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Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Zoo Station | |||
| 2. Even Better Than The Real Thing | |||
| 3. One | |||
| 4. Until The End Of The World | |||
| 5. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses | |||
| 6. So Cruel | |||
| 7. The Fly | |||
| 8. Mysterious Ways | |||
| 9. Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World | |||
| 10. Ultra Violet (Light My Way) | |||
See all 12 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Lady With The Spinning Head (UV1) | |||
| 2. Blow Your House Down | |||
| 3. Salomé | |||
| 4. Even Better Than The Real Thing | |||
| 5. Satellite Of Love | |||
| 6. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (Temple Bar Remix) | |||
| 7. Paint It Black | |||
| 8. Even Better Than The Real Thing (Fish Out Of Water Remix) | |||
| 9. Mysterious Ways (The Perfecto Mix) | |||
| 10. Night And Day (Steel String Remix) | |||
|
See all 14 tracks on this disc
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Product Description
Product Description
Recorded over 6 months in 1991 in Berlin and Dublin, Achtung Baby was U2's seventh studio album. It was produced by Daniel Lanois , Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite and mixed and engineered by Flood. Led by "The Fly", Achtung Baby spawned four more huge hit singles, "Mysterious Ways", "One", "Even Better Than The Real Thing" and "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses". Heralded by Rolling Stone’s Robert Hilburn as "U2’s daring descent into darkness”, the album was awarded the Grammy for Best Rock Performance and became one of the most acclaimed rock records of the nineties and of U2's career. As Bono said at the time, it was “the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree”.
This deluxe edition is a two CD set containing the re-issue of the original album plus B-sides and rarities.
This deluxe edition is a two CD set containing the re-issue of the original album plus B-sides and rarities.
Review
Hearing again The Edge's dizbusting guitar and Larry Mullen Jr's clanking beat that introduced Achtung Baby, it's hard to believe that, only one album before, U2 were hanging out with BB King and getting lost in a blind alley of American roots music. Bands that broke through in the halcyon days of post-punk ended up in worse places than Rattle and Hum, but U2 themselves knew they'd lost their way. And so it proved. Having secured Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois to produce 1984's The Unforgettable Fire after the similarly blustery devices of War, they rehired the pair and decamped to Berlin in the physical and metaphysical spirit of David Bowie's Eno-assisted rebirth (aka Low, "Heroes" and Lodger) and pressed the restart button.
Twenty years on, Achtung (German for "Attention") Baby still sounds zestful and compelling, with some of U2's all-time highs. One could be the best of them all, a brooding soul ballad oozing confrontation and hurt that manages to unearth some musical US DNA within their Irish selves by doing it without Rattle and Hum's self-consciousness and silly hats. Until the End of the World reconnects with the sleek and rousing rockers of their 1980 debut Boy; but, pardon the cliché, they now sounded like men, resilient and even cynical. Even when U2 deployed arena-courting dynamics on Even Better Than the Real Thing and Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, the efforts didn't feel hollow. The debut of 'mirrorball' U2 on The Fly succeeded because they had no precedent or fear at this point. By the time of 1997's Pop album, they were second-guessing and falling short of Achtung Baby's bench-setting standards.
As supporting characters, So Cruel, Acrobat and Love Is Blindness (more soulful smouldering and multi-tiered Edge drama) are hardly second-rate. If the second CD of B sides and bonuses lacks anything comparable, Salome and the vampy cover of Satellite of Love will float some boats. But you can see why the unreleased Blow Your House Down didn't even make it as a B side: it's deeply average considering the invention going on elsewhere, namely invention that helped U2 back on course to embrace the world stage while retaining their soul (as R.E.M. and, later on, Radiohead managed without a Rattle and Hum-style wobble).
But achtung! One fight U2 has lost is to retain the image of bassist Adam Clayton's penis on the inside cover, now hidden behind a big black cross that resembles an act of Christian censorship. Twenty years on? More like 50 years ago…
--Martin Aston
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Achtung Baby stands out as a masterpiece in U2's illustrious history. In this album, painfully ground out over a year of re-recording and re-inventing in 1990's Berlin, the power of U2's music is as direct and compelling as ever. The real beauty here, though, is the wit and intelligence of the music. This contrasts with their earlier music on the one hand, which tended to be naively honest, and their later work on the other which became almost a little too contrived. Achtung Baby is thus the album that best captures all that is good about U2 over their lifetime: a balance between the self-conscious cool and kitsch sounds of their later years, and the intensity and passion upon which they built their reputation.
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful
By Sordel
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
On paper, there's no way that this package can be worth the asking price: two albums that most people will already own, a live DVD that has been available for years, a documentary that aired free on the BBC. Anyone could be forgiven for being somewhat cynical. So let's take a look in the box.
PACKAGING
Oh my God but this packaging is impressive. The art print portfolio and book are securely encased in a great-looking slipcase printed with the original album cover: for those of us who bought the album originally on CD, even having the cover at this scale is a treat. The portfolio comes in a brown card sleeve embossed with the album's "face star car" logo. The sixteen art prints themselves are on heavy, high-quality card and enable you to assemble your own version of the album sleeve if you have sixteen square foot of wall nearby. Very good (and I don't even care about the prints!)
The hardback book is simply gorgeous: six CDs are housed securely in the front cover, four DVDs in the back cover. The book contains copious artwork and a number of essays in addition to lyrics and credits for the box set. Personally I prefer text to photos, but a good balance is struck between the two and the production is very good. Basically, the book on its own could fetch a substantial retail price.
THE CDs
Discs one and two are Achtung Baby and Zooropa. You don't need my opinion on how good these albums are (if you don't rate them at five stars you should seriously consider why you are reading about this set in the first place). I thought that these albums had been remastered, but if so, I can't hear it.... Read more ›
PACKAGING
Oh my God but this packaging is impressive. The art print portfolio and book are securely encased in a great-looking slipcase printed with the original album cover: for those of us who bought the album originally on CD, even having the cover at this scale is a treat. The portfolio comes in a brown card sleeve embossed with the album's "face star car" logo. The sixteen art prints themselves are on heavy, high-quality card and enable you to assemble your own version of the album sleeve if you have sixteen square foot of wall nearby. Very good (and I don't even care about the prints!)
The hardback book is simply gorgeous: six CDs are housed securely in the front cover, four DVDs in the back cover. The book contains copious artwork and a number of essays in addition to lyrics and credits for the box set. Personally I prefer text to photos, but a good balance is struck between the two and the production is very good. Basically, the book on its own could fetch a substantial retail price.
THE CDs
Discs one and two are Achtung Baby and Zooropa. You don't need my opinion on how good these albums are (if you don't rate them at five stars you should seriously consider why you are reading about this set in the first place). I thought that these albums had been remastered, but if so, I can't hear it.... Read more ›
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By J. M. Dawes
Format:Audio CD
I'd be waiting for the re-release date of Achtung Baby for what felt like ages, ever since the boxset details were announced earlier this year. Having been blinded by the collectable riches available in the Uber-Deluxe set (the Fly glasses looked like the clincher for me), I decided against shelling out the best part of £275. I made the right choice, as this is THE boxset to invest in.
The packaging is reassuringly solid, heavy and enticing. You already know what's inside but Christmas has come early for the millions of U2 fans across the globe. This is the re-issue that eclipses both the Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire limited editions by some distance, not least because it's an era-defining album that nearly broke the band in half. It's the one album I would listen to daily.
The array of CDs and DVDs is excellent, even though the duplicate of the Sydney gig should have been changed. We all own it, so it's a waste of a disc. A ZooTV first leg concert would have been a more tantalising offering.
'From the Sky Down' is a brilliant documentary with lots of rare footage - worthy of a release in it's own right.
The remix CDs won't be to everyone's tastes, but it takes you back to when U2 experimented with the cross-over into dance music.
I'm already looking to find a wall big enough in my house to re-create the album cover with the art prints included here. You know you want to.
Grab yourself a copy of this set while you can. Indulge yourself. Achtung Baby is their best work, so lose yourself again with Ultra Violet, So Cruel and Who's Gonna ride Your Wild Horses.
A shimmering package that all fans should own.
The packaging is reassuringly solid, heavy and enticing. You already know what's inside but Christmas has come early for the millions of U2 fans across the globe. This is the re-issue that eclipses both the Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire limited editions by some distance, not least because it's an era-defining album that nearly broke the band in half. It's the one album I would listen to daily.
The array of CDs and DVDs is excellent, even though the duplicate of the Sydney gig should have been changed. We all own it, so it's a waste of a disc. A ZooTV first leg concert would have been a more tantalising offering.
'From the Sky Down' is a brilliant documentary with lots of rare footage - worthy of a release in it's own right.
The remix CDs won't be to everyone's tastes, but it takes you back to when U2 experimented with the cross-over into dance music.
I'm already looking to find a wall big enough in my house to re-create the album cover with the art prints included here. You know you want to.
Grab yourself a copy of this set while you can. Indulge yourself. Achtung Baby is their best work, so lose yourself again with Ultra Violet, So Cruel and Who's Gonna ride Your Wild Horses.
A shimmering package that all fans should own.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By JohnSMS
Format:Audio CD
Yes, like every U2 I already owned Achtung Baby, Zooropa and ZOOTV Live from Sydney. But when details of this reissue were made public I just knew I had to have it. The Super Deluxe is the must-have format for the dedicated fan. The presetation is outstanding. I was expecting it to come in a lot of little bits with CDs rolling around the place but everything is very compact and well thought out. Everything is build around the book with the CD's and DVD's firlmy secured into the front and back covers.
My only criticism of the book is that while we get Corbijn, Eno and Lanois' views among others the band members themselves say nothing. That said, they probably said everything they need to in U2ByU2 and in the documentaries included on the DVDs. The bonus material disc is really fantastic with one part of it showing a vast amount of a 1992 concert including MirrorBall Man overshadowed by Macphisto for too long!) preaching about his 'vision'. This made up for my initial disappointment that Sydney was the tour concert chosen for the reissue.
The Kindergarten disc is really good. The initial versions of the songs are very different mucially, especially TTTYARTW and LIB. All of the songs are different lyrically. Great listen for any Achtung fan. The b-sides disc is very good too. It contains a lot of really good material particularly 'Blow Your House Down' and 'Down All The Days'.
All in all, this a great reissue. Well worth the money to see U2 during the greatest period of their career.
My only criticism of the book is that while we get Corbijn, Eno and Lanois' views among others the band members themselves say nothing. That said, they probably said everything they need to in U2ByU2 and in the documentaries included on the DVDs. The bonus material disc is really fantastic with one part of it showing a vast amount of a 1992 concert including MirrorBall Man overshadowed by Macphisto for too long!) preaching about his 'vision'. This made up for my initial disappointment that Sydney was the tour concert chosen for the reissue.
The Kindergarten disc is really good. The initial versions of the songs are very different mucially, especially TTTYARTW and LIB. All of the songs are different lyrically. Great listen for any Achtung fan. The b-sides disc is very good too. It contains a lot of really good material particularly 'Blow Your House Down' and 'Down All The Days'.
All in all, this a great reissue. Well worth the money to see U2 during the greatest period of their career.
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4.7 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
u2 at their best
this is u2's best album, some of their classic songs are on this from the fly to mysterious ways, this is u2 at their best.
Published 23 days ago by bertie.71
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best by far
This album was the beginning of their more modern sound, and in my opinion the best. Every song is a cracker and the production really brought their sound into the 90s just as they... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Luke Eastwood
5.0 out of 5 stars
U2 at their very best
After the incoherent, self-indulgent, fake americana mess that was 'Rattle and Hum', the release of 1991's 'Achtung Baby' came as a very welcome surprise. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Torben Madsen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Definitly one to get
One if their best with at least 5 great tracks. Also recommend Joshua Tree, Unforgettable Fire and War. Also last three albums after 2000
Published 3 months ago by Hawkeye
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must for all U2 fans
I'm not a U2 fan but a purchased this for a good mate who is a massive fan. He loved it .
Published 3 months ago by schmidt
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad copy
Hi hate to complain but this cd was a COPY and not a good one at that , I did leave feed back but got no reply
Published 4 months ago by David McDonald
5.0 out of 5 stars
Achtung baby cd
Ignore the reviews that talk of cds and dvds as it's just one cd. I paid more for what I thought was cds and a dvd and got one cd which looking closer is just what the seller was... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Observant
5.0 out of 5 stars
u2
What can I say!!!.....brilliant and a must for U2 fans. Brings back memories of Roundhay park when I went to see them :-)
Published 5 months ago by Biker Jools
3.0 out of 5 stars
Achtung Baby
Some good tracks, some less memorable; in my very subjective opinion they band have got better since this mid-period; one for the collection
Published 5 months ago by clemency
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally!
Finally extra recordings from the Achtung Baby period with a crisp sound and the Fish Out Of Water remix of Even Better Than The Real Thing is absolutely fantastic!! Read more
Published 5 months ago by Inger Jensen
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