• U2 Achtung Baby Album

• • • • • The year is 1991. You’ve just bought the new record.

U2 Achtung Baby Album

You sit back and relax, expecting to hear The Edge’s trademark chiming guitar and Bono’s soulful vocals. Within the opening 10 seconds of “Zoo Station”, you think your speakers must be broken. The sound coming out is distorted and abrasive. A heavily electronic voice comes in, slyly saying, “I’m ready. I’m ready for the laughing gas. I’m ready for what’s next.” You just took your first steps into Achtung Baby. The Irish rockers’ seventh studio album was a miraculous release.

In the late ’80s, the band had reached the end of their rope, looking pretentious on 1988’s Rattle and Hum. They retreated to Berlin’s Hansa Studios to reinvent their style. However, the band couldn’t find a way to merge song structures with the experimental noises that Bono and Edge were listening to. The group came close to breaking up until a pieced-together guitar progression led to the motivated writing of “One”, effectively saving U2. Given how important Achtung Baby was to the band, it’s not a surprise that its 20 th anniversary warranted such a huge box set release. While not remastered, the sound of the original album is polished to fit with modern systems. For one thing, it’s louder, a change that was desperately needed given how weak the original mix sounds compared to other records.