I've begun reviews of U2'sAchtung Baby so many times, only to delete them all. I had no real clue on how to pay tribute to one of the greatest and most important rock albums in history. But that's all gonna change now, as this is the third and final entry into kristinafh's May Music Madness Write Off. This section is called "I Got the Music In Me," and the idea is to review an album that deserves five stars. Not many people will argue this is one of those albums (and those that due are mental midgets, but I digress).
First a little U2 history:
In 1986, the band released The Joshua Tree, considered one of the greatest albums of the 1980s. It catapulted them to the type of massive success rarely seen by any band. Thanks to the three huge and gigantic singles, With Or Without You, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and Where the Streets Have No Name, The Joshua Tree became the type of album that literally EVERYONE owned.
With great success though, came large egos. The band toured for the better part of nearly 4 years. The first half of this tour was captured in the film and CD titled Rattle and Hum, both of which were released in 1989. Despite some musical gems (All I Want Is You for example), the mix of live performance and new studio songs just did not work as well as critics would have liked. They called the album everything but good, which wasn't exactly fair, seeing as it wasn't nearly as bad as some people made it out to be. In fact, for the most part, it was the live performance portion of the disc that seemed to suffer the most. The studio songs, most notably All I Want Is You, Desire, and Angel of Harlem, became fan favorites, and still are to this day.
As 1990 moved on, U2 entered the studio to work on their seventh studio album, Achtung, Baby. The band's idea was to take the hubris that they had supposedly built up over the course of the Joshua Tree tour and into the Rattle and Hum era, and make an album that in some ways celebrated that. Most critics expected U2 to fail. They figured that The Joshua Tree had been the band's creative peak. They also figured the band would never be able to handle the type of pressure that making the follow up to one of the most universally loved records of all time brings. They were all wrong, every single last one of them. Achtung, Baby is simply the best record of U2's career, and a record that I don't ever see them topping.
Bono's vocals were emotional and spot on, the Edge merely laid down the best work of his life, and the rhythm section of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. was extremely solid as well. Add in some nice touches of electronica here and there, and VOILA, magic.
Achtung Baby had no less than five hit singles, and two other songs that radio just played for the hell of it because they were just that damn good: no album, NO ALBUM would EVER have that type of longevity in today's musical climate, so in some ways, this disc is a throwback to another era.
From front to back, this disc is extremely strong. Beginning with the slight guitar roars of Zoo Station and ending with the slightly experimental Love is Blindness, Achtung Baby is the most commercial rock album U2 has released, and for sure that's part of the reason for it's success (8 million sold).
The second track, Even Better Than the Real Thing features some excellent "wah wah" pedal work from The Edge. The main riff of the song is much like a line in the song describes: it just "blows right through you, like a breeze." Lyrically, the song drips with sexual innuendo ("Give me one last chance, And I'm gonna make you sing").
After the high energy vibe of the first two tracks, things slow down a bit with One, which is just one of the greatest songs this band has ever come up with. It's a breakup song, but it's more than that as well: it doesn't just deal with heartbreak but with the issues that every human being eventually must question him or herself on in the course of their lives.
The squall of feedback that opens Until the End of the World will come as quite a shock after the tenderness of One, but soon the Edge is just wailing away on one of the best riffs of the 1990s. UTEOTW is another song that takes a bit of a sneering look at religion, as there are inferences throughout the song. I love the guitar solo on this track, it has a certain sense of impending doom to it, but then at the end, that same riff kicks in that just lifts you up.
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses is another brilliant track that again tackles the relationship questions every relationship goes through. It's more of a mid-tempo song for the most part, although I can see why some people would call it "ballad-like." I absolutely love the lines "you're an accident waiting to happen, you're a piece of glass left there on the beach," it sums up how I've felt many many times.
I love the simple piano song titled So Cruel. To me, it's one of those little gems that just gets hidden in between all the well known songs on a record like this. The fact that The Fly and Mysterious Ways follows it up immediately probably doesn't help matters. The Fly is just yet another showcase for The Edge, and it just may be the best song on the record. That guitar riff is completely and totally badass. But if The Fly oozes badass, then Mysterious Ways oozes sex. The Edge places these wonderfully simple "wah wah" chords, over a slinking drum beat and Bono's rather seductive voice. This might just be the greatest song about oral sex ever written.
The album takes on a decidedly more mellow tone after Ways though. U2 has their usual "gospel" song with the gorgeous Tryin to Throw Your Arms Around the World. This is another song, much like So Cruel, that just gets buried in the mess of screeching guitar hits. Ultra Violet (Light My Way) does have a bit of a quicker pace to it, but it's not fast paced by any means. And while some people seem to despise Acrobat, I've always found it to be kind of soothing or enjoyable. It's not The Fly, but not much is.
That's the album. It's a perfect album that probably was only bested by one other album for title of "90s Best Disc." If you only own one U2 disc, I think this has to be it.
Since this disc, U2 released the under-rated Zooropa, the not very well received Pop, a collection of greatest hits from their first decade, and what most people describe as their "comeback" album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. A second greatest hits album is slated for the end of this year, which should feature most of the stuff that hit big from this record.
The rundown:
The hits: The Fly, Mysterious Ways, One, Even Better Than the Real Thing, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
The songs radio plays just for the hell of it: Zoo Station, Until the End of the World
The under-rated songs: So Cruel, Tryin to Throw Your Arms Around the World
The bad songs: NONE
Once again, this was part 3 of kristinafh's May Music Madness write off. For the other contributions, please check out kristina's profile page.
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