Retrospectively, "Pop" is viewed in the music press and public as a disappointment. In a 2013 article, "Spin" was more critical of the album than in the magazine's original review, calling it "U2's nadir period" and a "weirder, bolder, nervier record than its garish exterior would suggest... if you can tune out Bono's mugging, which of course you can't, which was the whole problem. The stupidity of all this subsumed the prescient bravery of it..." Caryn Rose of "Vulture" said that "A lengthy book could be written about the disaster that was "Pop" and the subsequent tour." Nonetheless, the album has been praised, including from Elvis Costello who included it in his 2000 list of "500 Albums You Need", and from "Hot Press" which ranked the album at number 104 on their 2009 list of "The 250 Greatest Irish Albums of All Time". Similarly, in 2003, "Slant Magazine" included the album in their list "Vital Pop: 50 Essential Pop Albums," with reviewer Sal Cinquemani saying "the reason why "Pop" wasn't a bigger hit in the U.S. is a mystery" and said the record was "better (and deeper) than anything on U2's much-ballyhooed 'return' to pop, "All That You Can't Leave Behind"." Bobby Olivier of "Billboard" believed that "Pop" was the band's "last legitimately courageous project," saying that "all we see is a group that chose not to coast."