Achtung Baby
(3/100 The People's Choice)

Jim Sheridan, filmmaker, talks about Achtung Baby:

"I’m not sure that Achtung Baby is my favourite U2 album, I think I prefer The Joshua Tree, but ‘One’ would be one of my favourite songs of theirs. It’s a complex father/son story disguised as a love song. It’s got a kind of a moving narrative to it with characters that are very real.
The tour to support that album was amazing, especially the visuals. I saw it in Italy and was blown away. But I remember being a bit worried about them at the time. I think that it carried the seeds of something that was dangerous for U2. I thought it was getting too big and becoming too complex and maybe a bit too European for them. You sacrifice something by using irony to that extent. Irony depends on assumed knowledge which is fine in Europe but not so much in America which has money, and levels of money, so the communication has to be simpler. But somehow when you get the simple thing working right it’s deeper. They didn’t sit easy within a European context. They weren’t Kraftwerk – even though they could do it better than most bands.
It’s amazing that Bono can re-invent himself so many times. It’s unique that a 25-year-old band are still top of the world. There’s an elevator coming down with all the other bands and they’re the only ones going up. Remarkable!"

montecristo4485, hotpress.com
"Achtung Baby was a step that had to be taken in music. With technology, AIDS and the ending of the Cold War, everything was changing in the ‘90s, and rock’n’roll was in danger of being left in the dust. If U2 didn’t take the initiative to leave their former roots behind, ultimately becoming standard-bearers for a darker, harsher and at times cynical brand of music, it’s possible that the brilliant rock thread which began with albums like Sgt Pepper would have fallen like the Berlin Wall. This is more than a period piece, though. Achtung Baby took U2 from the more global, community minded outlook of the ‘80s to an intensely personal mindset that still accomplished their same heartfelt goals of promoting an open mind, heart, and conscience for a new age."

Paul Halpin, hotpress.com
"Experimental, rocking, spiritual, sensitive, touching, ironic, emotional and guitar-tastic. From a simple opening piano chord to a soaring, yearning crescendo. Bono’s voice never sounded better. And there's not a duff song on it."