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Achtung Baby ( ) is the seventh studio album by the Irish rock music band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 18 November 1991 by Island Records. After criticism of their 1988 documentary film and album Rattle and Hum and a sense of creative stagnation, U2 shifted their direction to incorporate influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. Thematically, Achtung Baby is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than their previous work. For his lyrics, lead vocalist Bono was partly inspired by the failed marriages of two friends, including U2's guitarist the Edge.
Seeking inspiration from German reunification, U2 began recording Achtung Baby at 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 tension and slow progress nearly prompted the group to disband, they made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One". Morale and productivity improved during subsequent recording sessions in Dublin, where the album was completed in 1991. To confound the public's expectations of the band and their music, U2 chose the record's facetious title and colourful multi-image sleeve.
Achtung Baby is one of U2's most successful records; it received favourable reviews and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 Top Albums, while topping the charts in many other countries. Five songs were released as commercial singles, all of which were chart successes, 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. The album and its supporting Zoo TV Tour of 1992–1993 were central to the group's 1990s reinvention in musical style and in their shift from an earnest public image to a more lighthearted, ironic one. The tour was also a success, grossing US$151 million from 5.3 million tickets sold.
Achtung Baby has since been acclaimed by writers and music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. The record has been several times, including in October 2011 and November 2021 for its 20th and 30th anniversaries, respectively. U2 commemorated the album during their concert residency , which ran from 2023 to 2024 at Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley.
Despite their commercial popularity, the group were dissatisfied creatively; lead vocalist Bono believed they were musically unprepared for their success, while drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. said, "We were the biggest, but we weren't the best." By the band's 1989 Lovetown Tour, they had become bored with playing their greatest hits.Flanagan (1996), p. 4 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".Flanagan (1996), pp. 25, 27–28 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.McCormick (2006), p. 213 During a 30 December 1989 show near the end of the Lovetown Tour, Bono said on stage to the hometown crowd in Dublin that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again".McGee (2008), p. 129 Following the tour, the group began what was at the time their longest break from public performances and album releases.de la Parra (1994), pp. 138–139
Reacting to their own sense of musical stagnation and to their critics, U2 searched for new musical ground. They had written "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 Babys direction.McCormick (2006), pp. 204–207 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, in which U2 used electronic dance beats and hip hop elements for the first time; the second indication of change was contributions made by Bono and guitarist the Edge to the original score of A Clockwork Oranges stage adaptation. Much of the material they wrote was experimental, and according to Bono, "prepared the ground for Achtung Baby". Ideas deemed inappropriate for the play were put aside for the band's use.McCormick (2006), p. 215 During this period, Bono and the Edge began increasingly writing songs together without Mullen or bassist Adam Clayton.
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.McCormick (2006), p. 216 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". After their time at STS Studios, Bono and the Edge were tasked with continuing to work on lyrics and melodies until the group reconvened.McGee (2008), p. 132 Going into the album sessions, U2 wanted the record to completely deviate from their past work, but they were unsure how to accomplish it. The emergence of the Madchester scene in the UK left them confused about how they would fit into any particular musical scene.
Morale worsened once the sessions commenced, as the band worked long days but could not agree on a musical direction. The Edge had been listening to electronic dance music and to industrial music 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". Like Clayton, he was more comfortable with a sound similar to U2's previous work and was resistant to the proposed innovations. Further, the Edge's interest in dance club mixes and made Mullen feel that his contributions as a drummer were being diminished. 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. Compounding the divisions between the two camps was a change in the band's songwriting relationship; Bono and the Edge were working more closely together, writing material without the rest of the group.Graham (1996), p. 28
U2 found that they were neither prepared nor well-rehearsed, and that their ideas were not evolving into completed songs. The group were unable to reach consensus during their disagreements and felt that they were not making progress. Bono and Lanois, in particular, had an argument that almost came to blows during the writing of "Mysterious Ways".Stokes (2005), p. 104 During one tense session, Clayton removed his bass guitar and held it out to Bono, saying, "You tell me what to play and I'll play it. You want to play it yourself? Go ahead."Flanagan (1996), pp. 9 With a sense of going nowhere, the band considered breaking up.Flanagan (1996), pp. 10–11 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. 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". Ultimately, a breakthrough was achieved with the writing of the song "One".McCormick (2006), pp. 221–224 While working on "Sick Puppy"—an early version of "Mysterious Ways"—the Edge played two separate chord progressions sequentially on guitar at Lanois' encouragement, and finding inspiration, the group quickly improvised a new song that became "One".Flanagan (1996), pp. 11–12 It provided reassurance and validated their long-standing "blank page approach" to writing and recording together.
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. They briefly returned to Berlin in January 1991 to finish their work at Hansa.McGee (2008), pp. 134–135 Reflecting on their time in Berlin, Clayton called the sessions a "baptism of fire" and said, "It was something that we had to go through to realize that really, what we were looking for and what we were trying to get to was not something you could find physically, outside of ourselves, in some other city—that there was no magic to it. We had to actually just put the work in and figure out the ideas and hone those ideas down." Although just two songs were delivered during their two months in Berlin,Stokes (2005), p. 98 the Edge said that in retrospect, working there had been more productive and inspirational than the output had suggested. The band had been removed from a familiar environment, providing what they described as a certain "texture and cinematic location", and many of their incomplete ideas would be revisited in the subsequent Dublin sessions with success.
In April, tapes from the earlier Berlin sessions were stolen after the band reportedly left them in a hotel room, and they were subsequently leaked before the album was finished. The recordings were bootlegged into a three-disc collection dubbed Salome: The Axtung Outtakes, named for the song "Salomé" that was prominently featured in the collection but did not make the album's final cut. The release is considered the most famous bootleg of U2 material. Bono dismissed the leaked demos as "gobbledygook", and the Edge likened the situation to "being violated". The leak shook U2's confidence and soured their collective mood for a few weeks.
Staffing schedules led to the band having a surplus of engineers at one point, and as a result, they split recording between Elsinore and the Edge's home studio to increase productivity. Engineer Robbie Adams said the approach raised morale and activity levels: "There was always something different to listen to, always something exciting happening." The band's desire to record everything they played in the studio posed a challenge to the production team. A conventional setup with their equipment would have restricted them to 24 tracks of audio; to capture multiple overdubbing and for different arrangement possibilities, the engineers utilised a technique they called "fatting", which allowed them to achieve more than 48 tracks of audio by using an Otari MTR100 24-track recorder, a Fostex D20 timecode-capable DAT recorder, and an Adams Smith Zeta Three synchroniser. The focus on capturing the band's material and encouraging the best performances meant that little attention was paid to combating audio spill, aside from placing the Edge's and Clayton's Guitar amplifier in separate rooms. In issue 14 of U2's fan magazine Propaganda, Lanois said that he believed some of the in-progress songs would become worldwide hits, despite lyrics and vocal takes being unfinished.
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. 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." Eno also assisted them through a crisis point one month before the recording deadline; he recalled that "everything seemed like a mess", and he insisted the band take a two-week holiday. The break gave them a clearer perspective and added decisiveness.
After work at Elsinore finished in July, the sessions moved to Windmill Lane Studios where Eno, Flood, Lanois, and previous U2 producer Steve Lillywhite mixed the tracks.Graham (2004), p. 45Flanagan (1996), p. 19 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. Additional recording and mixing continued at a frenetic pace until the 21 September deadline,McGee (2008), p. 137 including last-minute changes to "The Fly", "One", and "Mysterious Ways".McCormick (2006), p. 232 The Edge estimated that half of the sessions' work was done in the last three weeks to finalise songs. 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 Audio mastering.
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 guitar solo, dissonance, and audio feedback. Industrial influences and guitar effects, particularly distortion, contributed to a "metallic" style and "harder textures". Music journalist Bill Wyman said the Edge's guitar playing on the closing track "Love Is Blindness" sounded like a "dentist's drill". The Edge achieved breakthroughs in the writing of songs such as "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and "Mysterious Ways" by toying with various .
The rhythm section is more pronounced in the mix on Achtung Baby, and hip hop-inspired electronic dance beats are featured on many of the album's tracks, most prominently "The Fly". 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. "Mysterious Ways" combines a funky guitar riff with a danceable, conga-laden beat, for what Bono called "U2 at our funkiest... Sly and The Family Stone meets Madchester baggy." Amidst layers of distorted guitars, "The Fly" and "Zoo Station" feature industrial-influenced percussionGraham (2004), p. 47Stokes (2005), p. 102—the timbre of Mullen's drums exhibits a "cold, processed sound, something like beating on a tin can", according to author Albin Zak.Zak (2001), pp. 68–70
Whereas Bono exhibited a full-throated vocal delivery on the group's previous releases, for Achtung Baby he extended his range into a lower vocal register and used what Fast described as "breathy and subdued colors". On many tracks, including "The Fly" and "Zoo Station", he sang as a character;Graham (2004), p. 44 one technique used is octave doubling, in which the vocals are doubled but sung in two different . 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.Fast (2000), pp. 49–50 He said that lowering his voice helped him find a new vocal vocabulary, as he previously felt limited to "certain words and tones" by his tenor voice. Other methods of altering his vocals included treating them with processing and feeding them through a distortion pedal. These techniques were all used to give his voice a different emotional feel and distinguish it from his previous work.
Of the album's personal nature, Bono said that there were a lot of "blood and guts" in it. His lyrics to the ballad "One" were inspired by the band members' interpersonal struggles and the German reunification. 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". Similarly, "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" describes a strained relationship and unease over obligations,Graham (2004), p. 50 and on "Acrobat", Bono sings about weakness, hypocrisy, and inadequacy.Stokes (2005), p. 108 The torch songs of Roy Orbison, Scott Walker, and Jacques Brel were major influences, evidenced by 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;Graham (2004), p. 49 and the closing track, "Love Is Blindness", a bleak account of a failing romance.
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.Flanagan (1996), p. 20 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.Flanagan (1996), p. 187 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.
Despite the record's darker themes, many lyrics are more flippant and sexual than those from the band's previous work. This reflects the group's revisiting some of the characters and stage antics they dabbled with in the late 1970s as teenagers but abandoned for more literal themes in the 1980s.Stokes (2005), p. 95 While the band had previously been opposed to materialism, they examined and flirted with this value on the album and the Zoo TV Tour. The title and lyrics of "Even Better Than the Real Thing" are "reflective of the times the were living in, when people were no longer looking for the truth, they were all looking for instant gratification". "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",Stokes (2005), p. 107 juxtaposed against the dark lyrics in the verses. Bono wrote the lyrics to "The Fly" in character as the song's eponymous persona by composing a sequence of . He called the song "like a crank call from Hell... but the likes it there".McCormick (2006), pp. 224–225, 227, 232
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. On "Acrobat", Bono sings about feelings of spiritual alienation in the line "I'd Eucharist / If there was a church I could receive in".Brothers (1999), p. 257 In many tracks, Bono's lyrics about women carry religious connotations, describing them as spirits, life, light,Gilmour (2005), pp. 66, 76 and idols to be worshipped.Stein (1999), pp. 269–272 Religious interpretations of the album are the subject of the book Meditations on Love in the Shadow of the Fall from the 33 ⅓ series.Catanzarite (2007), pp. 1–3
An initial photo shoot with the band's long-time photographer Anton Corbijn was conducted near U2's Berlin hotel in late 1990.McGee (2008), p. 133 Most of the photos were black-and-white, and the group felt they were not indicative of the spirit of the new album. They recommissioned Corbijn for an additional two-week photo shoot in Tenerife in February 1991, 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. 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. Additional photos were taken in a Dublin studio in June, a session in which Corbijn captured long exposures over several minutes. One of the photos from this session depicted a naked Clayton.McGee (2008), p. 136 Overall, Corbijn's images for Achtung Baby were intended to confound expectations of U2, and their full colour contrasted with the monochromatic imagery on past sleeves.
For the photoshoots in Berlin and Tenerife, the band were photographed with brightly painted , East German automobiles that became a symbol of the fall of Communism and for which the band had developed an affection.McCormick (2006), p. 237 Street artist Thierry Noir was commissioned to provide the artwork and painted the vehicles in Hansa Studios' parking lot; he became involved through a fellow collaborator of the band's, film director Wim Wenders. Images of the band with the Trabants appear on the sleeve and throughout the album booklet. These vehicles were later incorporated into the Zoo TV Tour set design as part of the lighting system."Trabantland."
Several photographs were considered as candidates for a single cover image, including shots of: a cow on an Irish farm in County Kildare; the nude Clayton; and the band driving a Trabant. Ultimately, a multiple image scheme was used, as U2, Corbijn, Averill, and the producers thought that "the sense of flux expressed by both the music and the band's playing with alter egos was best articulated by the lack of a single viewpoint".Godson (2003), p. 38 The resulting front sleeve is arranged as a 4×4 square grid. A mix of Corbijn's original images from Berlin and the later photo shoots was used, as 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". Some photographs were used because they were striking on their own, while others were used because of their ambiguity. The nude photo of Clayton was placed on the rear cover of the record. After objections to the photo were raised in the United States, it was censored; Averill and McGrath painted a black "X" and faxed it to the record label, which turned it into a sticker that American distributors and retailers could affix to the album packaging to cover Clayton's genitals. Compact disc and Compact Cassette copies were censored with the sticker, while vinyl record editions featured the photo uncensored.
To "match the gush of spontaneity and power of the photography", McGrath Calligraphy the album title, band name, and track listing for the packaging, using paintbrushes as well as ink and pen. Contrasting with the "unique humanity" of his handwriting, McGrath set the lyrics and album credits in the ubiquitous European font Helvetica, "mirroring the repetitive industrial and Germanic themes of the album". The label of the physical CD and vinyl disc features an image of a "babyface" by artist Charlie Whisker onto an external wall of Windmill Lane Studios and photographed by Richie Smyth. The babyface image was later adopted as a logo for Zoo TV Tour memorabilia and was incorporated into the Zooropa album cover. In 2003, music television network VH1 ranked Achtung Babys sleeve at number 39 on its list of the "50 Greatest Album Covers". Bono has called the sleeve his favourite U2 cover artwork.McCormick (2006), p. 234
The German word () in the album title is an interjection that translates into English as "attention" or "watch out". There are multiple reports of the origins of the album's title. According to singer Tottie Goldsmith, she often used the phrase "Achtung, baby" to get her boyfriend's attention and was once overheard by Bono at a party in 1989, who "turned around to ask her why she had just said that". Goldsmith has said that inspiring the album title became her "claim to fame". According to Bono, U2's sound engineer Joe O'Herlihy said the phrase "Achtung, baby" often during the recording sessions, using it as a "" each time the band were about to begin work for the day. He reportedly took it from Mel Brooks's 1967 film The Producers; however, the phrase is not spoken in the film and actually originated from Brooks's 1983 comedy hip hop song "To Be or Not to Be (The Hitler Rap)". The album title was selected in August 1991 near the end of the album sessions. Bono thought it was an ideal title, as it was attention-grabbing to him, referenced Germany, and hinted at either romance or birth, both of which were themes on the album. The band were determined not to highlight the seriousness of the lyrics and instead sought to "erect a mask" with the title, a concept that was further developed on the Zoo TV Tour, particularly through Bono's characters such as "The Fly".Flanagan (1996), pp. 21–22 Of the title, he 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."
U2 considered several other titles for the album, including Man (in contrast to the group's debut, Boy), 69, Zoo Station, and Adam, the latter of which would have been paired with the nude photo of Clayton. Other titles in consideration included Fear of Women and Cruise Down Main Street, the latter a reference to the Rolling Stones' record Exile on Main St. and the cruise missiles launched on Baghdad during the Gulf War. Most of the proposed titles were rejected out of the belief that people would see them as pretentious and "another Big Statement from U2".
Uncuts Stephen Dalton believed that the negative headlines were tempered by the success of Achtung Babys first single, "The Fly", released on 21 October 1991 a month before the album. Sounding nothing like U2's typical style, it was selected as the lead single to announce the group's new musical direction, but the song's sound presented a challenge to Island executive Marc Marot. "The Fly" was the first U2 single for which he had responsibility for worldwide marketing, and according to him, it had one of the lowest airplay rotations on BBC Radio 1 of any song that year; Marot said it was "probably the only U2 nobody can sing the chorus of". Consequently, the label devised a plan to help it reach number one on the UK Singles Chart by manufacturing an unlimited number of copies for retailers but for one week only.Jobling (2014), p. 218 "The Fly" subsequently became the band's second song to reach number one in the UK, and it also topped the singles charts in Ireland and Australia. The single was less successful in the US, peaking at number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Island Records and U2 refused to make advance copy of the album available to the press until just a few days before the release date, preferring that fans 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 pre-release copies of films from reviewers whenever they receive poor word-of-mouth press. Achtung Baby was released on 18 November 1991 in the UK and 19 November in the US on compact disc, cassette tape, and vinyl record, with an initial shipment of more than 1.4 million copies in the US. The album was the first release by a major act to use two so-called "eco-friendly" packages—the cardboard Digipak, and the jewel case without the longbox cardboard attachment. Island encouraged record stores to order the jewel case packaging by offering a four-percent discount.
Achtung Baby was U2's first album in three years and their first comprising entirely new material in over four years. The group maintained a low profile after the record's release, avoiding interviews and allowing critics and the public to make their own assessments. Instead of participating in an article with Rolling Stone magazine, U2 asked Eno to write one for them. The marketing plan for the album focused on retail and press promotions. In addition to television and radio advertisements being produced, posters featuring the sleeve's 16 images were distributed to record stores and through alternative newspapers in major cities. Compared to the large hype of other 1991 year-end releases, the marketing for Achtung Baby was relatively understated, as Island general manager Andy Allen explained: "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."
"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, and it reached number nine on the Hot 100. Elsewhere, it reached number one in Canada and number three in Australia. Three additional commercial singles were released in 1992. "One", released in March at the beginning of the Zoo TV Tour, reached number seven in the UK and number ten in the US charts. Like its predecessor, it topped the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the singles charts in Canada and Ireland. The song has since become regarded as one of the greatest of all time, ranking highly on many critics' lists. 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, while reaching number one on the US Album Rock Tracks chart. A "Perfecto Mix" remix of the song by DJ Paul Oakenfold performed better in the UK than the album version did, peaking at number eight. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" followed as the fifth and final single in November 1992. It peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, and number two on the US Album Rock Tracks chart. All five commercial singles charted within the top 20 in Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the UK. Promotional singles for "Until the End of the World", "Salomé", and "Zoo Station" were also released.
In October 1992, U2 released Achtung Baby: The Videos, the Cameos, and a Whole Lot of Interference from Zoo TV, a VHS and LaserDisc compilation of nine from the album. Running for 65 minutes, it was produced by Ned O'Hanlon and released by Island and 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". 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. The release was certified platinum in the US,McGee (2008), p. 168 and gold in Canada.
Qs Mat Snow called Achtung Baby U2's "heaviest album to date. And best." Snow praised the band and its production team for making "music of drama, depth, intensity and, believe it, funkiness". Adam Sweeting of The Guardian said that with the album, U2 "evolved a raw, semi-industrial noise though which to filter strong melodies and thrusting funk-rock grooves". He praised the group for improving their songwriting and incorporating "black humour" into darker lyrical themes. He said the album was "quite an achievement" at following up a successful record, responding to emerging musical influences, and expanding the band's sound while still pleasing existing fans. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune felt 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". Niall Stokes of Hot Press found Achtung Baby to be paradoxical, calling it U2's bleakest record while containing "their most obvious singles", and saying, "It sounds less like the U2 that we know than anything they have done before and yet it is unmistakably them". He wrote, "Ostensibly decadent, sensual and dark, it is a record of, and for, these times." The New Zealand Herald found it "pretty damn good" and described its sound as "subdued, tightly controlled, and introverted". However, it said that too many "downbeat moments where songs seem to be going nowhere" prevented it from being a "truly wondrous affair". In Spin, Jim Greer was more critical of the album, 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". The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau rated it a dud, indicating a bad album unworthy of a review. Two years later, he reflected on the rating: "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... although I admittedly enjoy a few of its anthems-in-disguise now."
According to Nielsen Soundscan, Achtung Baby had sold 4.9 million copies in the US by February 1997 and 5.5 million copies by March 2009. It has been certified 8× platinum in the US by the RIAA. The record has been certified 5× platinum in Australia, 4× platinum in the UK, and diamond in Canada, the highest certification award. Overall, 18 million copies have been sold worldwide. It is U2's second-highest-selling record after The Joshua Tree, which has sold 25 million copies.
Whereas the group were known for their earnest live act in the 1980s, their Zoo TV performances were intentionally ironic and self-deprecating; 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 began with up to eight consecutive Achtung Baby songs as a further sign that they were no longer the U2 of the 1980s.McGee (2008), p. 143
The tour began in February 1992 and comprised 157 shows over almost two years. 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. By the time the tour concluded in December 1993, it had sold about 5.3 million ticketsCogan (2008), p. 154 and reportedly grossed US$151 million. In 2002, Q magazine said the Zoo TV Tour was "still the most spectacular rock tour staged by any band". The tour's 27 November 1993 concert in Sydney was filmed and commercially released as by PolyGram in May 1994.
Achtung Baby 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." Bono called the album a "pivot point" in the band's career, saying, "Making Achtung Baby is the reason we're still here now." Clayton concurred, saying: "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." 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 "setting themselves up as the first of the new groups rather than the last of the old".Flanagan (1996), p. 213 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".Creswell (2006), pp. 377–378 In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the band's musical transformation "thorough", "effective", and "endlessly inventive". He 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". A 2010 retrospective by Spin said that "U2 became the emblematic band of the alternative-rock era with Achtung Baby."
Achtung Baby has been acclaimed by writers and music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. In 1997, The Guardian collated worldwide data from a range of renowned critics, artists, and radio DJs, who placed the record at number 71 on a list of the "100 Best Albums Ever". The record was ranked 36th in Colin Larkin's 2000 book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers ranked it at number 45 on its "Definitive 200" list, while USA Today featured it on their list of the top 40 albums of all time. Rolling Stone placed the record at number 62 on its 2003 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Subsequent updates to the list re-ranked the album: the 2012 version ranked it 63rd, calling it "a prescient mix of sleek rock and pulsing Euro grooves" while saying "the emotional turmoil made U2 sound more human than ever"; the 2020 version of the list ranked it 124th. In 2006, the album appeared on a number of all-time lists, including Hot Presss "100 Greatest Albums Ever" at number 21, Times list of "The All-Time 100 Albums", and the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
On 31 October 2011, Achtung Baby was in five formats. In addition to a single-disc release of the album, a deluxe edition included a bonus disc of remixes and from the album's five singles, and a vinyl edition included the album on two LP record with two additional LPs of remixes. The 10-disc "Super Deluxe" and "Über Deluxe" editions included: the Zooropa album; three additional CDs with remixes, B-sides, and outtakes; a disc with nascent versions of Achtung Babys 12 songs called Kindergarten; four DVDs containing From the Sky Down, the Zoo TV: Live from Sydney concert film, music videos, and other bonus material; 16 art prints; and a hardback book. The "Über Deluxe" edition also contains a double-vinyl copy of the album, five 7-inch vinyl singles, a copy of U2's fan club magazine Propaganda, and a replica of Bono's "Fly" sunglasses. The media initially reported that the reissue was a release. However, the reissue's official website initially excluded any mention of "remastering" before adding it and then removing it. The Edge confirmed that the album was not fully remastered since "the original was so right" and so much "artistry had gone into the original EQ'ing" but did say that they were able to "optimize it... tweak the levels, give it a bit of a polish". "Blow Your House Down", an outtake included in the deluxe editions, was released as a promotional single in October 2011.
Q commissioned an Achtung Baby tribute album, entitled AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered, that was included in the magazine's December 2011 issue. It features performances by Jack White, Depeche Mode, Damien Rice, Gavin Friday, Glasvegas, The Fray, Patti Smith, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Nine Inch Nails, and Garbage.
In 2021, Achtung Baby was re-released in several formats for its 30th anniversary: standard black vinyl and deluxe colour vinyl editions were released on 19 November, followed by a 50-track digital box set on 3 December. The band also collaborated with Thierry Noir on an art installation held at Hansa Studios; Noir, who painted the original Trabants featured in the album photography, contributed new artwork to a Trabant and a section of the Berlin Wall for the exhibition. The bonnet of the car was auctioned to benefit the Berlin Institute for Sound and Music.
In January 2024, a Dolby Atmos surround sound mix of Achtung Baby was digitally released to streaming platforms. It was the first album from U2's catalogue to be released in the format. Mixing was done in five studios globally over a 17-month period.
Zoo TV Tour
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. It satirised television and the viewing public's overstimulation by attempting to instill "sensory overload" in its audience. The stage featured large video screens that showed visual effects, random video clips from popular culture, and flashing text phrases. The shows incorporated channel surfing, , video , a , and live satellite transmissions with war-torn Sarajevo.
Legacy
For the band, Achtung Baby was a watershed that secured their creative future, and its success led to the group's 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. In 1995, U2 and Brian Eno collaborated on the experimental/ambient music album Original Soundtracks 1 under the pseudonym "Passengers". For Pop in 1997, the group's experiences with dance club culture and their usage of , programming, rhythm Music sequencer, and sampling resulted in their most dance-oriented album.
(2025). 9780789313713, Universe. ISBN 9780789313713 VH1 ranked it 65th on the "100 Greatest Albums of Rock & Roll" episode of its television series The Greatest. Entertainment Weeklys 2013 list of the "All-Time Greatest" albums ranked the record 23rd, saying that instead of "coasting forever on the cinematic storytelling they mastered on the excellently righteous The Joshua Tree", the group "ripped up the rule book" with Achtung Baby. The record topped Spins list of the 125 most influential albums from 1985 to 2010; writer Charles Aaron 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."
Reissues and commemorations
20th anniversary releases
The 20th anniversary of Achtung Baby was marked by several releases in 2011. At the band's request, a documentary film about the album entitled From the Sky Down was produced. It was directed by Davis Guggenheim, who previously collaborated with the Edge for the documentary It Might Get Loud in 2008. From the Sky Down documents the album's difficult recording period, the band members' relationships, and U2's creative process. Archival footage and stills from the recording sessions appear in the film, along with unreleased scenes from Rattle and Hum. For the documentary, the band were filmed during a return visit to Hansa Studios and during rehearsals for the Glastonbury Festival 2011. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, becoming the first documentary to open the festival, and in October, it was broadcast on multiple television networks worldwide.
Subsequent reissues and releases
Continuing a campaign by U2 to reissue all of their records on vinyl, Achtung Baby was re-released on two 180-gram vinyl records on 27 July 2018. Unlike the 2011 reissue, the album was remastered for its 2018 reissue, with direction from the Edge. Each copy includes a download card that can be used to redeem a digital copy of the album.
Concert residency at Sphere
From September 2023 to March 2024, U2 staged a 40-date concert residency called U2:UV Achtung Baby Live to inaugurate the concert venue Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley. The shows featured a full performance of Achtung Baby and leveraged the venue's immersive video and sound capabilities. Mullen did not participate in the concerts in order to recuperate from surgery, marking the first time since 1978 that U2 performed without him; Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg from the band Krezip filled in. The residency grossed $244.5 million from 663,000 tickets sold, making it the fourth-highest-grossing concert residency of all time.
Track listing
Personnel
U2
Charts
+Weekly album charts performance + Weekly album charts performance for 20th anniversary reissue +Annual album charts performance +Decade album charts performance +Song charts performance 1991 "The Fly" 1 1 16 1 61 "Mysterious Ways" 1 3 1 13 9 1992 "One" 1 4 1 7 10 "Even Better Than the Real Thing" 3 11 3 12 32 "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" 4 9 5 14 35 "Until the End of the World" – – 69 – – "–" denotes a release that did not chart.
Certifications
Notes
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
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