice versa. It is thought this phenomenon is due to faulting at the mid-ocean ridge when the new oceanic crust was formed. These faults pervading the oceanic crust, along with their bounding abyssal hills, are the most common tectonic and topographic features on the surface of the Earth. The process of seafloor spreading helps to explain the concept of continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The flat appearance of mature abyssal plains results from the blanketing of this originally uneven surface of oceanic crust by fine-grained sediments, mainly clay and silt. Much of this sediment is deposited from turbidity currents that have been channeled from the continental margins along submarine canyons down into deeper water. The remainder of the sediment comprises chiefly dust (clay particles) blown out to sea from land, and the remains of small marine plants and animals which sink from the upper layer of the ocean, known as pelagic sediments. The total sediment deposition rate in remote areas is estimated at two to three centimeters per thousand years. Sediment-covered abyssal plains are less common in the Pacific Ocean than in other major ocean basins because sediments from turbidity currents are trapped in oceanic trenches that border the Pacific Ocean.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Abyssal plains are typically covered by deep sea, but during parts of the Messinian salinity crisis much of the Mediterranean Sea's abyssal plain was exposed to air as an empty deep hot dry salt-floored sink.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The landmark scientific expedition (December 1872 – May 1876) of the British Royal Navy survey ship HMS "Challenger" yielded a tremendous amount of bathymetric data, much of which has been confirmed by subsequent researchers. Bathymetric data obtained during the course of the Challenger expedition enabled scientists to draw maps, which provided a rough outline of certain major submarine terrain features, such as the edge of the continental shelves and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This discontinuous set of data points was obtained by the simple technique of taking soundings by lowering long lines from the ship to the seabed.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The Challenger expedition was followed by the 1879–1881 expedition of the "Jeannette", led by United States Navy Lieutenant George Washington DeLong. The team sailed across the Chukchi Sea and recorded meteorological and astronomical data in addition to taking soundings of the seabed. The ship became trapped in the ice pack near Wrangel Island in September 1879, and was ultimately crushed and sunk in June 1881.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The "Jeannette" expedition was followed by the 1893–1896 Arctic expedition of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen aboard the "Fram", which proved that the Arctic Ocean was a deep oceanic basin, uninterrupted by any significant land masses north of the Eurasian continent.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Beginning in 1916, Canadian physicist Robert William Boyle and other scientists of the Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee (ASDIC) undertook research which ultimately led to the development of sonar technology. Acoustic sounding equipment was developed which could be operated much more rapidly than the sounding lines, thus enabling the German Meteor expedition aboard the German research vessel Meteor (1925–27) to take frequent soundings on east-west Atlantic transects. Maps produced from these techniques show the major Atlantic basins, but the depth precision of these early instruments was not sufficient to reveal the flat featureless abyssal plains.


title: Abyssal plain

text: As technology improved, measurement of depth, latitude and longitude became more precise and it became possible to collect more or less continuous sets of data points. This allowed researchers to draw accurate and detailed maps of large areas of the ocean floor. Use of a continuously recording fathometer enabled Tolstoy & Ewing in the summer of 1947 to identify and describe the first abyssal plain. This plain, south of Newfoundland, is now known as the Sohm Abyssal Plain. Following this discovery many other examples were found in all the oceans.


title: Abyssal plain

text: The Challenger Deep is the deepest surveyed point of all of Earth's oceans; it is at the south end of the Mariana Trench near the Mariana Islands group. The depression is named after HMS "Challenger", whose researchers made the first recordings of its depth on 23 March 1875 at station 225. The reported depth was 4,475 fathoms (8184 meters) based on two separate soundings. On 1 June 2009, sonar mapping of the Challenger Deep by the Simrad EM120 multibeam sonar bathymetry system aboard the R/V "Kilo Moana" indicated a maximum depth of 10971 meters (6.82 miles). The sonar system uses phase and amplitude bottom detection, with an accuracy of better than 0.2% of water depth (this is an error of about 22 meters at this depth).


title: Abyssal plain

text: A rare but important terrain feature found in the batyal, abyssal and hadal zones is the hydrothermal vent. In contrast to the approximately 2 °C ambient water temperature at these depths, water emerges from these vents at temperatures ranging from 60 °C up to as high as 464 °C. Due to the high barometric pressure at these depths, water may exist in either its liquid form or as a supercritical fluid at such temperatures.


title: Abyssal plain

text: At a barometric pressure of 218 atmospheres, the critical point of water is 375 °C. At a depth of 3,000 meters, the barometric pressure of sea water is more than 300 atmospheres (as salt water is denser than fresh water). At this depth and pressure, seawater becomes supercritical at a temperature of 407 °C ("see image"). However the increase in salinity at this depth pushes the water closer to its critical point. Thus, water emerging from the hottest parts of some hydrothermal vents, "black smokers" and submarine volcanoes can be a supercritical fluid, possessing physical properties between those of a gas and those of a liquid.


title: Abyssal plain

text: "Sister Peak" (Comfortless Cove Hydrothermal Field, , elevation −2996 m), "Shrimp Farm" and "Mephisto" (Red Lion Hydrothermal Field, , elevation −3047 m), are three hydrothermal vents of the black smoker category, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge near Ascension Island. They are presumed to have been active since an earthquake shook the region in 2002. These vents have been observed to vent phase-separated, vapor-type fluids. In 2008, sustained exit temperatures of up to 407 °C were recorded at one of these vents, with a peak recorded temperature of up to 464 °C. These thermodynamic conditions exceed the critical point of seawater, and are the highest temperatures recorded to date from the seafloor. This is the first reported evidence for direct magmatic-hydrothermal interaction on a slow-spreading mid-ocean ridge. The initial stages of a vent chimney begin with the deposition of the mineral anhydrite. Sulfides of copper, iron, and zinc then precipitate in the chimney gaps, making it less porous over the course of time. Vent growths on the order of 30 cm (1 ft) per day have been recorded.[11] An April 2007 exploration of the deep-sea vents off the coast of Fiji found those vents to be a significant source of dissolved iron (see iron cycle).


title: Abyssal plain

text: Hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean typically form along the mid-ocean ridges, such as the East Pacific Rise and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. These are locations where two tectonic plates are diverging and new crust is being formed.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Another unusual feature found in the abyssal and hadal zones is the cold seep, sometimes called a "cold vent". This is an area of the seabed where seepage of hydrogen sulfide, methane and other hydrocarbon-rich fluid occurs, often in the form of a deep-sea brine pool. The first cold seeps were discovered in 1983, at a depth of 3200 meters in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, cold seeps have been discovered in many other areas of the World Ocean, including the Monterey Submarine Canyon just off Monterey Bay, California, the Sea of Japan, off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, off the Atlantic coast of Africa, off the coast of Alaska, and under an ice shelf in Antarctica.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Though the plains were once assumed to be vast, desert-like habitats, research over the past decade or so shows that they teem with a wide variety of microbial life. However, ecosystem structure and function at the deep seafloor have historically been poorly studied because of the size and remoteness of the abyss. Recent oceanographic expeditions conducted by an international group of scientists from the Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life (CeDAMar) have found an extremely high level of biodiversity on abyssal plains, with up to 2000 species of bacteria, 250 species of protozoans, and 500 species of invertebrates (worms, crustaceans and molluscs), typically found at single abyssal sites. New species make up more than 80% of the thousands of seafloor invertebrate species collected at any abyssal station, highlighting our heretofore poor understanding of abyssal diversity and evolution. Richer biodiversity is associated with areas of known phytodetritus input and higher organic carbon flux.


title: Abyssal plain

text: "Abyssobrotula galatheae", a species of cusk eel in the family Ophidiidae, is among the deepest-living species of fish. In 1970, one specimen was trawled from a depth of 8370 meters in the Puerto Rico Trench. The animal was dead, however, upon arrival at the surface. In 2008, the hadal snailfish ("Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis") was observed and recorded at a depth of 7700 meters in the Japan Trench. These are, to date, the deepest living fish ever recorded. Other fish of the abyssal zone include the fishes of the family Ipnopidae, which includes the abyssal spiderfish ("Bathypterois longipes"), tripodfish ("Bathypterois grallator"), feeler fish ("Bathypterois longifilis"), and the black lizardfish ("Bathysauropsis gracilis"). Some members of this family have been recorded from depths of more than 6000 meters.


title: Abyssal plain

text: CeDAMar scientists have demonstrated that some abyssal and hadal species have a cosmopolitan distribution. One example of this would be protozoan foraminiferans, certain species of which are distributed from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Other faunal groups, such as the polychaete worms and isopod crustaceans, appear to be endemic to certain specific plains and basins. Many apparently unique taxa of nematode worms have also been recently discovered on abyssal plains. This suggests that the deep ocean has fostered adaptive radiations. The taxonomic composition of the nematode fauna in the abyssal Pacific is similar, but not identical to, that of the North Atlantic. A list of some of the species that have been discovered or redescribed by CeDAMar can be found here.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Eleven of the 31 described species of "Monoplacophora" (a class of mollusks) live below 2000 meters. Of these 11 species, two live exclusively in the hadal zone. The greatest number of monoplacophorans are from the eastern Pacific Ocean along the oceanic trenches. However, no abyssal monoplacophorans have yet been found in the Western Pacific and only one abyssal species has been identified in the Indian Ocean. Of the 922 known species of chitons (from the "Polyplacophora" class of mollusks), 22 species (2.4%) are reported to live below 2000 meters and two of them are restricted to the abyssal plain. Although genetic studies are lacking, at least six of these species are thought to be eurybathic (capable of living in a wide range of depths), having been reported as occurring from the sublittoral to abyssal depths. A large number of the polyplacophorans from great depths are herbivorous or xylophagous, which could explain the difference between the distribution of monoplacophorans and polyplacophorans in the world's oceans.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Peracarid crustaceans, including isopods, are known to form a significant part of the macrobenthic community that is responsible for scavenging on large food falls onto the sea floor. In 2000, scientists of the "Diversity of the deep Atlantic benthos" (DIVA 1) expedition (cruise M48/1 of the German research vessel RV "Meteor III") discovered and collected three new species of the Asellota suborder of benthic isopods from the abyssal plains of the Angola Basin in the South Atlantic Ocean. In 2003, De Broyer et al. collected some 68,000 peracarid crustaceans from 62 species from baited traps deployed in the Weddell Sea, Scotia Sea, and off the South Shetland Islands. They found that about 98% of the specimens belonged to the amphipod superfamily "Lysianassoidea", and 2% to the isopod family Cirolanidae. Half of these species were collected from depths of greater than 1000 meters.


title: Abyssal plain

text: In 2005, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) remotely operated vehicle, KAIKO, collected sediment core from the Challenger Deep. 432 living specimens of soft-walled foraminifera were identified in the sediment samples. Foraminifera are single-celled protists that construct shells. There are an estimated 4,000 species of living foraminifera. Out of the 432 organisms collected, the overwhelming majority of the sample consisted of simple, soft-shelled foraminifera, with others representing species of the complex, multi-chambered genera "Leptohalysis" and "Reophax". Overall, 85% of the specimens consisted of soft-shelled allogromiids. This is unusual compared to samples of sediment-dwelling organisms from other deep-sea environments, where the percentage of organic-walled foraminifera ranges from 5% to 20% of the total. Small organisms with hard calciferous shells have trouble growing at extreme depths because the water at that depth is severely lacking in calcium carbonate. The giant (5–20 cm) foraminifera known as xenophyophores are only found at depths of 500-10,000 metres, where they can occur in great numbers and greatly increase animal diversity due to their bioturbation and provision of living habitat for small animals.


title: Abyssal plain

text: While similar lifeforms have been known to exist in shallower oceanic trenches (>7,000 m) and on the abyssal plain, the lifeforms discovered in the Challenger Deep may represent independent taxa from those shallower ecosystems. This preponderance of soft-shelled organisms at the Challenger Deep may be a result of selection pressure. Millions of years ago, the Challenger Deep was shallower than it is now. Over the past six to nine million years, as the Challenger Deep grew to its present depth, many of the species present in the sediment of that ancient biosphere were unable to adapt to the increasing water pressure and changing environment. Those species that were able to adapt may have been the ancestors of the organisms currently endemic to the Challenger Deep.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Polychaetes occur throughout the Earth's oceans at all depths, from forms that live as plankton near the surface, to the deepest oceanic trenches. The robot ocean probe Nereus observed a 2–3 cm specimen (still unclassified) of polychaete at the bottom of the Challenger Deep on 31 May 2009. There are more than 10,000 described species of polychaetes; they can be found in nearly every marine environment. Some species live in the coldest ocean temperatures of the hadal zone, while others can be found in the extremely hot waters adjacent to hydrothermal vents.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Within the abyssal and hadal zones, the areas around submarine hydrothermal vents and cold seeps have by far the greatest biomass and biodiversity per unit area. Fueled by the chemicals dissolved in the vent fluids, these areas are often home to large and diverse communities of thermophilic, halophilic and other extremophilic prokaryotic microorganisms (such as those of the sulfide-oxidizing genus "Beggiatoa"), often arranged in large bacterial mats near cold seeps. In these locations, chemosynthetic archaea and bacteria typically form the base of the food chain. Although the process of chemosynthesis is entirely microbial, these chemosynthetic microorganisms often support vast ecosystems consisting of complex multicellular organisms through symbiosis. These communities are characterized by species such as vesicomyid clams, mytilid mussels, limpets, isopods, giant tube worms, soft corals, eelpouts, galatheid crabs, and alvinocarid shrimp. The deepest seep community discovered thus far is in the Japan Trench, at a depth of 7700 meters.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Probably the most important ecological characteristic of abyssal ecosystems is energy limitation. Abyssal seafloor communities are considered to be "food limited" because benthic production depends on the input of detrital organic material produced in the euphotic zone, thousands of meters above. Most of the organic flux arrives as an attenuated rain of small particles (typically, only 0.5–2% of net primary production in the euphotic zone), which decreases inversely with water depth. The small particle flux can be augmented by the fall of larger carcasses and downslope transport of organic material near continental margins.


title: Abyssal plain

text: In addition to their high biodiversity, abyssal plains are of great current and future commercial and strategic interest. For example, they may be used for the legal and illegal disposal of large structures such as ships and oil rigs, radioactive waste and other hazardous waste, such as munitions. They may also be attractive sites for deep-sea fishing, and extraction of oil and gas and other minerals. Future deep-sea waste disposal activities that could be significant by 2025 include emplacement of sewage and sludge, carbon sequestration, and disposal of dredge spoils.


title: Abyssal plain

text: As fish stocks dwindle in the upper ocean, deep-sea fisheries are increasingly being targeted for exploitation. Because deep sea fish are long-lived and slow growing, these deep-sea fisheries are not thought to be sustainable in the long term given current management practices. Changes in primary production in the photic zone are expected to alter the standing stocks in the food-limited aphotic zone.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Hydrocarbon exploration in deep water occasionally results in significant environmental degradation resulting mainly from accumulation of contaminated drill cuttings, but also from oil spills. While the oil blowout involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico originates from a wellhead only 1500 meters below the ocean surface, it nevertheless illustrates the kind of environmental disaster that can result from mishaps related to offshore drilling for oil and gas.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Sediments of certain abyssal plains contain abundant mineral resources, notably polymetallic nodules. These potato-sized concretions of manganese, iron, nickel, cobalt, and copper, distributed on the seafloor at depths of greater than 4000 meters, are of significant commercial interest. The area of maximum commercial interest for polymetallic nodule mining (called the Pacific nodule province) lies in international waters of the Pacific Ocean, stretching from 118°–157°, and from 9°–16°N, an area of more than 3 million km². The abyssal Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ) is an area within the Pacific nodule province that is currently under exploration for its mineral potential.


title: Abyssal plain

text: Eight commercial contractors are currently licensed by the International Seabed Authority (an intergovernmental organization established to organize and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction) to explore nodule resources and to test mining techniques in eight claim areas, each covering 150,000 km². When mining ultimately begins, each mining operation is projected to directly disrupt 300–800 km² of seafloor per year and disturb the benthic fauna over an area 5–10 times that size due to redeposition of suspended sediments. Thus, over the 15-year projected duration of a single mining operation, nodule mining might severely damage abyssal seafloor communities over areas of 20,000 to 45,000 km² (a zone at least the size of Massachusetts).


title: Abyssal plain

text: Limited knowledge of the taxonomy, biogeography and natural history of deep sea communities prevents accurate assessment of the risk of species extinctions from large-scale mining. Data acquired from the abyssal North Pacific and North Atlantic suggest that deep-sea ecosystems may be adversely affected by mining operations on decadal time scales. In 1978, a dredge aboard the Hughes Glomar Explorer, operated by the American mining consortium Ocean Minerals Company (OMCO), made a mining track at a depth of 5000 meters in the nodule fields of the CCFZ. In 2004, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) conducted the "Nodinaut" expedition to this mining track (which is still visible on the seabed) to study the long-term effects of this physical disturbance on the sediment and its benthic fauna. Samples taken of the superficial sediment revealed that its physical and chemical properties had not shown any recovery since the disturbance made 26 years earlier. On the other hand, the biological activity measured in the track by instruments aboard the manned submersible bathyscaphe "Nautile" did not differ from a nearby unperturbed site. This data suggests that the benthic fauna and nutrient fluxes at the water–sediment interface has fully recovered.


title: Seven Years in Tibet

text: Seven Years in Tibet: My Life Before, During and After (1952; ; 1954 in English) is an autobiographical travel book written by Austrian mountaineer and Nazi SS sergeant Heinrich Harrer based on his real life experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during the Second World War and the interim period before the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet in 1950.


title: Seven Years in Tibet

text: The book covers the escape of Harrer and his companion, Peter Aufschnaiter, from a British internment camp in India. Harrer and Aufschnaiter then traveled across Tibet to Lhasa, the capital. Here they spent several years, and Harrer describes the contemporary Tibetan culture in detail. Harrer subsequently became a tutor and friend of the 14th Dalai Lama.


title: Seven Years in Tibet

text: It has been said that the book "provided the world with a final glimpse of life in an independent Tibetan state prior to the Chinese invasion."


title: Seven Years in Tibet

text: "Seven Years in Tibet" was translated into 53 languages, became a bestseller in the United States in 1954, and sold three million copies.


title: Seven Years in Tibet

text: At the beginning of the Flamingo edition of the book, a message from the 14th Dalai Lama praises the work: "Harrer has always been such a friend to Tibet. His most important contribution to our cause, his book, "Seven Years in Tibet", introduced hundreds of thousands of people to my country." When Harrer died in 2006, the Dalai Lama repeated his praise of the author and sent a message of sympathy to Harrer's widow.


title: Seven Years in Tibet

text: Two films have been based on the book: "Seven Years in Tibet" (1956), a 76-minute documentary directed by Hans Nieter which includes both movies shot by Harrer during his stay in Tibet and various scenes from his adventures reconstructed by Harrer himself, and "Seven Years in Tibet (1997)", directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Brad Pitt as Harrer and David Thewlis as Aufschnaiter.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: A cricket tournament was held at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, during July and August 2022. It was cricket's first inclusion in the Commonwealth Games since a List A men's tournament was held at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The matches were played as Women's Twenty20 Internationals (WT20Is), with only a women's tournament being part of the Games.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: Australia became the first team to qualify for the semi-finals, after winning their first two matches in Group A. New Zealand's win over Sri Lanka in the second round of matches ensured their own and England's progression to the semi-finals. India completed the semi-final line-up, beating Barbados in their final group match. India won the first semi-final, beating England by 4 runs. Australia won the second semi-final, beating New Zealand by 5 wickets.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: New Zealand claimed the bronze medal after beating England by 8 wickets in the Bronze Medal Match. Australia claimed the gold medal, with India taking silver, after winning the Gold Medal Match by 9 runs. Australian batter Beth Mooney was the leading run-scorer in the tournament, with 179 runs, whilst India's Renuka Singh was the leading wicket-taker, with 11 wickets.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: In April 2021 the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that all matches at the tournament would hold Twenty20 International status. The dates of the tournament were confirmed in June 2021.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The Commonwealth Games 2022 was held in Birmingham, England, from 28 July to 9 August and had over 5,000 athletes representing 72 Commonwealth Games Associations taking part. Under Commonwealth Games rules, all core Commonwealth sports must be hosted but additional sports may be added by the local organising committee. In November 2018, the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) made a joint bid for a women's Twenty20 tournament to be included. In August 2019, the Commonwealth Games Federation announced that the bid had been successful after a vote of all 72 Commonwealth Games Associations with women's cricket being added to the 2022 programme along with beach volleyball and para table tennis. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), as custodian of the Laws of Cricket, welcomed the move and hoped it would eventually lead to cricket's inclusion in the 2028 Summer Olympics.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The tournament was played in Twenty20 format with eight teams qualifying. Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham was the venue for the matches. Though there were suggestions for matches to also be held at the County Cricket Ground, Derby; New Road, Worcester; and Grace Road, Leicester, none of these were selected in the final confirmation.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: In November 2020, the ICC announced the qualification process for the 2022 Commonwealth Games tournament. England automatically qualified as the hosts, along with the six highest ranked sides as of 1 April 2021 as direct qualifiers. One further place was awarded to the winners of the 2022 Commonwealth Games Cricket Qualifier.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The allocation of the six direct qualifiers via the ICC Women's T20I rankings was dependent on the representation of at least four out of the six Commonwealth Games Federation regions (Africa, Americas, Asia, Caribbean, Europe and Oceania). If at least four regions were not represented from those in the top seven, then teams ranked eighth to tenth were the first to be considered to meet the criteria, before filling the remaining allocations from the rankings. Each team can enter a squad of up to 15 athletes.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: As the West Indies qualified as a direct qualifier, the results of a separate tournament were originally going to be used to determine which Commonwealth Games Association (CGA) earned qualification. The tournament was scheduled to be contested between Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and two composite teams representing the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands. However, in August 2021, Cricket West Indies (CWI) confirmed that the regional qualifier had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, Barbados were selected to represent the West Indies, by virtue of being the Twenty20 Blaze defending champions. The Commonwealth Games Qualifier, to determine the final team, took place in Malaysia in January 2022. Sri Lanka won the qualifier, beating Bangladesh by 22 runs in the final match of the tournament, to secure their place at the Commonwealth Games.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: Prior to the Games, Lauren Down and Jess Kerr were both ruled out of New Zealand's squad with Lea Tahuhu and Claudia Green named as their replacements. India also named Simran Bahadur, Richa Ghosh and Poonam Yadav as standby players in their squad. Marizanne Kapp was ruled out of South Africa's squad due to family reasons. Trisha Chetty and Tumi Sekhukhune were also ruled out of South Africa's squad due to injuries. As a result, Delmi Tucker and Tazmin Brits were both added to their squad. England's captain Heather Knight was ruled out of their first match due to a hip injury, with Nat Sciver named as the team captain in her place.


title: Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The schedule for the tournament was announced in June 2021, with the full list of fixtures being confirmed in November 2021. The ICC confirmed that all matches, including those involving Barbados (whose players would usually represent the West Indies), will be designated as Twenty20 Internationals.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: The Dead Zone is a science fiction thriller novel by Stephen King published in 1979. The story follows Johnny Smith, who awakens from a coma of nearly five years and, apparently as a result of brain damage, now experiences clairvoyant and precognitive visions triggered by touch. When some information is blocked from his perception, Johnny refers to that information as being trapped in the part of his brain that is permanently damaged, "the dead zone." The novel also follows a serial killer in Castle Rock, and the life of rising politician Greg Stillson, both of whom are evils Johnny must eventually face.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: Though earlier King books were successful, "The Dead Zone" was the first of his novels to rank among the ten best-selling novels of the year in the United States. The book was nominated for the Locus Award in 1980 and was dedicated to King's son Owen. "The Dead Zone" is the first story by King to feature the fictional town of Castle Rock, which serves as the setting for several later stories and is referenced in others. The TV series "Castle Rock" takes place in this fictional town and makes references to the Strangler whom Johnny helped track down in "The Dead Zone".


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: "The Dead Zone" is King's seventh novel and the fifth under his own name. The book spawned a 1983 film adaptation as well as a television series.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: As a child in 1953, Johnny Smith falls unconscious while ice-skating, then mumbles a prophetic warning to an adult who later suffers an accident. In an unconnected incident, a young, emotionally troubled door-to-door Bible salesman named Greg Stillson vindictively kicks a dog to death.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: By 1970, Johnny is a high school teacher in the small town of Cleaves Mills, Maine with a new girlfriend named Sarah. After winning repeatedly at a carnival wheel of fortune, Johnny is involved in a car accident and falls into a coma. Waking up over four years later, Johnny finds that he has suffered a neural injury, with one part of his brain seriously damaged, making it a "dead zone." As if to compensate, other parts of the brain now show heightened activity. As a result, Johnny sometimes experiences clairvoyant visions when touching people and objects. After helping various people, Johnny becomes frustrated by sensationalistic media reports of his supposed psychic talents. After Johnny rejects a lucrative offer from tabloid reporter Richard Dees to run fake predictions under his name, Dees' paper denounces him as a fraud. Relieved, Johnny hopes to resume a normal life as a teacher despite ongoing, severe headaches. The community fears him but Sarah visits. She and Johnny are about to consummate their romance, but Sarah then makes it clear that she has a new life with a husband Walt and their child. Sheriff George Bannerman of Castle Rock asks Johnny to help catch a local serial killer. After a nine-year-old girl is murdered, Johnny investigates and reluctantly identifies the Castle Rock Strangler as Bannerman's deputy Frank Dodd, who commits suicide after leaving a confession. As Johnny feared, the incident reignites the public's interest in his power and he is seen as too controversial to return to teaching.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: Greg Stillson, now a successful businessman and mayor of Ridgeway, New Hampshire, threatens to kill the people he bullies if they reveal his actions or don't aid him. In 1976, he wins a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as an independent, having blackmailed a local businessman into raising funds for him. Johnny becomes a private tutor to a teenage boy in Ridgeway and develops an interest in politics. He meets Stillson, and is horrified to see a vision of an older Stillson, now President, causing a worldwide nuclear conflict. As Johnny's health worsens, he contemplates Stillson's presidency, comparing his dilemma to someone with the ability to time travel having the opportunity to kill Hitler in 1932. Rather than assassinate Stillson to ensure the vision does not come true, Johnny procrastinates because of doubt in his vision, his abhorrence of murder, and his belief that there is no urgent need to act immediately since he has met an FBI agent investigating Stillson as a possible threat.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: The FBI agent is killed by a car bomb. Meanwhile, Johnny's warnings that a disaster will occur at his pupil's graduation party are ignored by some, leading to several deaths. Now believing he must take more decisive action to prevent nuclear war, and learning his headaches are the result of a brain tumor, Johnny buys a rifle to kill Stillson. At the next rally, Stillson begins his speech and Johnny shoots from a balcony. He misses and is wounded by guards. Stillson grabs a young child and holds him up as a human shield. A bystander photographs Stillson's act. Unable to shoot a child, Johnny is shot twice by the bodyguards. He falls off the balcony, mortally wounded. Dying, Johnny touches Stillson a final time. He feels only dwindling impressions but knows the terrible future has been prevented. When published, the picture of Stillson using a child as a shield ends his political career.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: An epilogue intersperses excerpts of letters from Johnny to his loved ones, a "Q & A" transcript of a purported Senate committee (chaired by real-life Maine Senator William Cohen) investigation of Johnny's attempt to assassinate Stillson, and a narrative of Sarah's visit to Johnny's grave. Sarah feels a brief moment of psychic contact with Johnny's spirit and, comforted, drives away.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of "The New York Times" compared reading the novel to the experience of watching "a particularly compelling movie", which he said is evidence of the novel's entertainment value, even if it does not speak of its literary value. "The Washington Post"s reviewer wrote, "It is not a book that will please everyone, but those who like it will probably like it a lot." In a retrospective review, James Smythe of "The Guardian" wrote that "The Dead Zone" had become one of his favorite King novels after rereading it. Smythe said that although the novel seems to have no clear antagonist throughout the first two-thirds, it reveals itself as "a more literary novel about rehabilitation and loss".


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: "The Dead Zone" received the following accolades: Locus Award Nominee for Best Fantasy Novel (1980), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (1980), and Balrog Award Nominee for Best Novel (1980).


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: Despite the above, the American Library Association named "The Dead Zone" the 82nd-most banned and challenged book in the United States between 1990 and 1999.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: In 1983, the novel was adapted by screenwriter Jeffrey Boam into a film of the same name, starring Christopher Walken as Johnny and Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson. It was directed by David Cronenberg. In the movie adaptation, the phrase "dead zone" does not refer to the part of Johnny's brain that is damaged. Instead, it refers to the blind spots in Johnny's visions of the future. Since they don't appear in visions of the past or events that are occurring in the present, Johnny concludes the "dead zone" blindspots represent that the future is not set and can be altered.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: The television series "The Dead Zone" began broadcasting in late 2002, airing on the USA Network and starring Anthony Michael Hall as Johnny, Nicole de Boer as Sarah, and Sean Patrick Flanery as Greg Stillson. In the TV series, the phrase "dead zone" does not refer to the part of Johnny's brain that is damaged but instead to the previously "dormant" part of his brain that awakens and causes his psychic abilities. It is shown that others before and after Johnny who suffered similar injuries also have their "dead zones" awakened and experience the same psychic abilities.


title: The Dead Zone (novel)

text: Sarah's husband Walt and the character of Sheriff George Bannerman were combined for the TV show into a new character Walt Bannerman, who marries Sarah during Johnny's coma and is the local sheriff. Walt regularly works with Johnny, the two combining police resources and psychic visions to solve many cases. While in the book, Sarah and Johnny only share a kiss before his coma, the TV series depicts them as childhood friends who then become long time lovers and conceive a child before Johnny's accident. When Johnny awakens from his coma, he learns he and Sarah have a son, Johnny or "JJ", who is being raised by her and Walt. Among the supporting cast, Johnny's physical therapist Bruce becomes his best friend and most trusted aid during his adventures and his eventual investigation of Stillson. A season 2 episode reveals that if Johnny and Bruce had never met, then Johnny would have become an isolated loner who dies while attempting to assassinate Stillson at a rally, just as occurred in the book.


title: Jónsi

text: Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson (; born 23 April 1975) is an Icelandic musician; he is the vocalist and multi-instrumentalist for the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. He is known for his use of a cello bow on guitar and his "angelic" falsetto or countertenor voice. He is blind in his right eye from birth as a result of a broken optic nerve from the brain. He is openly gay. Apart from Sigur Rós, Jónsi also performs together with his ex-partner Alex Somers as an art collaboration called Jónsi & Alex. They released their self-titled first book in November 2006, which was an embossed hardcover limited to 1,000 copies. The two also released the album "Riceboy Sleeps", in July 2009. They announced their separation in 2019, after having been together for 16 years.


title: Jónsi

text: On 1 December 2009, Jónsi's official website, jonsi.com, was launched in anticipation of his debut solo album, "Go", which was released on 5 April 2010. After the release of the album, Jónsi promptly started a tour across North America and Europe, featuring songs from the album plus a few other selections, planning to tour from March to September. A decade would pass before Jónsi would release his second studio album, "Shiver", which was released on October 2, 2020. He would release his third album "Obsidian" a year later in conjunction with the exhibit of the same name.


title: Jónsi

text: In late January 2010, Jónsi announced that Sigur Rós was on "an indefinite hiatus", as the band had scrapped plans for a new album previously announced to be released in 2010, saying that "they were just rumours". The band decided to take the year off, as several members of Sigur Rós recently had children, and as Jónsi developed his solo career. In 2012, the band reformed and released the album "Valtari" in May 2012 and subsequently "Kveikur" in June 2013.


title: Jónsi

text: When Jónsi was 13 years old, he learned his first song on guitar, "Wrathchild" by Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden remains one of his favorite bands to this day. In 1995, Jónsi fronted a band called Bee Spiders, under the alias 'Jonny B'. He wore sunglasses on stage throughout their concerts. Bee Spiders received the 'most interesting band' award in 1995 in a contest for unknown bands called "Músíktilraunir" ("Music Experimentations"). The band played long rock songs and was compared to The Smashing Pumpkins. Jónsi also fronted a grunge band called Stoned around 1992–1993. He also uses the alias Frakkur to release his solo material, e.g., the contribution to "Kitchen Motors Family Album", which marked the first release under this name.


title: Jónsi

text: Since 1994, Jónsi has been the singer and guitarist for Sigur Rós. To date, they have released seven studio albums.


title: Jónsi

text: Aside from his many years with Sigur Rós, Jónsi has collaborated with his ex-partner Alex Somers under the moniker Jónsi & Alex, releasing their album "Riceboy Sleeps" in 2009. In April 2010, Jónsi released his first solo album, "Go", and began a multi-nation tour to promote the album from March through September across North America and Europe.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi's song "Around Us" was used for the American promotional trailer for Studio Ghibli's film "The Secret World of Arriety" and was also included in "FIFA 11", the soundtrack by EA Sports.


title: Jónsi

text: "Boy Lilikoi" and instrumental versions of "Tornado", "Sinking Friendships", and "Around Us" were all included in the 2011 documentary "This Is What Love in Action Looks Like".


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi's song "Grow Till Tall" was used by the Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps in their 2017 competitive program "Jagged Line." It was also featured in the trailer for the third installment of the "Divergent" series, "".


title: Jónsi

text: In 2018, Jonsi contributed an original song titled "Who Are You Thinking Of?" to the soundtrack of the feature film "Boy Erased". He collaborated with Troye Sivan on the song "Revelation", also included on the soundtrack.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi recorded "Sticks and Stones" for the score to the 2010 film "How to Train Your Dragon", for which DreamWorks Animation released a music video on 17 December 2010. His song "Tornado" was featured in the arena show adaptation of this film. In 2014, Jónsi co-wrote the song "Where No One Goes" for the sequel, "How to Train Your Dragon 2", with the film's music composer John Powell. He also co-wrote the melody for "For the Dancing and Dreaming". Jónsi additionally wrote a rough demo (entitled "Mama's Boy") for the film, which was eventually replaced by "Flying with Mother". He wrote and performed the song "Together from Afar" for the final installment of the franchise, "", in which he also provided the vocals for the track "The Hidden World".


title: Jónsi

text: In 2019, it was announced that Jónsi and Swedish composer Carl Michael von Hausswolff had formed a new musical collaboration they were calling Dark Morph, and on 10 May 2019, they released their first album, also titled "Dark Morph". The project "promises to explore the ramifications of ongoing environmental collapse to the oceans and its inhabitants." The album consists mainly of ambient sounds, often simulating the sounds of animals and nature, and contains very few actual melodies.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi and his ex-partner Alex Somers completed their first album together, "Riceboy Sleeps", under the name Jónsi & Alex. The instrumental album was recorded in Iceland, played solely on acoustic instruments, and mixed in Hawaii. The album features appearances by the Icelandic string quartet Amiina and the Kópavogsdætur choir.


title: Jónsi

text: A post that appeared on Jónsi's official site on 26 May 2009 stated that the artist was working on a solo album that would feature predominantly acoustic music and string arrangements from classical composer Nico Muhly. The album was set to be produced by Peter Katis (Interpol, The National, Tokyo Police Club).


title: Jónsi

text: On 4 December 2009, a free MP3 of the track "Boy Lilikoi" was made available to mailing-list subscribers through the website. The MP3 announced the title of the album to be "Go" and gave a worldwide release date of "the week of 5 April 2010" through Parlophone and XL Recordings.


title: Jónsi

text: On 5 April 2010, as promised, the album was released in Iceland and the United Kingdom, with a worldwide release date of the following day. The album was sung mainly in English, marking a change from the majority of Jónsi's previous work, which was sung mainly in Icelandic and Vonlenska. The album charted at No. 20 on the UK album charts on 12 April 2010 and reached No. 23 on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Jónsi

text: The "Go" limited-edition box set also included "Go Quiet", a 45-minute film, directed by Dean DeBlois (director of the Sigur Rós concert film "Heima"), that features all nine songs from the album performed acoustically at home in Reykjavík, over New Year 2010.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi went on tour with his album "Go" on 6 April 2010. The tour did not include any venues within Jónsi's home country of Iceland. The artist's touring band included Alex Somers on guitar, sound effects, and keyboards; Thorvaldur Thór Thorvaldsson on drums; Ólafur Björn Ólafsson on keyboards; and Úlfur Hansson on bass and monome.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi went a decade without releasing any solo material. On 3 April 2020, Jónsi took to Instagram to announce that he was releasing music later that month, which would be the lead single, "Exhale", to his second studio album, "Shiver", with an accompanying music video directed by Jónsi and Giovanni Ribisi.


title: Jónsi

text: The album was made in collaboration with English music producer, singer and head of record label PC Music, A. G. Cook. Jónsi had no expectation for his and Cook's initial meeting, but the more they talked, the more he realized they might be perfect collaborators.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi released another single, "Swill", for the album on 24 June 2020, with an accompanying music video directed by Barnaby Roper.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi makes a guest appearance under the alias 'Frakkur' on track 13, "Skyscraper Heart", on "Hi-Camp Meets Lo-Fi – Explosion Picture Score" by Dip (1999)<br>


title: Jónsi

text: "Exactly As I Say" (2004 CD; a separate limited edition of 111 copies also exists containing DVD and 5.1 surround sound)<br>


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi makes a guest appearance on Tiësto's track "Kaleidoscope" on his album of the same name, which was released on 6 October 2009.<br>


title: Jónsi

text: In 2018, Jónsi collaborated with Troye Sivan on the song "Revelation" from the "Boy Erased" soundtrack.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi's first language is Icelandic. He also speaks English, according to the official Sigur Rós website:


title: Jónsi

text: On the first three Sigur Rós albums (Von, Von Brigði, Ágætis Byrjun), Jónsi sang most songs in Icelandic but two of them ("Von" and "Olsen Olsen") were sung in 'Hopelandic'. All of the vocals on ( ) are in Hopelandic. Hopelandic ("Vonlenska" in Icelandic) is the 'invented language' in which Jónsi sings before lyrics are written to the vocals. It is not an actual language by definition (no vocabulary, grammar, etc.), but rather a form of gibberish vocals that fit to the music and act as another instrument. Jónsi likens it to what singers sometimes do when they've decided on the melody, but haven't written the lyrics yet. Many languages were considered to be used on ( ), including English, but they decided on Hopelandic. Hopelandic (Vonlenska) got its name (from a journalist, not Jónsi himself) from the first song which Jónsi sang on, "Hope" (Von).


title: Jónsi

text: Like a few other players of the bowed guitar, Jónsi plays mainly variations of the Les Paul. He also plays Ibanez Les Paul copies, model PF200. The first Ibanez used to be his main instrument during the Bee Spiders era all through "Ágætis Byrjun". It was largely refinished and decorated (as can be seen in "Ágúst Jakobsson's" documentary "Popp í Reykjavík"). That particular instrument got stolen and broken but was on display in the Reykjavík Art Museum in the summer of 2003. During the recordings of "Takk...", Jónsi bought another PF200 to replace the Les Paul. Since the summer of 2006, Jónsi has been using a guitar that was made on the road by his then guitar tech Dan Johnson. The guitar is usually referred to as "The Bird", after the band's bird designs seen on previous album artwork that adorn the neck and frets of the guitar. "The Bird" is based on the body of the Ibanez PF200. The artist has also been seen playing a variety of other instruments such as the piano, acoustic guitar, electric bass guitar, harmonium, mellotron, baritone ukulele, and the banjo.


title: Jónsi

text: In 2003, he was escorted off the premises while protesting against Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant in Iceland.


title: Jónsi

text: Jónsi is a vegetarian. He states that he "didn't go vegetarian because of the animals" but became gradually more concerned for their welfare. Jónsi elaborated that he would find it difficult to date someone who eats meat, saying "I just love animals and I do not want to kill them, cook them or eat them so it’d be hard for me to watch anyone do that." He briefly followed a raw food diet, although he no longer practices this as he felt it hindered his social life and he was "getting antisocial" when on tour.


title: Jónsi

text: Alongside his visual art collaboration with Alex Somers, he has also exhibited his own work. He had an installation at the Los Angeles branch of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in late 2019.


title: Pro-Europeanism

text: Pro-Europeanism, sometimes called European Unionism, is a political position that favours European integration and membership of the European Union (EU).


title: Pro-Europeanism

text: Pro-Europeans are mostly classified as "centrist" (Renew Europe) in the context of European politics, including "centre-right" moderate conservatives (ex. EPP Group) and "centre-left" social democrats (ex. S&D and Greens/EFA). Pro-Europeanism is ideologically closely related to the Europe and Global liberal movement.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: Butterfly McQueen (born Thelma McQueen; January 8, 1911December 22, 1995) was an American actress. Originally a dancer, McQueen first appeared in films as "Prissy" in "Gone with the Wind" (1939). She was unable to attend the film's premiere because it was held at a whites-only theater.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: Often typecast as a maid, she said: "I didn't mind playing a maid the first time, because I thought that was how you got into the business. But after I did the same thing over and over, I resented it. I didn't mind being funny, but I didn't like being stupid." She continued as an actress in film in the 1940s, and then moved to television acting in the 1950s. She won a 1980 Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in the "ABC Afterschool Special" episode "Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid".


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: Born January 8, 1911 in Tampa, Florida, Thelma McQueen was the daughter of Wallace McQueen, a stevedore/dockworker, and Mary McQueen, who worked as a maid. After her parents separated, Thelma lived with her mother in Augusta, Georgia, where she was educated by nuns at a convent. She had planned to become a nurse until a high-school teacher suggested that she try acting. McQueen initially studied with Janet Collins and danced with the Venezuela Jones Negro Youth Group. Around this time she acquired the nickname "Butterfly" – a tribute to her constantly moving hands – for her performance of the Butterfly Ballet in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Disliking her birth name, she later legally changed it to Butterfly McQueen. She performed with the dance troupe of Katherine Dunham before making her professional debut in George Abbott's "Brown Sugar".


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: McQueen was appearing as a student in the Broadway comedy "What a Life" in 1938 when she was spotted by Kay Brown, talent scout for David O. Selznick, then in pre-production for "Gone With the Wind" (eventually released in 1939). Brown recommended that McQueen audition for the film. After Selznick saw her screen test, he never considered anyone else and McQueen was cast in the role that would become her most identifiable – "Prissy", a simple-minded house maid. She uttered the famous words: "Oh, Miss Scarlett! I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" Her distinctive, high-pitched voice was described by a critic as "the itsy-little voice fading over the far horizon of comprehension". While the role is well known to audiences, McQueen did not enjoy playing the part and felt it was demeaning to African-Americans.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: She had an uncredited bit part as a sales assistant in "The Women" (1939), filmed after "Gone with the Wind" but released before it. She also played Butterfly, Rochester's niece and Mary Livingstone's maid, in Jack Benny's radio program in the 1940s. She appeared in an uncredited role in "Mildred Pierce" (1945) and played a supporting role in "Duel in the Sun" (1946). By 1947, she had grown tired of the ethnic stereotypes she was required to play and ended her film career. During World War II, McQueen frequently appeared as a comedian on the Armed Forces Radio Service broadcast "Jubilee". Many of these broadcasts are available on the Internet Archive.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: From 1950 until 1952, she was featured (and briefly reunited with fellow "Gone With the Wind" actor Hattie McDaniel, who appeared in the first six episodes before withdrawing due to illness) in another racially stereotyped role on the television series "Beulah", in which she played Beulah's friend Oriole, a character originated on radio by Ruby Dandridge, who took over the TV role from McQueen in 1952–53. In a lighter moment, she appeared in a 1969 episode of "The Dating Game".


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: McQueen was in the original version of the stage musical "The Wiz" when it debuted in Baltimore, Maryland in 1974. She played the Queen of the Field Mice, a character from the original L. Frank Baum novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". However, when the show was revised prior to going to Broadway, McQueen's role was cut by incoming director Geoffrey Holder.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: Offers for acting roles began to dry up around this time, and she devoted herself to other pursuits including political study. She received a bachelor's degree in political science from City College of New York in 1975. McQueen played the character of Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother, in the "ABC Weekend Special" episode "The Seven Wishes of Joanna Peabody" (1978) and the "ABC Afterschool Special" episode "Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid" (1979); her performance in the latter earned her a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming. Her final feature film role was in "The Mosquito Coast" (1986). Her final appearance was in the TV movie "Polly", a reimagining of the "Pollyanna" story with a Black cast.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: McQueen never married nor had any children. She lived in New York in the summer months and in Augusta, Georgia, during the winter.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: In July 1983, a jury awarded McQueen $60,000 in a judgment stemming from a lawsuit she filed against two bus terminal security guards. McQueen sued for harassment after she claimed the security guards accused her of being a pickpocket and a vagrant while she was at a Washington, D.C. Greyhound bus terminal in April 1979.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: In 1975, aged 64, McQueen received a bachelor's degree in political science from City College of New York.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: In 1989, the Freedom From Religion Foundation honored her with its Freethought Heroine Award. "I'm an atheist," she had declared, "and Christianity appears to me to be the most absurd imposture of all the religions, and I'm puzzled that so many people can't see through a religion that encourages irresponsibility and bigotry."


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: She told a reporter, "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion." This quote was used by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in advertisements inside Madison, Wisconsin, buses in 2009 and in an Atlanta market in 2010.


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: She lamented that, if humans had focused on Earth and on people, rather than on mythology and on Jesus, there would be less hunger and homelessness. "They say the streets are going to be beautiful in Heaven. Well, I'm trying to make the streets beautiful here ... When it's clean and beautiful, I think America is heaven. And some people are hell."


title: Butterfly McQueen

text: McQueen died at age 84 on December 22, 1995, at Doctors Hospital in Augusta, from burns sustained when a kerosene heater she attempted to light malfunctioned and burst into flames. McQueen donated her body to medical science and remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.


title: Chancre

text: A chancre ( ) is a painless genital ulcer most commonly formed during the primary stage of syphilis. This infectious lesion forms approximately 21 days after the initial exposure to "Treponema pallidum", the gram-negative spirochaete bacterium yielding syphilis. Chancres transmit the sexually transmissible disease of syphilis through direct physical contact. These ulcers usually form on or around the anus, mouth, penis and vagina. Chancres may diminish between four and eight weeks without the application of medication.


title: Chancre

text: Chancres are also associated with the African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), surrounding the area of the tsetse fly bite.


title: Chancre

text: The word "chancre" () means "little ulcer" in Old French. Related to the English "canker", they both come from the Latin "cancer", meaning "crab", which is a translation from the Greek word καρκίνος ("karkínos"), also meaning "crab".


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Pop is the ninth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Flood, Howie B, and Steve Osborne, and was released on 3 March 1997 on Island Records. The album was a continuation of the band's 1990s musical reinvention, as they incorporated alternative rock, techno, dance, and electronica influences into their sound. "Pop" employed a variety of production techniques that were relatively new to U2, including sampling, loops, programmed drum machines, and sequencing.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Recording sessions began in 1995 with various record producers, including Nellee Hooper, Flood, Howie B, and Osborne, who were introducing the band to various electronica influences. At the time, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. was inactive due to a back injury, prompting the other band members to take different approaches to songwriting. Upon Mullen's return, the band began re-working much of their material but ultimately struggled to complete songs. After the band allowed manager Paul McGuinness to book their upcoming 1997 PopMart Tour before the record was completed, they felt rushed into delivering it. Even after delaying the album's release date from the 1996 Christmas and holiday season to March 1997, U2 ran out of time in the studio, working up to the last minute to complete songs.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: In February 1997, U2 released "Pop"s techno-heavy lead single, "Discothèque", one of six singles from the album. The record initially received favourable reviews from critics and reached number one in 35 countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the album's lifetime sales are among the lowest in U2's catalogue, and it received only a single platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. Retrospectively, the album is viewed by some of the music press and public as a disappointment. The finished product was not to U2's liking, and they subsequently re-recorded and remixed many of the songs for single and compilation album releases. The time required to complete "Pop" cut into the band's rehearsal time for the tour, which affected the quality of initial shows.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: In the first half of the 1990s, U2 underwent a dramatic shift in musical style. The band had experimented with alternative rock and electronic music and the use of samples on their 1991 album, "Achtung Baby", and, to a greater extent, on 1993's "Zooropa". In 1995, the group's side-projects provided them an opportunity to delve even deeper into these genres. Bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. recorded "" in an electronica style. The recording was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 and was an international top-ten hit. In 1995, U2 and Brian Eno recorded an experimental album, "Original Soundtracks 1", under the moniker "Passengers". The project included Howie B, Akiko Kobayashi and Luciano Pavarotti, among others.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Bono and the Edge had written a few songs before recording started for "Pop" in earnest. "If You Wear That Velvet Dress", "Wake Up Dead Man", "Last Night on Earth" and "If God Will Send His Angels" were originally conceived during the "Zooropa" sessions. "Mofo" and "Staring at the Sun" were also partly written already.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: For the new record, U2 wanted to continue their sonic experimentation from "Achtung Baby" and "Zooropa". To do so, they employed multiple producers to have additional people with whom to share their ideas. Flood was principal producer, having previously worked with the group as engineer for "The Joshua Tree" and "Achtung Baby", and co-producer of "Zooropa". Mark "Spike" Stent and Howie B were principal engineers. Flood described his job on "Pop" as a "creative coordinator", saying, "There were some tracks where I didn't necessarily have a major involvement... but ultimately the buck stopped with me. I had the role of the creative supervisor who judged what worked and didn't work." Howie B had previously provided mixing, treatments, and scratching for "Original Soundtracks 1". On "Pop", he was initially given the role of "DJ and Vibes" before assuming responsibilities as co-producer, engineer, and mixer. One of his main tasks was to introduce the band to sounds and influences within electronica. The band and Howie B regularly went out to dance clubs to experience club music and culture. The overall goal for the record was to create a new sound for the band that was still recognisable as U2.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: U2 began work on "Pop" in mid-1995, collaborating with Nellee Hooper in London, France, and Ireland. In September, the band moved the recording sessions to Hanover Quay in Dublin to a studio the band had just converted from a warehouse. The studio was designed to be more of a rehearsal space more than an actual studio. Flood, Howie B, Steve Osborne, and Marius de Vries joined Hooper and the band there, each of them incorporating their influences and experiences in electronic dance music. Flood described Howie's influence thus: "Howie would be playing all kinds of records to inspire the band and for them to improvise to. That could be anything from a jazz trumpet solo to a super groove funk thing, with no holds barred. We also programmed drum loops, or took things from sample CDs; anything to get the ball rolling. U2 arrive in the studio with very little finished material." These sessions lasted until December 1995, and around 30–40 pieces of music emerged during this period.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Mullen, who had mostly been absent from the sessions to start a family and nurse a worsening back injury, had major surgery on his back in November 1995. Mullen was unable to drum properly during this period, forcing U2 to abandon their usual methods of songwriting as a group but also allowing them to pursue different musical influences. Mullen admits that he was upset that the band entered the studio without him, cognizant that key decisions would be made in the early months of recording. Eno attempted to convince the other band members to wait for Mullen, but as the Edge explains, "The thinking was that we were going to further experiment with the notion of what a band was all about and find new ways to write songs, accepting the influence, and aesthetics of dance music... we thought, 'Let's just start with Howie mixing drum beats and see where that gets us.'" Mullen was back in the studio three weeks after his surgery, but his back prevented him from fully dedicating himself to recording. As he described, "I needed a little more time to recover. But we were struggling with some of the material and for the project to move ahead, I had to put a lot of time in." Sessions ceased temporarily in January 1996 to allow Mullen to rehabilitate.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Following Mullen's return and the sessions' resumption in February 1996, the production team of Flood, Howie B, and Hooper spent three months attempting to re-work much of the band's material to better incorporate loops and samples with their musical ideas from 1995. This period was a difficult one; Mullen, in particular, had to record drum parts to replace loops that Howie B had sampled without permission. Flood said, "We took what we had and got the band to play to it and work it into their own idiom, while incorporating a dance ethic... The groove-orientated way of making music can be a trap when there's no song; you end up just plowing along on one riff. So you have to try to get the groove and the song, and do it so that it sounds like the band, and do it so that it sounds like something new."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Despite the initial difficulties with sampling, the band and production team eventually became comfortable with it, even sampling Mullen's drumming, the Edge's guitar riffs, Clayton's bass lines, and Bono's vocalisations. Howie B sampled almost anything he could in order to find interesting sounds. He created sequenced patterns of the Edge's guitar playing, which the guitarist, having never done it before, found very interesting. Howie B explained, "Sometimes I would sample, say, a guitar, but it wouldn't come back sounding like a guitar; it might sound more like a pneumatic drill, because I would take the raw sound and filter it, really destroy the guitar sound, and rebuild it into something completely different." Although sequencing was used, mostly on keyboards, guitar loops, and some percussion, it was used sparingly out of fear of becoming overreliant on it.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Nellee Hooper left the sessions in May 1996 due to his commitments to the "Romeo + Juliet" film score. The recording sessions changed radically in the last few months, which is why Hooper was not credited on the album.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: By forcing the band members out of their individual comfort zones, the producers were able to change U2's approach to songwriting and playing their instruments. Mullen, in particular, was forced to do this, as he used samples of other records, sample CDs, or programmed drums while recuperating. Although he eventually reverted to recording his own samples, the experience of using others' changed his approach to recording rhythms.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: During the recording sessions, U2 allowed manager Paul McGuinness to book their upcoming PopMart Tour before they had completed the album, putting the tour's start date at April 1997. The album was originally planned to be completed and released in time for the 1996 Christmas and holiday season, but the band found themselves struggling to complete songs, necessitating a delay in the album's release date until March 1997. Even with the extended timeframe to complete the album, recording continued up to the last minute. Bono devised and recorded the chorus to "Last Night on Earth" on, coincidentally, the last night of the album's recording and mixing. When Howie B and the Edge took the album to New York City to be mastered, changes and additions to the songs were still being made. During the process, Howie B was adding effects to "Discothèque", while the Edge was recording backing vocals for "The Playboy Mansion". Of the last minute changes, the Edge said, "It's a sign of absolute madness." Flood says, "We had three different mixes of 'Mofo', and during mastering in November '96 in New York, I edited a final version of 'Mofo' from these three mixes. So even during mastering, we were trying to push the song to another level. It was a long process of experimentation; the album didn't actually come together until the last few months."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Ultimately, U2 felt that "Pop" had not been completed to their satisfaction. The Edge described the finished album as "a compromise project by the end. It was a crazy period trying to mix everything and finish recording and having production meetings about the upcoming tour... If you can't mix something, it generally means there's something wrong with it..." Mullen said, "If we had two or three more months to work, we would have had a very different record. I would like someday to rework those songs and give them the attention and time that they deserve." McGuinness disagrees that the band did not have enough time, saying, "It got an awful lot of time, actually. I think it suffered from too many cooks [in the kitchen]. There were so many people with a hand in that record it wasn't surprising to me that it didn't come through as clearly as it might have done... It was also the first time I started to think that technology was getting out of control." The band ended up re-working and re-recording many songs for the album's singles, as well as for the band's 2002 compilation "The Best of 1990-2000".


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Pop" features tape loops, programming, sequencing, sampling, and heavy, funky dance rhythms. The Edge said in U2's fan magazine "Propaganda" that, "It's very difficult to pin this record down. It's not got any identity because it's got so many." Bono has said that the album "begins at a party and ends at a funeral", referring to the upbeat and party-like first half of the album and sombre and dark mood of the second half. According to Flood, the production team worked to achieve a "sense of space" on the record's sound by layering all the elements of the arrangements and giving them places in the frequency spectrum where they did not interfere with each other through the continual experimenting and re-working of song arrangements.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Clayton's bass guitar was heavily processed, to the point that it sounded like a keyboard bass (an instrument utilized on "Mofo"). The Edge wanted to steer away from the image he had since the 1980s as having an echo-heavy guitar sound. As a result, he was enthusiastic about experimenting with his guitar's sound, hence the distorted guitar sounds on the album, achieved with a variety of effects pedals, synthesisers and knob twiddling. Bono was very determined to avoid the vocal style present on previous (especially 1980s) albums, characterized by pathos, rich timbre, a sometimes theatrical quality and his use of falsetto singing: instead he opted for a rougher, more nervous and less timbre-laden style. The production team made his voice sound more intimate, as up-front and raw as possible. As Flood explained, "You get his emotional involvement with the songs through the lyrics and the way he reacts to the music—without him having to go to 11 all the time... We only used extreme effects on his voice during the recording, for him to get himself into a different place, and then, gradually, we pulled most effects out."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Discothèque", the lead single, begins with a distorted acoustic guitar that is passed through a loud amplifier and a filter pedal, along with being processed through an ARP 2600 synthesizer. The song's riff and techno dance rhythm are then introduced. The break in the song's rhythm section features guitar sounds utilizing a "Big Cheese", an effects pedal made by Lovetone. Writer John D. Luerssen noted that the song is "often cited as U2's first experiment with electronica," calling it "a continuation of the experimentation the band had done on "Zooropa"."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Do You Feel Loved", which was considered for a single release, runs at a slower pace and features electronic elements. Bono said of the song: "It's quite a question, but there's no question mark on it," as the band took the question mark off the title of the song for fearing it would be perceived as "too heavy."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Mofo" is the most overtly techno track on the record. Bono's lyrics lament the loss of his mother. There are little guitar and vocal samples that the band played and the production team sampled. They selected the bits that they liked, and then Edge played them back in a keyboard. "Pop"'s producer Flood also put some of guitar work through the ARP 2600 on this track.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "If God Will Send His Angels" is a ballad with Bono pleading for God's help. Like the other singles, the single version is different from the album version. Written on acoustic guitar, D. Leurssen described it as a "techno-tinged ballad". Bono originally thought the song was too soft and asked to "fuck it up," saying "I thought, this is, like, pure. Now drop acid onto that."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Staring at the Sun" features acoustic guitars and a distorted guitar riff from Edge, and a simple rhythm section from Mullen. The backing track was played to the ARP 2600 running in free time, playing an odd drum-like sequence.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Last Night on Earth" is anthemic with fuzzy, layered guitars, a funk-inspired bass line, and vocal harmonies during the song's bridge.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Gone" features a "siren" effect from Edge's guitar, complex krautrock style drums from Mullen and a funk-inspired bass line. This track was also considered for release as a single. Flood applied VCS3 spring reverb and ring modulation in a few places, and used it a lot on the basic rhythm track of this song.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Miami" has a trip rock style. It begins with a drum loop, with Mullen's hi-hats playing backwards through a very extreme equalization filter. Howie B explained, "The main groove is actually just Larry's hi-hat, but it sounds like a mad engine running or something really crazy – about as far away from a hi-hat as you can imagine... the task in 'Miami' was to make it unlike anything else on the album, and also unlike anything else you'd ever have heard before." Edge also comes in with a frenetic guitar riff and Bono's affected vocal style singing about Miami in metaphors and descriptions of loud, brash Americana. D. Leurssen described it as a "sonic travelogue," while the Edge termed it "creative tourism." In 2005, Q magazine included the song "Miami" in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists". However, Andrew Unterberger of "Stylus Magazine" acknowledged the inclusion of the song in Q's list and said "I’m pretty sure they gave this album some super-glowing review when it was first released, so clearly they’re not to be trusted in the first."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "The Playboy Mansion" starts out with mellow, wah-wah guitar playing from Edge. Along with Mullen's drumming, there are breakbeats and hip-hop beats on the rhythm track, which were recorded as loops by Mullen. Howie described the loops thus; "Larry went off into a side room and made some sample loops of him playing his kit, and gave the loops to me and Flood. It was the same with the guitars; there's a guitar riff which comes in the verse and chorus, which is a sample of Edge playing." Bono's lyrics are a tongue-in-cheek account of pop culture icons.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "If You Wear That Velvet Dress" features a mellow, dark atmosphere. Marius De Vries played keyboards on this track, contributing to the ambient feel. Mullen uses brush stroke style drums for the most part. When news first broke of U2's work in the studio, it was reported the band were recording a trip hop album; writer Niall Stokes believes that "The Playboy Mansion" comes close to the assertion due to Hooper's heavy hand. Flood stated that Hooper "started things off" but did not finish the track due to his time constraints. Bono reworked this song as a lounge-jazz piece for the 2002 Jools Holland album "Small World Big Band Volume Two".


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Please" features Bono lamenting The Troubles and the Northern Irish peace process, pleading with the powers that be to "get up off their knees". Mullen uses martial-style drumming, similar to "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Flood put guitar work through the ARP 2600 on the song. He explains, "For ages the rhythm track played all the way through the track. It's a fairly tight groove/bass thing, and then we suddenly decided to drop out the rhythm section in the middle and add a load of strings and these weird synthetic sounds at the end of that break." The single releases and live performances of the song were different from the album version, with more prominent guitar playing and a guitar solo to end the song.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Wake Up Dead Man" began as an upbeat song from the "Achtung Baby" sessions in 1991. It evolved into a darker composition during the "Zooropa" sessions, but it was shelved until "Pop". One of the band's darkest songs, "Wake Up Dead Man" features Bono pleading with Jesus to return and save mankind, evident in the lyrics "Jesus / Jesus help me / I'm alone in this world / And a fucked-up world it is too". It is also one of only a few U2 songs to include profanity.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Pop" was originally scheduled for a November 1996 release date, but after the recording sessions went long, the album was delayed until March 1997. This significantly cut into the band's rehearsal time for the upcoming PopMart Tour that they had scheduled in advance, which impacted the quality of the band's initial performances on tour. Though the band settled on the album name "Pop", many working names and proposed titles for the album, including "Discola", "Miami", "Mi@mi", "Novelty Act", "Super City Mania", "YOU2" and "Godzilla", went as far as having artwork made for them, while the names "Pop for Men" and "Pop Pour Hommes" were also considered. "Pop" was dedicated to Bill Graham, one of the band's earliest fans who died in 1996, famous for suggesting to Paul McGuinness that he become U2's manager. As with "Rattle and Hum", it was also dedicated to the band's production manager Anne Louise Kelly whose dedication message, "4UALKXXXX", is hidden on the playing side of the CD where the matrix number is found.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: On 26 October 1996, U2 became one of the earliest bands to fall victim to an internet leak when a Hungary-based fansite leaked clips of "Discothèque" and "Wake Up Dead Man", creating a buzz which built quickly on the internet, as radio stations played the snippets as a means to introduce listeners to the album. The clips were traced back to Polygram, where an executive had shared a VHS tape with previews of the tracks to marketing managers worldwide; one writer said that "from there it got into the hands of a label employee's friend."


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: On 12 February 1997, two weeks before the album was released, the band held a press conference in the lingerie section of a K-Mart department store in New York City to announce details for the PopMart Tour. On 26 April 1997, American television network ABC aired a one-hour prime time special about "Pop" and the PopMart Tour, titled "U2: A Year in Pop". Narrated by actor Dennis Hopper, the documentary featured footage from the "Pop" recording sessions, as well as live footage from the opening PopMart show in Las Vegas, which took place the night before. The program received poor reception, ranking at 101 out of 107 programs aired that week, according to Nielsen ratings, and became the lowest rated non-political documentary in the history of the ABC network. Despite the low ratings, McGuinness appreciated the opportunity for the band to appear on network television in the first place, stating that the small audience for the television special was still a large audience for the band, as it was much larger than any audience that could be obtained by MTV.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Pop" featured six international singles, the most the band has released for a single album. "Do You Feel Loved" and "Gone" were also considered for release.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: The album's first single, "Discothèque", was released on 3 February 1997 and was a huge dance and airplay success in the U.S. and UK. It also reached No. 1 in the singles charts of most of European countries including the United Kingdom, where it was their third No. 1 single. In the United States, "Discothèque" is notable for being U2's only single since 1991 to crack the top ten of the "Billboard" Hot 100, peaking at #10. However, the song's dance elements and more humorous video (featuring U2 in a discothèque and even imitating The Village People) limited its appeal. This started a backlash against U2 and "Pop", limiting sales, as many fans felt that the band had gone a bit too far over-the-top in the self-mocking and "ironic" imagery.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: The follow-up single "Staring at the Sun" was released 15 April 1997 and became a Top 40 success in the U.S., but to a lesser extent, peaking at No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Last Night on Earth" was released as the third single on 14 July 1997, but did not crack the top 40, peaking at #57. "Please", "If God Will Send His Angels", and "Mofo" were subsequently released as singles, but none reached the Top 100.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: The "", featuring four live tracks from the PopMart Tour, was also released in most regions. In the United States, the four live tracks were instead released on the "Please" single, along with the single version of "Please," itself.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: "Pop" initially received favourable reviews from critics. Barney Hoskyns of "Rolling Stone" gave "Pop" a four-star rating, praising the band's use of technology on the album: "U2 know that technology is ineluctably altering the sonic surface – and, perhaps, even the very meaning – of rock & roll." The review also stated that U2 had "pieced together a record whose rhythms, textures and visceral guitar mayhem make for a thrilling roller-coaster ride" and that the band had "defied the odds and made some of the greatest music of their lives". David Browne of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the album a B rating, saying: "Despite its glittery launch, the album is neither trashy nor kitschy, nor is it junky-fun dance music. It incorporates bits of the new technology – a high-pitched siren squeal here, a sound-collage splatter there – but it is still very much a U2 album". Robert Hilburn of the "Los Angeles Times" rated "Pop" four-stars-out-of-four, judging the album to benefit "from the tension of... competing influences, sometimes leaning more on the electronic currents, elsewhere showcasing the more melodic and accessible songwriting strengths". He praised the group's musical experimentation, saying, "It is such boldness that has enabled U2 to remain at the creative forefront of pop music for more than a decade." James Hunter of "Spin" rated the record 9/10, writing, ""Pop" realizes a symphonic transcendence for which the band's earlier stabs like "The Unforgettable Fire" could only wish." He added, "They are now experts at wringing genuine emotion, and even a few smirks, out of random sounds, letting their roots filter up from below." Bernard Zuel of "The Sydney Morning Herald" praised the album's understated tracks and the influence of Howie B, and said that the band avoided making the same mistake as rock counterparts of "trying to slap a traditional bottom-end on top of a metronomic beat and calling it dance". He said that despite not being "the future of rock'n'roll", "Pop" was "a genuine snapshot of its present by a band bright enough to keep exploring, smart enough not to abandon its past and big enough to make it palatable to radio programmers" resistant to dance music.


title: Pop (U2 album)

text: Other reviews were more critical. Neil Strauss of "The New York Times" wrote that "From the band's first album, "Boy", in 1980, through "The Joshua Tree" in 1987, U2 sounded inspired. Now it sounds expensive." He further commented that "U2 and techno don't mix any better than U2 and irony do." Parry Gettelman of the "Orlando Sentinel" rated the album two stars and found the band's attempt to merge rock music with dance rhythms underwhelming, saying, "U2 lacks the zest for experimentation that has helped make electronic music so appealing to music fans weary of formulaic rock". John Sakamoto of "Jam! Showbiz" said, "Far from an exercise in daring self-indulgence, "Pop" is too often guilty of a much more serious offence: not going far enough." He added, "as with so many elements of the ephemeral culture it both disparages and celebrates, it ends up being something considerably less than has been advertised." "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau rated it a dud, indicating a bad album unworthy of a review.