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Achtung Baby

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Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate alternative rock, industrial, and electronic dance music influences into their sound. Thematically, the album is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than the band's previous work. Achtung Baby and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, which replaced their earnest public image with a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one.

Seeking inspiration on the eve of German reunification, U2 began recording Achtung Baby in Berlin's Hansa Studios in October 1990. The sessions were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. After weeks of tension and slow progress, the group made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One". They returned to Dublin in 1991, where morale improved and the majority of recordings were completed. To confound the public's expectations of the band and their music, U2 chose the album's facetious title and colourful multi-image sleeve.

Achtung Baby is one of U2's most successful records. It earned favourable reviews and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 Top Albums, while topping the charts in many other countries. It spawned five hit singles, including "One", "Mysterious Ways", and "The Fly". The album has sold 18 million copies worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. One of the most acclaimed records of the 1990s, Achtung Baby is regularly featured on lists of the greatest albums of all time.

Background

U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree and the supporting Joshua Tree Tour brought them critical acclaim and commercial success.[1] However, their 1988 album and motion picture Rattle and Hum precipitated a critical backlash.[2] Although the record sold 14 million copies and performed well on music charts,[3] critics were dismissive of it and the film, labelling the band's exploration of American music as "pretentious"[4] and "misguided and bombastic".[5] U2's high exposure and their reputation for being overly serious led to accusations of grandiosity and self-righteousness.[2][4]

Despite their commercial popularity, the group were dissatisfied creatively, and lead vocalist Bono believed they were musically unprepared for their success.[2][6] Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. said, "We were the biggest, but we weren't the best", and by their 1989 Lovetown Tour, he became bored playing the band's greatest hits.[2][7] U2 believe that audiences misunderstood the group's collaboration with blues musician B.B. King on Rattle and Hum and the Lovetown Tour, and they described it as "an excursion down a dead-end street".[8][9] Bono said that, in retrospect, listening to black music enabled the group to create a work such as Achtung Baby, while their experiences with folk music helped him to develop as a lyricist.[9] Towards the end of the Lovetown Tour, Bono announced on-stage that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again". Following the tour, the group began their longest break from public performances and album releases.[10]

The Edge and Bono stand on a darkened stage, with lit-up smoke behind them. The Edge is strumming a guitar while Bono holds a microphone to his mouth.
Prior to recording Achtung Baby, The Edge and Bono (pictured in 2009) began working more closely together on songwriting without the other band members.

Reacting to their own sense of musical stagnation and to their critics, U2 searched for new musical ground.[2][11] They wrote "God Part II" from Rattle and Hum after realising they had excessively pursued nostalgia in their songwriting. The song had a more contemporary feel that Bono said was closer to Achtung Baby's direction.[12] Further indications of change were two recordings they made in 1990; the first was a cover version of "Night and Day" for the first Red Hot + Blue release. U2 used electronic dance beats and hip hop elements for the first time in this recording. The second indication of change was Bono's and guitarist The Edge's contribution to the original score of A Clockwork Orange's theatrical adaptation. Much of the material they wrote was experimental, and according to Bono, "prepar[ed] the ground for Achtung Baby". Ideas deemed inappropriate for the play were put aside for the band's use.[13] During this period, Bono and The Edge began increasingly writing songs together without Mullen or bassist Adam Clayton.[13]

In mid-1990, Bono reviewed material he had written in Australia on the Lovetown Tour, and the group recorded demos at STS Studios in Dublin.[14][15] The demos later evolved into the songs "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses", "Until the End of the World", "Even Better Than the Real Thing", and "Mysterious Ways".[15] Going into the album sessions, the band wanted the record to completely deviate from their past work, but they were unsure how to achieve this.[16] The emergence of the Madchester scene in the UK left them confused about how they would fit into any particular musical scene.[15]

Recording and production

"Buzzwords on this record were trashy, throwaway, dark, sexy, and industrial (all good) and earnest, polite, sweet, righteous, rockist and linear (all bad). It was good if a song took you on a journey or made you think your hifi was broken, bad if it reminded you of recording studios or U2. Sly Stone, T. Rex, Scott Walker, My Bloody Valentine, KMFDM, the Young Gods, Alan Vega, Al Green, and Insekt were all in favour. And Berlin ... became a conceptual backdrop for the record. The Berlin of the Thirties—decadent, sexual and dark—resonating against the Berlin of the Nineties—reborn, chaotic and optimistic..."

 —Brian Eno, on Achtung Baby[11]

U2 hired Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno to produce the album, based on the duo's prior work with the band on The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree.[17] Lanois was principal producer, with Mark "Flood" Ellis as engineer.[11] Eno took on an assisting role, working with the group in the studio for a week at a time to review their songs before leaving for a month or two.[11][18] Eno said his role was "to come in and erase anything that sounded too much like U2".[19] By distancing himself from the work, he believed he provided the band with a fresh perspective on their material each time he rejoined them.[20] As he explained, "I would deliberately not listen to the stuff in between visits, so I could go in cold".[21] Since U2 wanted the record to be harder-hitting and live-sounding, Lanois "push[ed] the performance aspect very hard, often to the point of recklessness".[22] The Lanois–Eno team used lateral thinking and a philosophical approach—popularised by Eno's Oblique Strategies—that contrasted with the direct and retro style of Rattle and Hum producer Jimmy Iovine.[23]

Berlin sessions

The band believed that "domesticity [w]as the enemy of rock 'n' roll" and that to work on the album, they needed to remove themselves from their normal family-oriented routines. With a "New Europe" emerging at the end of the Cold War, they chose Berlin, in the centre of the reuniting continent, as a source of inspiration for a more European musical aesthetic.[2][17][24] They recorded at Hansa Studios in West Berlin, near the recently opened Berlin Wall. Several acclaimed records were made at Hansa, including two from David Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy" with Eno, and Iggy Pop's The Idiot.[15] U2 arrived on 3 October 1990 on the last flight into East Berlin on the eve of German reunification.[15] Expecting to be inspired, they instead found Berlin to be depressing and gloomy.[16] The collapse of the Berlin Wall had resulted in a state of malaise in Germany. The band found their East Berlin hotel to be dismal and the winter inhospitable, while the run-down condition of Hansa Studios and its location in an SS ballroom added to the "bad vibe".[16][25]

A ballroom with hardwood floors, and a ceiling decorated with chandeliers and octagon-shaped tiles. The wall on the left is decorated with dark wood panels, red walls, and windows. On the right is a small stage with a piano in front.
U2 initially recorded at Berlin's Hansa Studios in a former SS ballroom in late 1990.

Morale worsened once the sessions commenced, as the band worked long days but could not agree on a musical direction.[25] The Edge had been listening to electronic dance music and to industrial bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Nine Inch Nails, the Young Gods, and KMFDM. He and Bono advocated new musical directions along these lines. In contrast, Mullen was listening to classic rock acts such as Blind Faith, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix, and he was learning how to "play around the beat".[2][13] Like Clayton, he was more comfortable with a sound similar to U2's previous work and was resistant to the proposed innovations.[2][16] Further, The Edge's interest in dance club mixes and drum machines made Mullen feel that his contributions as a drummer were being diminished.[16] Lanois was expecting the "textural and emotional and cinematic U2" of The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, and he did not understand the "throwaway, trashy kinds of things" on which Bono and The Edge were working.[2] Compounding the divisions between the two camps was a change in the band's longstanding songwriting relationship; Bono and The Edge were working more closely together, writing material in isolation from the rest of the group.[13][24][26]

"At the instant we were recording it, I got a very strong sense of its power. We were all playing together in the big recording room, a huge, eerie ballroom full of ghosts of the war, and everything fell into place. It was a reassuring moment, when everyone finally went, 'oh great, this album has started.' It's the reason you're in a band—when the spirit descends upon you and you create something truly affecting. 'One' is an incredibly moving piece. It hits straight into the heart."

 —The Edge, on the recording of "One"[27]

U2 found that they were neither prepared nor well-rehearsed, and that their ideas were not evolving into completed songs.[16] For the first time, the group could not find consensus during their disagreements and felt that they were not making progress.[16] Bono and Lanois, in particular, had an argument that almost came to blows during the writing of "Mysterious Ways".[28] With a sense of going nowhere, the band considered breaking up.[29] Eno visited for a few days, and understanding their attempts to deconstruct the band, he assured them that their progress was better than they thought.[29][30] By adding unusual effects and sounds, he showed that The Edge's pursuit for new sonic territory was not incompatible with Mullen's and Lanois' "desire to hold on to solid song structures".[29] In December, a breakthrough was achieved with the writing of the song "One".[27] The Edge combined two chord progressions on guitar, and finding inspiration, the group quickly improvised most of the song. It provided much-needed reassurance and re-validated their longstanding "blank page approach" to writing and recording together.[27][31]

U2 returned to Dublin for Christmas, where they discussed their future together and all recommitted to the group. Listening to the tapes, they agreed their material sounded better than they originally thought.[32] They briefly returned to Berlin in January 1991 to finish their Hansa work.[33] Although just two songs were delivered during their two months in Berlin,[30] The Edge said that in retrospect, working there had been more productive and inspirational than the output had suggested.[22][27] The band had been removed from a familiar environment, providing a certain "texture and cinematic location", and many of their incomplete ideas were to be revisited in the Dublin sessions with success.[27]

Dublin sessions

Bono with black hair, black sunglasses, and a black leather attire speaking into a microphone.
Bono as his alter ego "The Fly" in 1992. He conceived this character during the band's sessions in Dublin.

In February 1991, U2 resumed the album's sessions in the seaside manor "Elsinore" in Dalkey, renting the house for ₤10,000 per month.[22][33] Lanois' strategy to record in houses, mansions, or castles was something he believed brought atmosphere to the recordings.[22] Dublin audio services company Big Bear Sound installed a recording studio in the house,[33] with the recording room in a converted garage diagonally beneath the control room. Video cameras and TV monitors were used to monitor the spaces.[22] Within walking distance of Bono's and The Edge's homes, the sessions at Elsinore were more relaxed and productive.[33][34][35] The band struggled with one particular song—later released as the B-side "Lady With the Spinning Head"—but three separate tracks, "The Fly", "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" and "Zoo Station" were derived from it.[36] During the writing of "The Fly", Bono conceived an alternate persona based on a pair of oversized black sunglasses that he wore to lighten the mood in the studio.[33][34] Bono developed the character into a leather-clad egomaniac also called "The Fly", and he assumed this alter ego for the band's subsequent public appearances and live performances on the Zoo TV Tour.[37]

In April, tapes from the earlier Berlin sessions were leaked and bootlegged. Bono dismissed the leaked demos as "gobbledygook", and The Edge likened the situation to "being violated".[38] The leak shook the band's confidence and soured their collective mood for a few weeks.[39] Staffing logistics led to the band having three engineers at one point, and as a result, they split recording between Elsinore and The Edge's home studio.[22] Engineer Robbie Adams said the approach raised morale and activity levels: "There was always something different to listen to, always something exciting happening."[22] To record all of the band's material and test different arrangements, the engineers utilised a technique they called "fatting", which allowed them to achieve more than 48 tracks of audio by using a 24-track analogue recording, a DAT machine, and a synchroniser.[22] At the end of May, final lyrics and vocal takes were yet to be completed, but Lanois believed some of the in-progress songs would become worldwide hits.[40]

During the Dublin sessions, Eno was sent tapes of the previous two months' work, which he called a "total disaster". Joining U2 in the studio, he stripped away what he thought to be excessive overdubbing. The group believes his intervention saved the album.[41] Eno theorised that the band was too close to their music, explaining, "if you know a piece of music terribly well and the mix changes and the bass guitar goes very quiet, you still hear the bass. You're so accustomed to it being there that you compensate and remake it in your mind."[20] Eno also assisted them through a crisis point one month before the deadline to finish recording; he recalls that "everything seemed like a mess", and he insisted the band take a two-week holiday from working on the album. The break gave them a clearer perspective and added decisiveness.[42]

After work at Elsinore finished in July, Eno, Flood, Lanois, and previous U2 producer Steve Lillywhite mixed the tracks at Windmill Lane Studios.[33][43][44] Each producer created his own mixes of the songs, and the band either picked the version they preferred or requested that certain aspects of each be combined.[44] Additional recording and mixing continued at a frenetic pace until the 21 September deadline,[45] including last-minute changes to "The Fly" and "One".[46] The Edge estimates that half of the work for the album sessions was done in the last three weeks to finalise songs.[47] The final night was spent devising a running order for the record. The following day, The Edge travelled to Los Angeles with the album's tapes for mastering.[46]

Composition

Music

"We're at a point where production has gotten so slick that people don't trust it anymore... We were starting to lose trust in the conventional sound of rock & roll—the conventional sound of guitar ... those big reverb-laden drum sounds of the '80s or those big, beautiful, pristine vocal sounds with all this lush ambience and reverb. So we found ourselves searching for other sounds that had more life and more freshness."

 —The Edge, explaining the band's motivation for seeking a new sound[48]

U2 is credited with composing the music for all of Achtung Baby's tracks,[49] despite periods of separated songwriting. They wrote the music primarily through jam sessions, a common practice for them.[16] The album represents a deviation from the sound of the band's past work; the songs are less anthemic in nature and explore new sonic territory for the group.[50] Their musical style demonstrates a more European aesthetic,[51] introducing influences from alternative rock,[52] industrial music,[11] and electronic dance music.[53] The band referred to the album's musical departure as "the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree".[54][55] Accordingly, the distorted introduction to the opening track "Zoo Station" was intended to make listeners think the record was broken or was mistakenly not the new U2 album.[34] Author Susan Fast said that with the group's use of technology in the song's opening, "there can be no mistake that U2 has embraced sound resources new to them".[56]

For the album, The Edge often eschewed his normally minimalistic approach to guitar playing and his trademark chiming, delay-heavy sound, in favour of a style that incorporated more solos, dissonance, and feedback.[57] Industrial influences and guitar effects, particularly distortion, contributed to a "metallic" style and "harder textures".[5][58][59] Music journalist Bill Wyman said The Edge's guitar playing on the closing track "Love is Blindness" sounded like a "dentist's drill".[60] The Edge achieved breakthroughs in the writing of songs such as "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and "Mysterious Ways" by toying with various effects pedals.[34]

The rhythm section is more pronounced in the mix on Achtung Baby,[23] and hip hop-inspired electronic dance beats are featured on half the album's tracks, most prominently "The Fly".[5] Elysa Gardner of Rolling Stone compared the layering of dance beats into guitar-heavy mixes to songs by British bands Happy Mondays and Jesus Jones.[5] "Mysterious Ways" combines a funky guitar riff with a danceable, conga-laden beat,[61] for what Bono called "U2 at our funkiest... Sly and The Family Stone meets Madchester baggy."[34] Amidst layers of distorted guitars, "The Fly" and "Zoo Station" feature industrial-influenced percussion[35][62][63]—the timbre of Mullen's drums exhibits a "cold, processed sound, something like beating on a tin can", according to author Albin Zak.[64]

On the group's previous work, Bono's vocals were centre-stage in melody and mix, whereas on Achtung Baby, they are often lower in the mix or in a lower register.[58][65] On many tracks, including "The Fly" and "Zoo Station", Bono sang as a character;[23] one technique used is what Fast called "double voice", in which the vocals are doubled but sung in two different octaves. This octave differentiation was sometimes done with vocals simultaneously, while at other times, it distinguishes voices between the verses and choruses. According to Fast, the technique introduces "a contrasting lyrical idea and vocal character to deliver it", leading to both literal and ironic interpretations of Bono's vocals.[66] For several tracks, his vocals were also treated with processing.[59][60][67] These techniques were used to give his voice a different emotional feel and distinguish it from his past vocals.[35]

Lyrics

"Zoo Station"
The introduction to "Zoo Station" was meant to make listeners think "This record is broken" or "This can't be the new U2 record".[34]
"One"
The Edge composed the riff to "One" by combining two chord progressions he was working on, leading to the song's improvised writing. The lyrics portray a bitter conversation between two people.
"The Fly"
"The Fly" was chosen as the first single because its dance beats, distorted vocals, and hard industrial edge sounded nothing like typical U2.[63][68][69]
Problems playing these files? See media help.

Bono is credited as the sole lyricist.[49] In contrast to U2's previous records, which frequently made political and social statements, Achtung Baby is more personal and introspective, examining love, sexuality, spirituality, faith, and betrayal.[70][71][72] The lyrics are darker in tone, describing troubled personal relationships and exuding feelings of confusion, loneliness, and inadequacy.[5][73][74] Central to these themes was The Edge's separation from his wife and mother of his three children, which occurred halfway through the album's recording. The pain not only focused him on the record and led him to advocate more personal themes, but it also affected Bono's lyrical contributions.[2][16][75] Bono found inspiration from his own personal life, citing the births of his two daughters in 1989 and 1991 as major influences.[15] This is reflected in "Zoo Station", which opens the album as a statement of intent with lyrics suggesting new anticipations and appetites.[35][56]

Of the album's personal nature, Bono said that there were a lot of "blood and guts" in it.[55] His lyrics to the ballad "One" were inspired by the band members' struggling relationships and the German reunification.[76][77] The Edge described the song on one level as a "bitter, twisted, vitriolic conversation between two people who've been through some nasty, heavy stuff".[27] Similarly, "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" describes a strained relationship and unease over obligations,[78] and on "Acrobat", Bono sings about weakness, hypocrisy, and inadequacy.[79] The torch songs of Roy Orbison, Scott Walker, and Jacques Brel were major influences,[79] demonstrated on tracks such as "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses", a description of a couple's argument; "So Cruel", about unrequited love, obsession, and possessiveness;[68] and the closing track, "Love Is Blindness", a bleak account of a failing romance.[43][80]

U2 biographer Bill Flanagan credits Bono's habit of keeping his lyrics "in flux until the last minute" with providing a narrative coherence to the album.[81] Flanagan interpreted Achtung Baby as using the moon as a metaphor for a dark woman seducing the singer away from his virtuous love, the sun; he is tempted away from domestic life by an exciting nightlife and tests how far he can go before returning home.[82] For Flanagan, "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" on the album's latter third describes the character stumbling home in a drunken state, and the final three songs—"Ultraviolet" (Light My Way), "Acrobat", and "Love Is Blindness"—are about how the couple deal with the suffering they have forced on each other.[81]

Despite the record's darker themes, many lyrics are more flippant and sexual than those from the band's previous work.[37][65] This reflects the group's revisiting some of the Dadaist characters and stage antics they dabbled with in the late 1970s as teenagers but abandoned for more literal themes in the 1980s.[83] While the band had previously been opposed to materialism, they examined and flirted with this value on the album and the Zoo TV Tour.[70] The title and lyrics of "Even Better Than the Real Thing" are "reflective of the times [the band] were living in, when people were no longer looking for the truth, [they] were all looking for instant gratification".[34] "Trashy" and "throwaway" were among the band's buzzwords during recording, leading to many tracks in this vein. The chorus of "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" features the pop lyrical cliché "baby, baby, baby",[84] juxtaposed against the dark lyrics in the verses.[78] Bono wrote the lyrics to "The Fly" as the song's eponymous character by composing a sequence of "single-line aphorisms".[63] He called the song "like a crank call from Hell... but [the caller] likes it there".[34]

Religious imagery is present throughout the record. "Until the End of the World" is an imagined conversation between Jesus Christ and his betrayer, Judas Iscariot.[34] On "Acrobat", Bono sings about feelings of spiritual alienation in the line "I'd break bread and wine / If there was a church I could receive in".[85] In many tracks, Bono's lyrics about women carry religious connotations, describing them as spirits, life or light,[86] and idols to be worshipped.[87] Religious interpretations of the album are the subject of the book Meditations on Love in the Shadow of the Fall.[88]

Packaging and title

"... the very title Achtung Baby strives for lack of significance and—just as insignificantly—the sleeve itself is not the usual single cinematic image of heroic import but rather a grid of snapshots evoking, if a little cleanly, the slapdash glory that was Robert Frank's artwork for the [Rolling] Stones' Exile on Main Street."

 —Mat Snow, contrasting Achtung Baby with U2's previous albums[80]

The sleeve artwork for Achtung Baby was designed by Steve Averill, who had created the majority of U2's album covers.[89] To mirror their change in musical direction, the band considered sleeve concepts that used multiple images in colour to contrast with the seriousness of the individual, mostly monochromatic images from their previous album sleeves.[89][90] Rough sketches and designs were created early during the recording sessions, and some more experimental designs were conceived to closely resemble, as Averill put it, "dance-music oriented sleeves. We just did them to show how extreme we could go and then everyone came back to levels that they were happy with. But if we hadn't gone to these extremes it may not have been the cover it is now."[89]

An initial photo shoot with the band's long-time photographer Anton Corbijn was done near U2's Berlin hotel in late 1990.[91] Most of the photos were black-and-white,[89] and the group felt they were not indicative of the spirit of the new album. They re-commissioned Corbijn for an additional two-week photo shoot in Tenerife in February 1991,[33] for which they dressed up and mingled with the crowds of the annual Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, presenting a more playful side of themselves.[33] It was during the group's time in Tenerife, and during a four-day shoot in Morocco in July, that they were photographed in drag.[33] Additional photos were taken in Dublin in June, including a shot of a naked Clayton.[92] The images were intended to confound expectations of U2,[46] and their full colour contrasted with the monochrome imagery on past sleeves.[90]

A car with bright coloured squares painted on the exterior is tilted slightly to its left side at the bottom of a spiral staircase.
A Trabant from the Zoo TV Tour, displayed at a Hard Rock Cafe. The group were photographed with several elaborately painted Trabants for the album sleeve.

A single image scheme had been planned for the sleeve, and among the photographs considered were those of a cow on an Irish farm in County Kildare, the nude Clayton, and the band driving a Trabant—an East German automobile they became fond of as a symbol for a changing Europe.[89] Ultimately, a multiple image scheme was used, as U2, Corbijn, Averill, and the producers could not agree on a single image;[89] the resulting front sleeve is a 4×4 squared montage.[46] The band wanted to balance the "colder European feel of the mainly black-and-white Berlin images with the much warmer exotic climates of Santa Cruz and Morocco".[89] Some photographs were used because they were striking on their own, while others were used because of their ambiguity.[89] Images of the band with Trabants, several of which were painted bright colours, appear on the sleeve and throughout the album booklet. These vehicles were later incorporated into the Zoo TV Tour set as part of the lighting system.[93][94] The nude photo of Clayton was placed on the rear cover of the record. On the US compact disc and cassette sleeves, Clayton's penis is censored with a black "X" or a four-leaf clover,[95] while vinyl editions feature the photo uncensored.[90] In 2003, music television network VH1 ranked Achtung Baby's sleeve at number 39 on its list of the "50 Greatest Album Covers".[96] Three years later, Bono called the sleeve his favourite U2 cover artwork.[97]

The album's title, "Achtung Baby", is German for "Attention, baby!" or "Watch out, baby!", and it was used by the band's sound engineer Joe O'Herlihy during recording.[17] He reportedly took the phrase from the Mel Brooks film The Producers.[46] The title was selected in August 1991 near the end of the album sessions.[89] According to Bono, it was an ideal title, as it was attention-grabbing, referenced Germany, and hinted at either romance or birth, both of which were themes on the album.[46] The band was determined not to highlight the seriousness of the lyrics and instead sought to "erect a mask", a concept that was further developed on the Zoo TV Tour, particularly through characters such as "The Fly".[98] Of the title, Bono said in 1992, "It's a con, in a way. We call it Achtung Baby, grinning up our sleeves in all the photography. But it's probably the heaviest record we've ever made... It tells you a lot about packaging, because the press would have killed us if we'd called it anything else."[2]

For the album, U2 had considered several titles, including Man (in contrast to the group's debut, Boy),[99] 69, Zoo Station, and Adam, which would have been paired with the nude photo of Clayton.[2][89] Other possible titles included Fear of Women, and Cruise Down Main Street—a reference to The Rolling Stones' record Exile on Main St. and the cruise missiles launched on Baghdad during the Gulf War.[98] Most of the proposed titles were rejected out of the belief that people would see them as pretentious and "another Big Statement from U2".[99] The album's lighthearted title influenced other musicians, including David Bowie, who was an inspiration to U2 and Eno during recording. Bowie's band Tin Machine called their live record Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby, putting a Yiddish spin on U2's German title.[100]

Release

As early as December 1990, the music press reported that U2 would be recording a dance-oriented album and that it would be released in mid-1991.[101] In August 1991, sound collage artists Negativland released an EP entitled U2 that parodied U2's song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and used the band's likenesses on the cover. Island Records objected to the cover, believing consumers would confuse the EP for a new U2 record. Island successfully sued for copyright infringement but were criticised in the music press, as were U2, although they were not involved in the litigation.[55][102] Uncut's Stephen Dalton believes that much of the negative headlines were tempered by the success of Achtung Baby's first single, "The Fly", released on 21 October 1991 a month before the album.[55] Sounding nothing like U2's typical style, it was selected as the lead single to announce the group's new musical direction.[34] It became their second song to top the UK Singles Chart,[103] while reaching number one on the singles charts in Ireland and Australia.[104][105] The single was less successful in the US, peaking at number 61 on the Hot 100.[106]

Island Records and U2 refused to make advance copies of the album available to the press until just a few days before the release date, preferring fans to listen to the record before reading reviews. The decision came amid rumours of tensions within the band, and journalist David Browne compared it to the Hollywood practice of withholding review copies of films from the media before release whenever they receive poor word-of-mouth press.[107] Achtung Baby was released on 19 November 1991 on compact disc, tape cassette, and vinyl record, with an initial shipment of 1.4 million copies.[108] The album was the first release by a major act to use two so-called "eco-friendly" packages—the cardboard Digipak, and the shrinkwrapped jewel case without the long cardboard attachment.[95] Island encouraged record stores to order the jewel case packaging by offering a four-percent discount.[108]

Achtung Baby was U2's first album in three years and their first comprising entirely new material in over four years.[18] The group maintained a low profile after the record's release, avoiding interviews and allowing critics and the public to make their own assessments.[17] Instead of participating in an article with Rolling Stone magazine, U2 asked Eno to write one for them.[33] The marketing plan for the album focused on retail and press promotions. Posters featuring the sleeve's 16 images were distributed to record stores and through alternative weekly newspapers in major cities, and television and radio advertisements were created. In comparison to the large hype of other 1991 year-end releases, Island general manager Andy Allen explained the relatively understated marketing of Achtung Baby: "U2 will not come out with that kind of fanfare in terms of outside media. We feel the fan base itself creates that kind of excitement."[108]

"Mysterious Ways" was released as the second single five days after the release of Achtung Baby. On the US Billboard charts, the song topped the Modern Rock Tracks and Album Rock Tracks charts,[109] and it reached number nine on the Hot 100.[106] Elsewhere, it reached number one in Canada and number three in Australia.[105][110] In addition to the success of the first two singles, the album performed well commercially; in the US, Achtung Baby debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 Top Albums on 7 December 1991.[111] It fell to number three the following week,[112] but spent its first 13 weeks on the chart within the top ten.[113] In total, it spent 97 weeks on the Billboard 200 Top Albums.[114] It sold 295,000 copies in the US in its first week,[102] and on 21 January 1992, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it double-platinum.[115] Achtung Baby peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart,[116] spending 87 weeks on the chart.[117] In other regions, it topped the RPM 100 in Canada,[118] the ARIA Albums Chart in Australia, and the RIANZ Top 40 Albums in New Zealand.[105] The record sold seven million copies in its first three months on sale.[73]

Three additional singles were released in 1992. "One", released in March to coincide with the beginning of the Zoo TV Tour, reached number seven in the UK[103] and number ten in the US charts.[106] Like its predecessor, it topped the Modern Rock Tracks chart,[109] and the singles charts in Canada and Ireland.[104][110] The song has since become regarded as one of the greatest of all-time, ranking highly on many critics' lists.[119] The fourth single from Achtung Baby, "Even Better Than the Real Thing", was released in June. The album version of the song peaked at number 12 on the UK Singles Chart,[103] while reaching number one on the Album Rock Tracks chart.[109] A "Perfecto" remix of the song by DJ Paul Oakenfold[120] performed better in the UK than the album version did, peaking at number eight.[103] "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" followed as the fifth and final single in August 1992. It peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart,[103] and number two on the US Album Rock Tracks chart.[109] All five singles charted within the top 20 in Ireland,[104] Australia,[105] Canada,[110] and UK.[103] By the end of 1992, Achtung Baby had sold 10 million copies worldwide.[121]

In October 1992,[115] U2 released Achtung Baby: The Videos, The Cameos, and a Whole Lot of Interference from Zoo TV, a VHS compilation of nine music videos from the album. Running for 62 minutes, it was produced by Ned O'Hanlon and released by Island/Polygram. It included three music videos each for "One" and "Even Better than the Real Thing", along with videos for "The Fly", "Mysterious Ways", and "Until the End of the World".[122] Interspersed between the music videos were clips of so-called "interference", comprising documentary footage, media clips, and other video similar to what was displayed at Zoo TV Tour concerts.[122] The release was certified platinum in the US,[123] and gold in Canada.[124]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[51]
Chicago Tribune[125]
Entertainment Weekly(A)[60]
Hot Press(10/12)[65]
Los Angeles Times[74]
New Zealand Herald[50]
Orlando Sentinel[58]
Q[80]
Rolling Stone[5]
Spin(mixed)[126]

Achtung Baby received very favourable reviews from critics.[17][38] Elysa Gardner of Rolling Stone, in a four-and-a-half-star review, said that U2 had "proven that the same penchant for epic musical and verbal gestures that leads many artists to self-parody can, in more inspired hands, fuel the unforgettable fire that defines great rock & roll."[5] The review said that the album, like its predecessor Rattle and Hum, was an attempt by the band to "broaden its musical palette, but this time its ambitions are realized".[5] Bill Wyman of Entertainment Weekly gave the record an "A" and called it a "pristinely produced and surprisingly unpretentious return by one of the most impressive bands in the world".[60] Steve Morse of The Boston Globe echoed these sentiments, stating that the album "not only reinvigorates their sound, but drops any self-righteousness. The songs focus on personal relationships, not on saving the world."[59] Morse commended the album's "clanging, knob-twisting sound effects" and The Edge's "metallic, head-snapping guitar".[59] Jon Pareles of The New York Times lauded the record not only for featuring "noisy, vertiginous arrangements, mostly layers of guitar", but also for the group's ability to "maintain its pop skills". The review concluded, "Stripped-down and defying its old formulas, U2 has given itself a fighting chance for the 1990s."[67]

In a five-star review, Q called Achtung Baby U2's "heaviest album to date. And best." The review praised the band and its production team for making "music of drama, depth, intensity and, believe it, funkiness".[80] Time magazine featured a very positive review, writing that the record features "major-league guitar crunching and mysterious, spacy chords" and "songs of love, temptation, loose political parable and tight personal confession". The review declared that U2 had successfully reinvented themselves.[127] In a four-star review, Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times stated, "the arty, guitar-driven textures are among the band's most confident and vigorous ever". He said the album is a difficult one for listeners because of the dark, introspective nature of the songs, which contrasts with the group's uplifting songs of the past.[74] Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune wrote a favourable three-out-of-four stars review, saying the record "shows the band in a grittier light: disrupting, rather than fulfilling, expectations". He praised Lanois' production and said that due to The Edge's guitar playing, "U2 sounds punkier than it has since its 1980 debut, Boy". Kot concluded his review by calling the album "a magnificent search for transcendence made all the more moving for its flaws".[125] Niall Stokes of Hot Press gave the album a score of 10-out-of-12, writing, "Ostensibly decadent, sensual and dark, it is a record of, and for, these times."[65]

Spin was more critical of the record, calling it an "ambitious failure"; the review welcomed its experimentation but judged that when the group "strays from familiar territory, the results are hit-and-miss".[126] Robert Christgau rated it a dud,[128] indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought".[129] Christgau reflected this sentiment in his review of the group's 1993 album Zooropa: "After many, many tries, Achtung Baby still sounded like a damnably diffuse U2 album to me, and I put it in the hall unable to describe a single song."[128] The New Zealand Herald wrote a favourable three-and-a-half star review, calling the record "pretty damn good" and its sound "subdued, tightly controlled, [and] introverted". However, it critiqued the album for too many "downbeat moments where songs seem to be going nowhere", preventing it from being a "truly wondrous affair".[50] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic gave Achtung Baby a maximum score of five stars in a retrospective review, praising the band's musical transformation as "thorough", "effective", and "endlessly inventive". Erlewine concluded that few artists at that stage in their career could have "recorded an album as adventurous or fulfilled their ambitions quite as successfully as U2 [did]".[51]

The success of Achtung Baby and the Zoo TV Tour re-established U2 as one of the most popular and critically acclaimed musical acts in the world. The group nearly swept Rolling Stone's 1992 end-of-year readers' polls, winning honours for "Best Single" ("One"), "Artist of the Year", "Best Album", "Best Songwriter" (Bono), "Best Album Cover", and "Comeback of the Year", among others.[130] The album placed fourth on the "Best Albums" list from The Village Voice's 1991 Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[131] At the 35th Grammy Awards in 1993, Achtung Baby won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and it earned Lanois and Eno the award for Producer of the Year (Non-Classical). The record was also nominated for the Album of the Year award.[95]

Zoo TV Tour

Main article: Zoo TV Tour
An elaborate concert stage set bearing a logo that reads "Zoo TV", set in a dark stadium. Towers reach into the night sky, illuminated in blue with red warning lights on top.
The Zoo TV Tour was a multimedia-intensive event, featuring a stage that used dozens of video screens.

Following the release of Achtung Baby, U2 staged a worldwide concert tour, titled the Zoo TV Tour. Like Achtung Baby, the tour was intended to deviate from the band's past. In contrast to the austere stage setups of previous U2 tours, Zoo TV was an elaborately-staged multimedia event.[93] It satirised television and the viewing public's over-stimulation by attempting to instill "sensory overload" in its audience.[55][132][133] The stage featured large video screens that showed visual effects, random video clips from pop culture, and flashing text phrases. Live satellite link-ups, channel surfing, crank calls, and video confessionals were incorporated into the shows.[122]

Whereas the group were known for their earnest live act in the 1980s, their Zoo TV performances were intentionally ironic and self-deprecating;[55] on stage, Bono portrayed several characters he conceived, including "The Fly", "Mirror Ball Man", and "MacPhisto". The majority of the album's songs were played at each show, and the set lists began with up to eight consecutive Achtung Baby songs as a further sign that they were no longer the U2 of the 1980s.[134]

The tour began in February 1992 and comprised 157 shows over almost two years.[135] During a six-month break, the band recorded the album Zooropa, which was released in July 1993. It was inspired by Zoo TV and expanded on its themes of technology and media oversaturation.[133] By the time the tour concluded in December 1993, U2 had played to approximately 5.3 million fans.[136] In 2002, Q magazine said the Zoo TV Tour was "still the most spectacular rock tour staged by any band".[39]

Legacy

"It was a bloody difficult album to make but a lot less difficult than the alternative. If we hadn't done something we were excited about, that made us apprehensive and challenged everything we stood for, then there would really have been no reason to carry on... If it hadn't been a great record by our standards, the existence of the band would have been threatened."

 —Adam Clayton[46]

Achtung Baby is certified 8× platinum in the US by the RIAA,[115] and according to Nielsen Soundscan, the album has sold 5.5 million copies in the country, as of March 2009.[137] The record has been certified 5× platinum in Australia,[138] 4× platinum in the UK,[139] and diamond in Canada, the highest certification award.[140] Overall, 18 million copies have been sold worldwide.[141] It is the group's second-highest-selling record after The Joshua Tree, which has sold 25 million copies.[142] For the band, Achtung Baby was a watershed that ensured their creative future,[46] and its success prefigured their continued musical experimentation during the 1990s. Zooropa, released in 1993, was a further departure for the band, incorporating additional dance music influences and electronic effects into their sound.[133] In 1995, U2 and Brian Eno collaborated on the experimental/ambient album Original Soundtracks 1 under the pseudonym "Passengers".[132] For Pop in 1997, the group's experiences with dance club culture and their usage of tape loops, programming, rhythm sequencing, and sampling resulted in their most dance-oriented album.[132]

The record is highly regarded among the members of U2; Mullen said, "I thought it was a great record. I was very proud of it. Its success was by no means preordained. It was a real break from what we had done before and we didn't know if our fans would like it or not."[46] The group's reinvention occurred at the peak of the alternative rock movement, when the genre was achieving widespread mainstream popularity. Bill Flanagan pointed out that many of U2's 1980s contemporaries struggled commercially with albums released after the turn of the decade. He argued that U2, however, were able to take advantage of the alternative rock movement and ensure a successful future by "set[ting] themselves up as the first of the new groups rather than the last of the old".[143] Toby Creswell echoed these sentiments in his 2006 music reference book 1001 Songs, writing that the album helped U2 avoid "becoming parodies of themselves and being swept aside by the grunge and techno revolutions".[144] A 2010 retrospective by Spin said that "U2 became the emblematic band of the alternative-rock era with Achtung Baby."[145]

Achtung Baby has been acclaimed as one of the greatest albums in rock history, and many publications have placed it among their rankings of the best records. The Guardian collated worldwide data in 1997 from a range of renowned critics, artists, and radio DJs, who placed the record at number 71 in the list of the "100 Best Albums Ever".[146] VH1 ranked it at number 65 on their "100 Greatest Albums of Rock & Roll" countdown from their series The Greatest.[147] In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked the record at number 62 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", writing, "U2 visibly loosened up on Achtung Baby, cracking jokes and even letting themselves be photographed in color".[148] That same year, "The Definitive 200" album list—sponsored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—listed Achtung Baby at number 45.[149] The Q staff named it the third-best album from 1980–2004,[150] and similarly, in 2008, Entertainment Weekly called it the third-best album of the previous 25 years.[151] In 2006, the record appeared on a number of lists, including Hot Press's "100 Greatest Albums Ever" at number 21,[152] and Time's "The All-Time 100 Albums".[153] In 2010, the record topped Spin's list of the "125 Best Albums of the Past 25 Years", which ranked the most influential albums in the 25 years since the magazine launched. The author said, "Unlike Radiohead with OK Computer and Kid A, U2 took their post-industrial, trad-rock disillusionment not as a symbol of overall cultural malaise, but as a challenge to buck up and transcend... Struggling to simultaneously embrace and blow up the world, they were never more inspirational."[145]

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Bono; all music is composed by U2

No.TitleProducerLength
1."Zoo Station"Daniel Lanois4:36
2."Even Better Than the Real Thing"Steve Lillywhite, with Brian Eno and Lanois3:41
3."One"Lanois with Eno4:36
4."Until the End of the World"Lanois with Eno4:39
5."Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"Lillywhite, Lanois, and Eno5:16
6."So Cruel"Lanois5:49
7."The Fly"Lanois4:29
8."Mysterious Ways"Lanois with Eno4:04
9."Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World"Lanois with Eno3:53
10."Ultraviolet (Light My Way)"Lanois with Eno5:31
11."Acrobat"Lanois4:30
12."Love Is Blindness"Lanois4:23
Total length:55:27

Personnel

Charts and certifications

References

Notes
  1. ^ The album's liner notes credit the location as "Dog Town", which was a nickname the band assigned to the house, officially called Elsinore.
Footnotes
  1. ^ Dalton, Stephen (2003-09-08). "How the West Was Won". Uncut.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Fricke, David (1992-10-01). "U2 Finds What It's Looking For". Rolling Stone (640): 40+. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  3. ^ Stokes (2005), p. 78
  4. ^ a b Sullivan, Jim (1989-02-22). "'U2 Rattle and Hum': Lighten up!". The Boston Globe. section Arts and Film, p. 46.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Gardner, Elysa (1992-01-09). "U2's 'Achtung Baby': Bring the Noise". Rolling Stone (621): 51. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  6. ^ Flanagan (1996), pp. 25–26
  7. ^ Flanagan (1996), p. 4
  8. ^ Flanagan (1996), pp. 25, 27–28
  9. ^ a b McCormick (2006), p. 213
  10. ^ de la Parra (1994), pp. 138–139
  11. ^ a b c d e Eno, Brian (1991-11-28). "Bringing Up Baby". Rolling Stone (618).
  12. ^ McCormick (2006), pp. 204–207
  13. ^ a b c d McCormick (2006), p. 215
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  15. ^ a b c d e f McCormick (2006), p. 216
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i McCormick (2006), p. 221
  17. ^ a b c d e Graham (2004), p. 43
  18. ^ a b Gardner (1994), p. xxv
  19. ^ DeRogatis, Jim (2005-05-01). "Moving On". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 4.
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Bibliography

External links


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