Achtung Baby

What is it’s with auto tune in the 90s - it was so ubiquitous that you can hear it in the guitar on this album . Seriously a great album ruined by auto tune , not sure why bono even felt the need.

Admittedly it is subtle and less obvious as the album goes on - or am I just getting used to it . Then ultraviolet comes on and proves me wrong

Favorite track(s): Zoo Station, One, The Fly, Mysterious Ways

"The Fly" and "Mysterious Ways" are pretty good, but the de-accentuation of The Edge makes the record ultimately very blah to me

3 for music - 1 for lyrics= 2.

That’s all I can seem to muster to write about this album.

U2 gets so much hate here. This is perfectly passable, some nice songs, but Bono's voice is sometimes obnoxious. 3*
Highlights: one, mysterious ways

It was fine, nothing really wowed me.

Ah, remember when these guys were decently talented and not just a bunch of wankers? Good times.

Oh, no. The last U2 album I had was utter garbage, as is pretty much every radio single I've ever heard from them, so this probably won't be getting high marks. It does have the most tolerable radio singles, but comparing U2 singles is like deciding which dog poop tastes better. It has many of U2's hallmarks (banal lyrics, Bono sounding annoying, naive utopianism, overlong songs) while also doing weird things like the buzzy vocal filters on the opener. It desperately wants to be interesting, but U2 can't write the songs to back it up. It just sounds like vacuous nothingness in song form. Granted, this particular nothingness is slightly better than the war crimes committed on "All That You Can't Leave Behind". So I guess it's not completely irredeemable? Granted, it's still a pile of shite wanting desperately to be something else. Get these jokers out of my earshot!

I've gone around saying "The one U2 album I still like is 'Achtung Baby' - I even saw them on this tour. So let's see if I'm just making that up, since to be honest it's been 30 years since the last time I listened to it.

Yeah, I still like it. "Zoo Station" opens with interesting electronic stuff, and "Until the End of the World" is a favorite since of course I loved that movie and saw it several times. And "Wild Horses" and "Acrobat" are bringing back some memories from the early 90s, hoo boy.

So yeah that listen was memorable - there are some songs on here that are important to me. However, I was also reminded that I've always been annoyed by a couple of them, like "Even Better than the Real Thing." And Bono's voice gets tiresome by the end.

But anyway, while I probably won't go back to listening to this a lot like i did in the early 90s, I'm glad I got to revisit it today.

U2 - bit marmite aren’t they….anything after Joshua Tree is a no for me. After that Bono disappeared up his own backside.

1

Mysterious Ways has always been one of my top five favourite U2 songs. I used to LOVE U2. I saw them in concert twice around the Vertigo time period. Then I got sick of them and the only thing I could think of was people being mad that they automatically added their album to iTunes.
This album introduced me to some songs I have never heard. I especially liked So Cruel.

even brian eno could not save this

One of the last incredible U2 albums. Experimental, but accessible. Huge tour with this one. Nearly essential

Hmm. Quite a Nothingburger

To misquote Stewart Lee: An album so blandly anonymous that it sounds like the burial music for a king of an ancient civilization which valued above all bland anonymity.

I'm not even a professional U2 hater like a lot of the folks you'll see in the review section on this site, but this was just bland and basic. Bono's vocals on his record are so one-note, and it sounds like he can barely even manage to maintain that note at times. There's nothing particularly interesting going on with the music itself either. I won't be coming back to this one.

Ugh, no this wasn't good

Too whiny and the songs all blended into one long sound

2 ⭐️

U2s radikaler Stilbruch: düster, elektronisch, emotional. Songs wie „One“ und „Mysterious Ways“ zeigen die Band auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Kreativität. Der deutsche Titel? Eine ironische Hommage an Berlin, wo das Album entstand – und ein Augenzwinkern zur eigenen Neuerfindung.

Bono must like languages. Me too, Bono. This is very mellow. Actually liked it more than I expected. Pleasant background stuff. No rip-roaring highlights, but no complaints.

There are a few U2 songs that make me weep, "One" among them. Don't know what it's "really about" nor do I care all that much.

As a U2 fan, I can't say this is my favorite album of theirs. They basically frosted over the things that made them great: the rhythm section sounds flattened and is mixed into a shoebox, the muscular guitar lines are buried under effects so thick you can only barely ascertain the guitar at all, and say what you will about Bono - you gotta respect his passion and commitment to the job - but on this he is (of course) devolving into the crooner all rock singers think they should be.

What U2 are good at is building an emotional vignette from the constraints of the four-piece rock convention. When they deviate like they do on Achtung Baby, it's a little disconcerting. They're clearly out of their comfort zone. But a band like this (hugely successful), at this point in their career (past their prime and entrenched in the mainstream), is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position. Experiment and try something different, and your fanbase is repelled. Keep doing the same thing you always have and you're seen as lazy, tired, behind the times. The former is the natural thing musicians want to do, but riskier. The latter is a paycheck but a high-speed train to irrelevance. And U2 wants to be relevant more than anything else.

Although U2 don't seem to tire of playing I Will Follow or New Year's Day a million times, they did decide to go the riskier route on this album, with mixed results.