MoeFOH's Album of the Week... Week #40

[MoeFOH]

MoeFOH's Album of the Week 🎶

Same as the movie thread, each week we're going to spotlight an album... be it a classic, new release, hidden gem, or outright turd... and open it for discussion: i.e. post up your favourite tracks, clips, lyrics, experiences if you saw live, etc... or dive deeper and give us a critique on why you think it's great, overrated, or a complete train wreck... And finally score it for us...  

All contributors go into a monthly prize draw for a 3-cigar sampler! 

PM me with suggestions if there's an album you want to nominate for next week's discussion. 

 

Week #40: Achtung Baby

Wiki says:

Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 18 November 1991 on Island Records. After criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their direction to incorporate influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. Thematically, Achtung Baby is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than their previous work. The album and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, by which they abandoned their earnest public image for a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one.

Seeking inspiration from German reunification, U2 began recording Achtung Baby at Berlin's Hansa Studios in October 1990. The sessions were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. After tension and slow progress nearly prompted the group to disband, they made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One". Morale and productivity improved during subsequent recording sessions in Dublin, where the album was completed in 1991. To confound the public's expectations of the band and their music, U2 chose the record's facetious title and colourful multi-image sleeve.

Achtung Baby is one of U2's most successful records; it received favourable reviews and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 Top Albums, while topping the charts in many other countries. Five songs were released as commercial singles, all of which were chart successes, including "One", "Mysterious Ways", and "The Fly". The album has sold 18 million copies worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Achtung Baby has since been acclaimed by writers and music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. The record was reissued in October 2011 for its 20th anniversary, and again in November 2021 for its 30th anniversary.

 

Over to you...

How do you rate it? 🤔

Thoughts, experiences, memories... post em' up! 

Score it out of 10!  

[MoeFOH]

 

[JohnS]

I remember listening to this album in 1991 and thinking two things...

1) What the hell (has happened to U2's signature sound)?

2) I absolutely love it.

I still adore this album and connect with it way more than their subsequent experimental releases like Zooropa and Pop.

The videos were outstanding. I still show my school students to this day how revolutionary the 360° rotational camera shots were and continue to be 30 years later in the video for 'Even Better than the Real Thing'. Kudos to U2 for writing a song parodying the concept of selling out and not doing so by giving Richard Branson's Virgin Cola the rights to use this song for an advertising slogan.

P.S. By the way, if you watch the video below, can you tell who are the doppelgangers and the real U2?

[La_Tigre]

Pretty darn good considering the intent to be a bigger than life parody. 

[Doctorossi]

On one hand, it's hard to find much fault with this album. On the other, I'm pretty sure I haven't spared it a single thought in 30 years now.

 

6/10?