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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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CD 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 20th anniversary edition includes previously unreleased songs from the Achtung Baby sessions, remixes from the time and TV and video footage. This Deluxe Edition also includes "From the Sky Down" - a documentary from Academy Award winning director Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth and acclaimed music documentary It Might Get Loud featuring The Edge, Jack White and Jimmy Page).
This Super Deluxe Edition contains six CDs, including the original Achtung Baby album, the follow-up album, Zooropa, B-sides and re-workings of previously unheard material recorded during the Achtung Baby sessions and four DVDs, including "From The Sky Down", Zoo TV, all the videos from Achtung Baby plus bonus material, in addition to a 92-page hardback book and 16 art prints in a wallet.
This 20th anniversary edition includes previously unreleased songs from the Achtung Baby sessions, remixes from the time and TV and video footage. This Deluxe Edition also includes "From the Sky Down" - a documentary from Academy Award winning director Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth and acclaimed music documentary It Might Get Loud featuring The Edge, Jack White and Jimmy Page).
This Super Deluxe Edition contains six CDs, including the original Achtung Baby album, the follow-up album, Zooropa, B-sides and re-workings of previously unheard material recorded during the Achtung Baby sessions and four DVDs, including "From The Sky Down", Zoo TV, all the videos from Achtung Baby plus bonus material, in addition to a 92-page hardback book and 16 art prints in a wallet.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
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. They were always great-sounding albums and they still are, but - if they aren't remastered - there will be no reason for most U2 fans ever to take them out of the book.
Disc Three and Disc Four are CDs of remixes. You know what to expect.
Disc Five collects the B Sides and Bonus Tracks. Often discs like this are "all filler no killer", but in this case half of the tracks are from the Achtung Baby sessions and offer intriguing glimpses of a different path that the album could have taken.
Disc Six is a treat: the entire album in a so-called "Kindergarten" version, which seems to be mixed from the original album sessions in Berlin. I suspect that for most fans this is the disc that will be the most interesting: the versions are notably different in places and the sound quality excellent.
The overall running time for the CDs is six hours and while not everything on those six hours will interest all fans, there is enough here to please most listeners, whether you are a U2 obsessive or just a casual fan who likes these studio albums.
THE DVDs
The DVD selection in this set is slightly dodgy. The new documentary is an entire DVD with only about an hour and a quarter on it. Because it's a new documentary, you get Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks but, to be honest, it's not as revealing as it thinks and it is a shame that this isn't a longer cut of the documentary than aired on television. It wouldn't have killed them to put some bonus performances on this disc.
The Videos DVD has a running time of a little short of one and a half hours, is in 4:3 ratio and only has a stereo soundtrack. It includes all the variants of each video, and includes all the videos for Zooropa as well as those for Achtung Baby, so it's certainly a disc that a collector would want.
The Zoo TV: Live in Sydney DVD is in 4:3 ratio and the video quality is not great. It's a shame that this wasn't remastered and given a commentary, but bear in mind that you are getting what amounts to nearly two and a half hours of the band live with a soundtrack in Dolby Digital and DTS. If you don't have it already, it's a very decent extra.
The Bonus Material DVD is actually pretty good, bringing together the Zoo TV documentary and other bits & pieces. Again, video quality is not great and the sound is only stereo, but it was definitely worth pulling together almost three hours of (mainly promotional) footage and fans will enjoy this.
OVERALL
This is a very decent package, even given the uber-deluxe pricepoint. If your wallet can bear it, get one before they're gone.
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. They were always great-sounding albums and they still are, but - if they aren't remastered - there will be no reason for most U2 fans ever to take them out of the book.
Disc Three and Disc Four are CDs of remixes. You know what to expect.
Disc Five collects the B Sides and Bonus Tracks. Often discs like this are "all filler no killer", but in this case half of the tracks are from the Achtung Baby sessions and offer intriguing glimpses of a different path that the album could have taken.
Disc Six is a treat: the entire album in a so-called "Kindergarten" version, which seems to be mixed from the original album sessions in Berlin. I suspect that for most fans this is the disc that will be the most interesting: the versions are notably different in places and the sound quality excellent.
The overall running time for the CDs is six hours and while not everything on those six hours will interest all fans, there is enough here to please most listeners, whether you are a U2 obsessive or just a casual fan who likes these studio albums.
THE DVDs
The DVD selection in this set is slightly dodgy. The new documentary is an entire DVD with only about an hour and a quarter on it. Because it's a new documentary, you get Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks but, to be honest, it's not as revealing as it thinks and it is a shame that this isn't a longer cut of the documentary than aired on television. It wouldn't have killed them to put some bonus performances on this disc.
The Videos DVD has a running time of a little short of one and a half hours, is in 4:3 ratio and only has a stereo soundtrack. It includes all the variants of each video, and includes all the videos for Zooropa as well as those for Achtung Baby, so it's certainly a disc that a collector would want.
The Zoo TV: Live in Sydney DVD is in 4:3 ratio and the video quality is not great. It's a shame that this wasn't remastered and given a commentary, but bear in mind that you are getting what amounts to nearly two and a half hours of the band live with a soundtrack in Dolby Digital and DTS. If you don't have it already, it's a very decent extra.
The Bonus Material DVD is actually pretty good, bringing together the Zoo TV documentary and other bits & pieces. Again, video quality is not great and the sound is only stereo, but it was definitely worth pulling together almost three hours of (mainly promotional) footage and fans will enjoy this.
OVERALL
This is a very decent package, even given the uber-deluxe pricepoint. If your wallet can bear it, get one before they're gone.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
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.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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