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. The album is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than their previous work. Five songs were released as commercial singles, all of which were chart successes. It has sold 18 million copies worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The record was reissued in October 2011 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its original release.
About Achtung Baby in brief
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. Stung by criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. The album is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than their previous work. 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. It has sold 18 million copies worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The record was reissued in October 2011 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its original release. U2 believe that audiences misunderstood the group’s collaboration with blues musician B. B. King on The Joshua Tree and the Lovetown Tour, and they described it as ‘an excursion down a dead-end street’ U2 chose the record’s facetious title and colourful multi-image sleeve to confound the public’s expectations of the band and their music. The group were dissatisfied creatively; lead vocalist Bono believed they were musically unprepared for their success, while drummer Larry Mullen, Jr.
said, ‘We were the biggest, but we weren’t the best.’ Bono said that, in retrospect, listening to black music enabled the group to create a work such as Achtung baby. The band’s experiences with folk music helped him to develop as a lyricist, while their experiences with black music allowed them to develop a more contemporary feel. The first indication of change was two recordings of a cover version of ‘Night and Day’, in which U2 used electronic dance beats and hip hop beats for the first time. The second indication was the original score of A Clockwork Orange’s adaptation of the original Red Hot Chilli Peppers by the Edge and Bono. The song had a more modern feel that Bono says was closer to AchtUNG Baby’s direction. During this period, Bono and the Edge began writing songs together without bassist Adam Clayton or bassist Clayton. The songs were put aside for the band’s use on the Zoo TV Tour, which began in 1990. The subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV tour was central to U2’s 1990s reinvention, by which they abandoned their earnest public image for a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one. It is one of the most successful tours of all time and has sold more than 18 million copies worldwide. The U2 Experience was released in November 2010. The tour was the first in which the group began, what was at the time, their longest break from public performances and album releases.
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