Achtung Baby and you

[intedomine]

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

 

[david]

Well, in the summer of '91 I had just turned 14 and was still developing my musical tastes. My most vivid memories were the world premier of The Fly and a big haired male MTV veejay talking about how U2 had been away and talked up their visual and sonic change. My exposure to U2 in the '80s was REALLY limited. I had access to Rattle and Hum on cassette in 1989, and I was only 11/12. All I could remember was a few songs and have vague memories of Rattle and Hum movie commercials. If I recall, I think I thought, being naive, that because the way U2 looked and sounded in 89 I thought they were an older band. I honestly forgot about them after 89.

Sooooo when The Fly premiered I had an "ohhh yeahhh" moment. Honestly, the time between 1989 and 1991 really seemed huge. Maybe it was because of youth time just went slow. It was also that when Mysterious Ways premiered on MTV I had no idea it was a U2 song as well. I thought it was a new college alternative band because MTV was shifting towards that demographic. Then I figured it out.

Achtung Baby really did sound so different from the grunge movement and it's great that U2 was able to succeed in the early 90s and just make two great and very different sounding albums. So I dove head in during 1992/93 and became a mega obsessed fan. I really got into everything U2 prior to Achtung Baby because I felt I missed out on so much.


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[holyyjoe]

I can vividly remember my room mate at the time running into the room screaming because he thought I blew his speakers upon hearing the opening distortion of Zoo Station


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[david]

I wish I would have been older and a fan longer do that when Achtung Baby came out I could of had a "wtf" moment when listening to the album for the first time.


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[holyyjoe]

That's exactly what it was, a wtf moment but in a good way. The thing that I enjoyed so much about them back then was that I would play the shit out of their music, get comfortable with it, then bam something completely different would come out.


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[cobl04]

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

This should be in Size 7.

Has been my favourite U2 album for about eight or nine years, I'd say.

When I joined this forum I'd gotten into the band arse backwards: Vertigo>HTDAAB>loving COBL>ATYCLB>80s best of, then I bought Achtung Baby and thought it was pretty wack - I made a thread saying as much and you can read that back here, Ultraviolet and Wild Horses were the only songs I thought were a 4/5 or better.

I agree with pretty much everything you have to say about it. There isn't anything that comes close to being a bad song on the album. Its two most maligned tracks (So Cruel and Tryna Throw) are both brilliant. Mysterious Ways is probably my least favourite track these days, which says a lot given it's still so good.

It's definitely Bono's best album in my opinion. I have never liked his vocals more. At times they're sexy, yearning, deeply moving, acerbic, defeated, hopeful. You're right, his vocals are dynamic. He just nails it everywhere. I also think it's his best lyrical work, to this day, after god knows how many listens there's still a million lines I found spellbinding despite the fact I've heard them a million times.

The pinnacle of the album for me is the third verse of Until the End of the World. Edge's searing guitar and Bono sounding like he's worried he might be about to die so he's gotta get the lyrics out, it gets me every. damn. time.

Edge kicks arse all over it, Adam's 'murky' bass and Larry's dark drumming, it's all so perfect.

I could go on about it forever. I probably only listen to it once or twice a year but whenever I do, I'm taken on a journey. In fact that's probably why I don't listen to it that much: it's not an album I can just throw on whenever, I have to be prepared for the ride.

 

[shika]

I was 18 and had just finished high school when AB was released. The build up was monumental. I'd gotten into the music through seeing Rattle & Hum at the cinema and hearing the radio hits from JT. I think I remember one of our national 'indie' radio stations (Triple J) playing the album in full before it was released - not sure? But the best memory is lining up at midnight at my local record/CD shop (Allan's, in Hobart!) to buy it hot off the shelf. Buzzing with excitement! I bought the CD (for home) and the tape so we could listen to it RIGHT THEN in the car on the drive home. (I had an ancient car with a tape deck only).

This album has defined my life. It's soared with me in moments of intensity; has nurtured me through heartbreaks; it's led me to books and authors I might never otherwise have found; and now I share its beauty with my own young children. It motivated me to get out of my tiny town and see the world: first stop was Wembley Stadium 1993 for Zooropa. The first U2 song I ever heard live was those crunching, exhilarating sounds of Zoo Station.

It has travelled the world with me and stays close to me even now. I listen to it at least monthly. It literally has a piece of my heart.

 

[cobl04]

??


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[kabigon]

Random bits:

I think I had only heard ATYCLB in full before listening to Achtung Baby. Possibly Rattle & Hum and Best of 90-2000.

UTEOTW has been my favourite U2 song ever since I first heard it. I remember sitting just with the lyrics and thinking they were so evocative and that you don't need to stuff a song full of words to tell a good story.

I've liked every song on there from the start, but lately Zoo Station and Wild Horses have gone up the rankings a bit. For a while I probably viewed Zoo Station as 'the symbolic change in direction that U2 had to have', but I respect it a lot more now in its own right. Somewhere along the way Wild Horses turned from a 'nice song' into one with a big emotional punch lyrically and musically, probably helped by listening to live versions. I miss this style of guitar from Edge in later albums.

I know a lot of people like Acrobat and I do too, just that I don't think I do on the same level somehow, perhaps for similar reasons as Moment of Surrender. Maybe it'll hit me one day.

I miss Mysterious Ways from Vertigo tour and earlier.

There's nothing wrong with One when Bono sings the full lyrics like in the last two shows.

The bit where the letters fall down in The Fly from U23D might be one of my favourite cinema moments.

 

[kiwilad]

I had loved Joshua Tree and when All I Want is You came out I thought it was the best song ever. So earnest and honest and jangly and real. I was 10 and i loved that.
I was so excited to get Achtung Baby. By then I'd begged for the entire back catalogue as xmas presents so I knew exactly what U2 sounded like. Finally I was going to hear the next chapter fresh off the press.
That first riff of Zoo Station obliterated my expectations. Then bono's vocal came in... distorted! Wtf? Next song was falsetto. Where was my band of earnestness?
I was gutted and almost in tears when One started. By the time it finished I knew U2 was even better than before and I'd just heard the best song I'd ever heard.
25 years on One's still my fave, Zoo Station is awesome and Achtung Baby is number 1 for me.

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[Yahweh_OMG]

Well, in the summer of '91 I had just turned 14 and was still developing my musical tastes. My most vivid memories were the world premier of The Fly and a big haired male MTV veejay talking about how U2 had been away and talked up their visual and sonic change. My exposure to U2 in the '80s was REALLY limited. I had access to Rattle and Hum on cassette in 1989, and I was only 11/12. All I could remember was a few songs and have vague memories of Rattle and Hum movie commercials. If I recall, I think I thought, being naive, that because the way U2 looked and sounded in 89 I thought they were an older band. I honestly forgot about them after 89.

Sooooo when The Fly premiered I had an "ohhh yeahhh" moment. Honestly, the time between 1989 and 1991 really seemed huge. Maybe it was because of youth time just went slow. It was also that when Mysterious Ways premiered on MTV I had no idea it was a U2 song as well. I thought it was a new college alternative band because MTV was shifting towards that demographic. Then I figured it out.

Achtung Baby really did sound so different from the grunge movement and it's great that U2 was able to succeed in the early 90s and just make two great and very different sounding albums. So I dove head in during 1992/93 and became a mega obsessed fan. I really got into everything U2 prior to Achtung Baby because I felt I missed out on so much.


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Same age, almost same story for me... had already Rattle and Hum as well as October in my cd collection, as well as War and TUF and TJT in tapes, thanks to my 2 older sisters. I was totally blown away by The Fly, which stays my favourite live rock song. Best u2 album by far, best tour ever and top 10 album of all time. Great times.

 

[Muad'zin]

When it came it I absolutely hated it. I liked The Fly, and Acrobat seemed like a throwaway to classic U2, but overall it sounded nothing like the U2 I loved. Shittiest album ever was my verdict. It's still not one of my favorites, but it has grown on me. After the tour had started I came across a few bootlegs and the live renditions of the songs sounded pretty good. Way better then the studio versions. Which is usually the case with U2, but in this case the bootlegs managed to make me connect with the new material in a way that the album never did. The tour was brilliant, the songs played live were brilliant, except for One. Still can't stand that song to this day. Funny thing is, while it took me years to warm up to Achtung Baby, I took to the even more experimental Zooropa like a fish to water. That album was part of my soundtrack during the 90's.

Looking back I can understand why they did what they did with Achtung Baby and why its so crucial to U2. The Joshua Tree propelled them to mega stadium rock stardom, but there were other bands who briefly managed to do that. INXS comes to mind. It's one thing to reach the top, it's another thing to stay there. But Achtung Baby made sure U2 stayed in that position by being willing to change and adapt to a new age in music. Maybe they were also incredibly lucky that their audience was by en large open for that change. U2 wasn't so lucky for Pop and NLOTH.

 

[intedomine]

Buzzing with excitement! I bought the CD (for home) and the tape so we could listen to it RIGHT THEN in the car on the drive home. (I had an ancient car with a tape deck only).

I used to think that I was pretty extreme when NLOTH was released, and I purchased that big fuck off $120 box in addition to the standard CD.

The person at the cash register looked at me funny.

But this is actually far more pragmatic. A cassette for the car, a CD for the home. I reckon I would have been similarly eager and have done the same. It saves you having to record the CD onto cassette later as well.




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[Kieran McConville]

I bought it on cassette I think the week it came out, or if not exactly then, then certainly around that time. I was 13. Naturally I thought the player was broken or something when Zoo Station kicked in.

Like a couple of previous posters, I'd gotten just a limited sense of the band during the whole Rattle n Hum period (had a bunch of tapes of Boy and Under a Blood Red Sky material courtesy of some friend or friend's brother) and then they'd gone dark for what, realistically, wasn't even two years, but felt like a very long time.

Quite honestly, it was a few years there, getting my head around that stuff. 13, 14, 15, I might have really 'gotten' it by the time I was 17 or so, and then Zooropa coming hot on its heels of course. Ironically I then went in reverse, only hearing the Joshua Tree properly around 1993 (albeit, it was still relatively recent history).

Isn't it funny how inconsequential the '80s vs 90s' divide seems at this vantage? At this vantage, Achtung Baby seems like a summation of where they might have been heading from the beginning - the rootsy detours of Rattle n Hum just obscured it for a while. In short, they brought the noise, in every sense.

It's funny now, given how clueless and tone deaf Bono has become, to think that 1991-1994 era U2 was basically my masterclass in art. Well, at least from the point of view of a kid in a country town in the middle of nowhere. The notion of telling the truth from behind a mask, and telling it better than you might by playing it straight, just for a start (although in fairness some of that is the tour, rather than the album as a piece of work in itself). The places a rock song could go. The way something could be new like that record was then, but also deeply rooted into the mainline tradition... something they've well and truly lost any sense of.

It was heady stuff.

 

[kabigon]

We make fun of U2 now for being so obsessed with perfecting every little detail to the point where they can't commit to anything, then everyone mentions the first few seconds of Zoo Station all these years later. I wonder how much thought went into it.

 

[The Panther]

My experience was very similar to David's (above), though I was a year older. From when we were about 12, my best friend's favorite band was U2, but I was never really convinced (and I'd been hearing about them since about 1985, when I was 9).

I remember when he read in a magazine that a new U2 album was coming out. "Finally!" he shouted, a bunch of times. In those days, when a band took time off, they were GONE. (No internet, no updates, no video, no nothing)

He bought it the 1st or 2nd day it came out. I heard a few songs and thought they were okay, but basically since the late 80s I already thought U2 was old and finished.

By about 1992-93 I was on-board and realized I'd been wrong about them. And here it is 2016, and the old bastards are still going...


What I especially like about AB is how purely musical it is. Bono's pretensions and ego do not intrude whatsoever into the musical mix. Mr. Dave Evans has never been better. It's a true masterclass LP of songwriting and guitar-work.

 

[MrPryck2U]

AB is my favorite U2 album. I was freshly 19 when it was released. The first time I listened to the entire album, I was hanging at my friend's apartment. He had an awesome sound system. We smoked some weed. Starting playing Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis and cranked AB while we played the game. It was quite the experience. Zoo Station was a great starter, but Even Better synchronized so well with the game that it really enhanced the vibe of the album.

So many great memories of AB in the early 90's. Every juke box in a bar or pool hall usually had it in their library. Naturally, I had to pick a song or two from it to spread the love. One is my karaoke song. I used to be able to nail it. Plus, I'm remembering right at this very moment that I was infatuated/obsessed with a young lady with whom I was in the friend zone with and sometimes she would mess with my head. I used to crank So Cruel in tribute to her.

I still have the original CD and my Zoo TV concert tee shirt.

 

[Irvine511]

An embarrassing amount of who I am today is due to this album.

It was life changing.

 

[Edge_Orchestra]

We make fun of U2 now for being so obsessed with perfecting every little detail to the point where they can't commit to anything, then everyone mentions the first few seconds of Zoo Station all these years later. I wonder how much thought went into it.

Listen to the Kindergarten Mix next to the AB album mix. Lots changed. Lots of thought and effort from the band, producers and production team went into it.

Shame they second guess themselves so much. Shame they feel the need to be relevant by working with some of the producers they have been using of late.


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[The Disciple]

I can vividly remember my room mate at the time running into the room screaming because he thought I blew his speakers upon hearing the opening distortion of Zoo Station


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Fucking brilliant. Take that, FCC.

 

[mediaman44]

Listening to it right now. I knew One and mysterious ways from when it first came out (I was only seven and no one in my circle of friends was really listening to them. Mostly people were listening to pop and rap, mc hammer and vanilla ice ?) I got best of 90 to 00 and heard uteotw and loved the atmosphere of the song. It wasn't until a friend of mine gave me his u2 catalog that I heard horses and tttyaatw. I love both of those songs. I made a mix of achtung baby + which included unchained Melody and other b sides from the era. I remember when the Adam Sandler movie click came out and they played ultraviolet in one of the trailers. I didn't get into the fly until I bought the zoo TV DVD. I don't think I can go two days without listening to at least one song from the album. They play ebttrt at Dillard's where I work. I use it as a tool to educate and convert people to u2. I still don't get acrobat. I know it speaks to other people but not me. They've played more songs from the album than any other except boy. It is my favorite album but hasn't always been.


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[aMansAman]

Achtung Baby = my youth, my young adult years.... Achtung Baby was such an integral part of my life.... from 16 to 22 at least.

I just watched Ultraviolet on Youtube.... and I don't know.... 9/10 times I hear/see U2 play this song... I literally start to cry.... and that does not happen that often.... but everything Achtung Baby is very special to me

 

[david]

It'd be nice if we got a first leg pro shot Zoo TV concert on DVD or blu ray or whatever. Since the show was totally different from the 93 version we got on tape.


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[Reggie Thee Dog]

I was 25 when AB came out, and I remember it vividly.

I was a HUGE U2 fan going back 8 years and was waiting, impatiently for them to release a new album after Rattle and Hum. I went to Tower Records every weekend for a year (Summer of '90 - Fall of '91) to thumb through the music mags for information (Q, Sounds, NME anything from across the pond).

I remember when they announced the first single, "The Fly"...being an 'old-school' fan I figured it would be a politically charged song, reflecting their view of the Gulf War. Instead what I got, when MTV World Premiered the video, was this weird, alt-sounding song that made little sense to me. Totally disappointed, I still looked forward to the rest of the album.

Then about two weeks before the album dropped the released "Mysterious Ways", now that I could get into. It was different, but a little closer to the U2 I knew and loved. The Friday before the release the CD (November 15, 1991) ABC aired a preview of the album on some obscure video\music show they had on late night. Dennis Hopper narrated 10 minute romp through some new footage and snippets of new songs (Live was also featured on this program, with their first album) and I was thoroughly pumped. That same day I got the new Rolling Stone that previewed the album via an essay by Brian Eno. I was totally ready to hear it.

I won the album on a radio contest, so I went to pick it up that following Monday and popped it into my CD player. Uh...WTF is this? Zoo Stations, Arms Around Worlds, Baby, Baby, Babys Lighting My Way? I was completely confused, and thrown off by the noise coming out of my speakers. I lied to myself and said I loved it, but deep down I had no idea what I was hearing. Where were the earnest, world view rock and pop songs I knew from this band. What were all these weird sounds coming from this album. Ugh...sad, they lost it.

Fast forward 2 months later...I played AB on my Walkman everyday waiting for the train, and one day while waiting I realized, OMG....this album is BRILLIANT. It's personal, and touching. Heartbreaking and hopeful. I listened to this album once a day for the next year. It's still my favorite album, U2 or any band. I went to 3 Zoo TV shows, and it is still one of the best years of my life.

Thank you Bono, Edge, Adam, Larry...Achtung Baby is amazing...

 

[deltau922]

Great topic, and I love these responses. I was just shy of turning 17, and faked sick from school to buy the album the minute the mall opened on release day. The Fly was definitely weird and disorienting, but I had warmed to it in the time between the single release and the album. But yeah, WTF was I hearing? I had become a fan with JT and then went all in after being dragged to R&H in the movie theater at 13.

Listening to AB that first time was a little crushing. I thought UTEOTW was cool. I didn't even care for One the first time. Maybe it was his vocals being so different. I distinctly remember being grabbed for the first time when Bono whispers "all right now" in Ultraviolet. For a while I kept it on a four-song rotation of Fly, Mysterious Ways UTEOTW and Ultraviolet. I don't know when I finally grew up and began loving the rest of it, but I do know that within less than a year I was standing in the fifth row on the field of Arrowhead Stadium experiencing what was easily the greatest night of my life at that point.


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[intedomine]

Great topic, and I love these responses. I was just shy of turning 17, and faked sick from school to buy the album the minute the mall opened on release day. The Fly was definitely weird and disorienting, but I had warmed to it in the time between the single release and the album. But yeah, WTF was I hearing? I had become a fan with JT and then went all in after being dragged to R&H in the movie theater at 13.

Listening to AB that first time was a little crushing. I thought UTEOTW was cool. I didn't even care for One the first time. Maybe it was his vocals being so different. I distinctly remember being grabbed for the first time when Bono whispers "all right now" in Ultraviolet. For a while I kept it on a four-song rotation of Fly, Mysterious Ways UTEOTW and Ultraviolet. I don't know when I finally grew up and began loving the rest of it, but I do know that within less than a year I was standing in the fifth row on the field of Arrowhead Stadium experiencing what was easily the greatest night of my life at that point.


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Wagging school to buy an album is full on ?That said, I imagine I would have done the same when HTDAAB was released (had I been school-aged). When anticipation is so high, you've just gotta get your hands on it.

Reading all the seemingly endless build up to HTDAAB on interference made the wait particularly difficult. There would have been less sprinklings of teasers back in 90-91 without a forum like Interference existing. Not sure the lack of information whether that would have curbed or heightened anticipation levels.l?


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