Achtung Baby

I'd like to apologize to everyone I've annoyed by being a Radiohead fan. Multiple times, during this album, I thought it sounded very similar to The Bends. Turns out this predates it by like four years. Maybe I don't just like that band, maybe I like this style of rock in general. Killer tones in the guitar, funky, groovy, really good production. I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did, I always assumed U2 was boring, but anthemic, pop rock. This has a lot of subtlety, it's fun, it kinda just...rocks, you know? Am I gonna be a fan of U2? Oh no.

Day 59

Bono saved my cat's uncle's owner's girlfriend's cousin's life. Still think War was better tho

Fav track: So Cruel

Pretty solid album with a few skippable tracks. I find it hard to deal with U2's almost mawkish lyrics but they do have an undeniable charm.

I was hesitant about this one, but honestly it might be the better of the U2 albums I've heard on here. The songs didn't feel forced, nor purely engineered to make pop-rock money. There were quite a few meh moments, but I also enjoyed others. 3/5

Way between when it gets all fuzzy and alternative. And obvs One is a great song.

I knew some of the singles and I love One but this is the first time hearing the rest of the album and ya it's great.

Якщо ю2 80х мені в принципі подобається, то ю2 90х і далі - не дуже. Дуже унилий альбом, з якого я не запам'ятав жодної пісні окрім звісно one, яку чув до того (і не сказати що вона мені сильно подобається). Ну хіба що ще можу виділити Acrobat, яка має такий собі трохи кьюрівський вайб.
Але в цілому - нудота.

Not bad, live is blindness is beautiful

There are some real beauties on here, but it is a bit inconsistent. Their WAR album is my favorite ever so I know they can hit a home from start to finish. This one isn’t quite that.

so my final U2 Album here. I liked it. Still can't see why they are SO hated by some.

One of the two great U2 albums with 'The Joshua Tree', it reprenents a change of pace with the inclusion or electronic sounds and influences under the guidance of Brian Eno. The highlights are super recognisable amd iconic but lacks some polish to round out the record.

9/10 [KEEP]

I used to hate U2. Then I married a man who loves U2. For the sake of my marriage, I have it then an honest go. And I realized I had only hated them because that's what people who had never listened to them in earnest did.

I listened long enough to decide it was a 2 and not a 1 and then quit.

I honestly expected to like this more but it was just okay.

they called it U2 because "U" had to get "2" ribs removed to suck your own dick to be a member.

they do get some brownie points from me for having a vaguely homoerotic song about judas (until the end of the world). mysterious ways is a pretty good car commercial song. quite like the guitars on acrobat. love is blindness is genuinely great.

songs i didn't skip before they ended:
zoo station
until the end of the world
the fly
mysterious ways
acrobat
love is blindness

One of my favourite albums from the 90s (yep, there was a time when U2 were great). This is, in close competition with "The Joshua Tree" my favourite U2 album.

So, I actually don't need to listen (again) this album to give 5 stars. By the way, I really like Daniel Lanois (the albums he produced for Dylan are also among my favourites).

I'd say I (almost) enjoy each and every song. Here're some personal favourites: "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses", "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World", "Until The End Of The World", "Misterious Ways", "The Fly", or "Acrobat".

And yes, I know that Bono may have become increasingly insufferable...(but that has nothing to do with the quality of this album).

Similar to Coldplay, and equally hard to listen to.
Somehow even more infuriating because they sometimes put out good moments like a passable guitar riff or atmospheric verse, only to destroy any spark by detouring into totally forgettable choruses or cringeworthy parts.
No thanks.
1/5 - very weak

I find a lot of this just really underwhelming. It’s accomplished enough I guess, but it’s just so uninspiring. It feels like some of these songs are supposed to be quite rousing, but they're *just* not. Whenever it starts to build towards something, you're expecting some kind of impactful moment, but it just never comes. It just meanders along instead in a kind of generally boring way.

This one isn’t for me, clearly.

2.5 rounded down.

Achtung Baby is a solid album but it is weaker than the other 2 U2 albums I've looked at. In my eyes, this is one of those albums that shined the brightest during the back half because it was those songs that really showed off the best parts of U2. The first half is fine but just lacks any real stand out tracks as they all just blended together. The back half though was quite special as the songs there had plenty of great musical ideas and even some of the lyrics are really good (especially in The Fly). I still think The Joshua Tree and especially War had more stand outs in their front and back halves but i still thought that this was no doubt a solid record by these guys.
Best Song: The Fly
Worst Song: Zoo Station

By the time “Achtung Baby” came out in 1991, I had already turned my back on U2. While I loved “The Unforgettable Fire” and “The Joshua Tree,” “Rattle & Hum” had deeply disappointed me. And “Achtung Baby!” would turn my fondness for the band into antipathy. The hype surrounding the album was unbelievable. At the time, it was truly considered the most “avant-garde” thing you could sell in the mainstream. Listening to the album again 35 years later, you find neither anything particularly avant-garde in it (aside from a few studio gimmicks by Lanois and Eno), nor anything hateful. Since “The Unforgettable Fire,” U2 had been shifting more and more toward a very ‘American’ expansive sound, which was fully realized here for the first time. In short: this is mainstream at its broadest, featuring a few good tracks (“Mysterious Ways,” “The Fly,” ‘Acrobat’), many mediocre ones, and a few bad ones (“Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”—hey hey sha la la, hey hey, sha la la).

Back then, U2 were the biggest rock band on the planet, and that fame certainly went to the band’s heads; above all, though, it makes it so difficult to properly categorize their music. Without all the media hype surrounding the band and the album, “Achtung Baby” (what a stupid album title that no English speaker can pronounce correctly) is just a rock album with the sound of its time, with some highs and lows but mostly “more of the same,” which has acquired a lot of patina over the years. The album wasn’t even “groundbreaking” for the band itself, whose hubris would spiral out of control after this album and culminate in gigantic tours.