I remember the first time I heard U2’s “Achtung Baby” when it came out in 1991. I thought it was a bunch of noise, the sound of a band that had lost its collective mind.
But being the U2 fan I was, I listened to it again.
And again.
And again.
By the fifth time, I got it. And I couldn’t stop listening to it for a very long time.
I still listen to it today, now and then.“Achtung Baby” remains one of my favorite albums 20 years later, an album that not only sounds better in the vividly remastered version that comes out today, but even more fascinating in the meticulously expanded six-disc version.
It was a reaction to the fame and success they achieved with 1987’s “The Joshua Tree,” which made them superstars, and a response to its overly self-conscious follow up, “Rattle and Hum,” an uneven attempt to absorb American blues and folk into their politically charged anthem-driven arena rock.
The exhaustive “uber deluxe edition” of “Achtung Baby 20th Anniversary Edition” features six CDs, four DVDs and extensive liner notes and previously unpublished photos.
The centerpiece is the original album, with the soaring ballad “One,” exotic “Mysterious Ways,” hypnotic “Until the End of the World,” driving “Even Better Than the Real Thing” and searing “Zoo Station.” It’s the sound of a band clawing and fighting for a new vocabulary (with singer Bono and guitarist The Edge doing the pushing, drummer Larry Mullen and bassist Adam Clayton doing the pulling), filled with songs about inner conflict, dynamic tensions and staking out higher ground.
The remastering here has brought out many of the subtleties lost on earlier versions of the album, released when compact discs were relatively new as the dominant music format. You’ll notice it from the tensely plucked opening guitar notes of “Zoo Station” all the way through the journey.
The package also includes “Zooropa,” the even more experimental (and weaker) followup recorded during the 1992-93 “Zoo TV” tour (which I caught as often as I could during stops in Detroit, Toronto and El Paso). It’s pretty uneven, though the skittish “Lemon” still sounds good and their electronic accompaniment to Johnny Cash’s weary “The Wanderer” sounds better now than it did then.
There are two discs of remixes that further explore and emphasize the industrial and electronica sounds with which they experimented (the Perfecto mix of “Mysterious Ways” is especially strong), and a fifth disc of rareties (including covers of Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love,” the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son”).
The sixth disc, called “Kindergarten,” the second most satisfying of the bunch, features earlier so-called “baby” version of the songs that made the final cut. It’s a perfect companion piece, shedding a rare peak behind the curtain of a creative process that led to a masterpiece.
Every song on “Kindergarten” has noticeable differences from the final versions, some more than others. Most of the songs here would have made a great album, but compare them to what came out and you can feel just how hard they pushed.
There’s Bono feeling his way through the lyrics, and the band, particularly The Edge, fiddling with different textures and riffs. The “‘Baby’ One” starts with acoustic guitar strumming. This version of “Even Better Than the Real Thing” leans heavily on the riff from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” gone from the final version.
Rock ‘n’ roll has always been about creative theft. Unlike sampling, where pop stars and rappers build songs around someone else’s record, the best rock bands took someone else’s riff or vocal and played around with it until it became their own.
With “Achtung Baby,” U2 not only reinvented itself, but it took all the influences that led to their formation in Dublin and the American roots music and then-new electronic and industrial music they absorbed as a band and threw them into a blender at a Berlin studio.
Bono famously has been quoted as describing “Achtung Baby” as “the sound of four men chopping down ‘The Joshua Tree.’” With this exhaustive reissue, we get to hear the tree that grew in its place, and all the sawdust that fell by the wayside.
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