Achtung Baby 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Box Set [Box set, CD+DVD, Original recording remastered, Limited Edition]

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.

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.

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.