intedomine
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
This forum needs an injection of some sort of life - oh how i yearn for the glory days..
Achtung Baby is generally the favourite album of most U2 fans (which is why I chose it for this topic)... it sits comfortably as my favourite U2 album, and in my favourite 3 albums of all time.
But I want to hear about your relationship with Achtung Baby? The circumstances of your relationship with the album, from how it sounded during your first listen, to how it sounds to you today... and everything in between.
You may have heard it back in '91, you may have only heard it a couple of months ago. You may love it or hate it..
I love it. I came to it back in about late '03, I think, about a year after I purchased the 2 x Best Ofs that started my relationship with the band and their music.
It took me a while to finally get to Achtung Baby. I knew One, EBTTRT and Mysterious Ways, and knew of Wild Horses and The Fly. I watched a VHS of ZooTV Sydney and was mystified about how this same band that released songs like Pride, Streets, Gloria, Desire and NYD could come up with something as wacky as Zoo Station and "The Fly" persona.
It triggered me to borrow a (rather battered and with a well-flicked through booklet) copy of the CD from the library, which was a captivating listen from the get go. Wild Horses in particular, was a song I actually had heard on radio when I was a little boy of 5 or so, but the song had been completely abandoned by commercial radio after it's time was up as a current single release. This was in '03, twelve years after the album was released.
After dozens of listens while studying for high school exams, I had to return the CD to the library but went to the local CD store very soon after and got my own shiny copy.
In the thirteen years since I first listened to Achtung Baby, I probably haven't gone more than 3-4 months without listening to it in it's entirety. What makes this album particularly admirable from my perspective is that over the journey, my favourite or go-to song has pretty much been every song on the album at one point or another. There is absolutely no filler, even the "lesser" recognised songs like So Cruel and TTTYAATW have been the ones that grabbed my personal Achtung for an enduring period of time.
The song that still probably resonates above all others is Zoo Station for me. It is an incredible statement of intent, particularly when contextualised with U2's cutting down of the Joshua Tree, which is pretty much what Achtung Baby is. There is almost something chainsaw-esque about the intro to Zoo Station.... and when Bono's wailing vocal kicks in for the first time, this might be the most exquisite couple of seconds on the album.
What initially excited me about the song was that the intro to Zoo Station was actually a sweet little bit of incidental music that played on my favourite Aussie Rules footy doco, The Decade That Delivered . This was a cool thing for me at the time.. I had no idea it was a U2 song, but I did enjoy that little tune
Remarkably though, as someone who is particularly compelled by lyrics, Achtung Baby's have never really hit me on a deeply personal level, unlike other U2's albums. Maybe it is my lack of a break up or divorce, but what I can do is step back and be well-impressed by some of the wordplay, the irony and the multitude of interpretations that could be extracted from all of the songs here. And so many lines I'll just recite for the heck of reciting them. Just catchy refrains and lines that just pop up randomly in my thoughts and sometimes I'll even use them in conversation.
"...I'd break bread and wine if there was a church I could receive in..."
"...baby, can we still be friends.."
"...you gave me nothing, now it's all I got.."
"...feel like trash, you make me feel clean..."
"...surrounding me, going down on me, spilling over the brim..."
"...who pushed who over..."
"... you know I love the element of surprise..."
I don't think I'll ever tire of Achtung Baby. Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint why this album appeals to me so overwhelmingly. There are a myriad of sonic reasons (and this, for me, is Bono's vocal pinnacle, he is so dynamic on here, the delivery is just stunning on so many songs) , but a constant thing that I keep coming back to is how bold and out there this would have sounded back in '91, with everyone's perception of U2 at the time was based on where they had just been with JT and R&H... and this curveball comes along. It's such an impressive feat. I wish I could have consciously been able to experience it's release.
Even if you don't read this, this was a mightily enjoyable exercise, just getting this out on paper
Achtung Baby is generally the favourite album of most U2 fans (which is why I chose it for this topic)... it sits comfortably as my favourite U2 album, and in my favourite 3 albums of all time.
But I want to hear about your relationship with Achtung Baby? The circumstances of your relationship with the album, from how it sounded during your first listen, to how it sounds to you today... and everything in between.
You may have heard it back in '91, you may have only heard it a couple of months ago. You may love it or hate it..
I love it. I came to it back in about late '03, I think, about a year after I purchased the 2 x Best Ofs that started my relationship with the band and their music.
It took me a while to finally get to Achtung Baby. I knew One, EBTTRT and Mysterious Ways, and knew of Wild Horses and The Fly. I watched a VHS of ZooTV Sydney and was mystified about how this same band that released songs like Pride, Streets, Gloria, Desire and NYD could come up with something as wacky as Zoo Station and "The Fly" persona.
It triggered me to borrow a (rather battered and with a well-flicked through booklet) copy of the CD from the library, which was a captivating listen from the get go. Wild Horses in particular, was a song I actually had heard on radio when I was a little boy of 5 or so, but the song had been completely abandoned by commercial radio after it's time was up as a current single release. This was in '03, twelve years after the album was released.
After dozens of listens while studying for high school exams, I had to return the CD to the library but went to the local CD store very soon after and got my own shiny copy.
In the thirteen years since I first listened to Achtung Baby, I probably haven't gone more than 3-4 months without listening to it in it's entirety. What makes this album particularly admirable from my perspective is that over the journey, my favourite or go-to song has pretty much been every song on the album at one point or another. There is absolutely no filler, even the "lesser" recognised songs like So Cruel and TTTYAATW have been the ones that grabbed my personal Achtung for an enduring period of time.
The song that still probably resonates above all others is Zoo Station for me. It is an incredible statement of intent, particularly when contextualised with U2's cutting down of the Joshua Tree, which is pretty much what Achtung Baby is. There is almost something chainsaw-esque about the intro to Zoo Station.... and when Bono's wailing vocal kicks in for the first time, this might be the most exquisite couple of seconds on the album.
What initially excited me about the song was that the intro to Zoo Station was actually a sweet little bit of incidental music that played on my favourite Aussie Rules footy doco, The Decade That Delivered . This was a cool thing for me at the time.. I had no idea it was a U2 song, but I did enjoy that little tune
Remarkably though, as someone who is particularly compelled by lyrics, Achtung Baby's have never really hit me on a deeply personal level, unlike other U2's albums. Maybe it is my lack of a break up or divorce, but what I can do is step back and be well-impressed by some of the wordplay, the irony and the multitude of interpretations that could be extracted from all of the songs here. And so many lines I'll just recite for the heck of reciting them. Just catchy refrains and lines that just pop up randomly in my thoughts and sometimes I'll even use them in conversation.
"...I'd break bread and wine if there was a church I could receive in..."
"...baby, can we still be friends.."
"...you gave me nothing, now it's all I got.."
"...feel like trash, you make me feel clean..."
"...surrounding me, going down on me, spilling over the brim..."
"...who pushed who over..."
"... you know I love the element of surprise..."
I don't think I'll ever tire of Achtung Baby. Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint why this album appeals to me so overwhelmingly. There are a myriad of sonic reasons (and this, for me, is Bono's vocal pinnacle, he is so dynamic on here, the delivery is just stunning on so many songs) , but a constant thing that I keep coming back to is how bold and out there this would have sounded back in '91, with everyone's perception of U2 at the time was based on where they had just been with JT and R&H... and this curveball comes along. It's such an impressive feat. I wish I could have consciously been able to experience it's release.
Even if you don't read this, this was a mightily enjoyable exercise, just getting this out on paper
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