U2
Achtung Baby

THE REVIEW

As everyone well knows, 2011 marked the 20th anniversary of "Nevermind" by Nirvana, perhaps one of the most important albums ever for the cultural impact it had and that, it seems, continues to have. But it was also the 20th anniversary of an album I'm not saying it's underrated, but maybe put in the background compared to the first.

This album is "Achtung Baby" by U2, for many their masterpiece, for others the beginning of their end. Recorded during the fall of 1990 and winter-spring '91, this work wanted to mark the musical, ideological, personal, and artistic change of a band that in the 80s played the role of "savior of rock" from the attacks of sick pop and pseudo-hard rock made by bouffant poodles with albums like "War", "The Unforgettable Fire" and the bestseller "The Joshua Tree" and with live performances imprinted in everyone's minds, from Bono with the white flag to "Fuck the revolution!" during a particularly heartfelt "Sunday Bloody Sunday," from those 12 minutes of "Bad" at Live AID to that concert held on December 30 at the Point Depot in Dublin, where the frontman himself announced the imminent change in style with the words "it's time to go and dream it all over again."

They noticed that in the neighborhoods of Manchester new, fresh music was starting to be made, that alternative and electronic were starting to take hold, so they decided to go somewhere, in search of inspiration. They were looking for change, what better place than a newly reunified Berlin? So, with the Bowie legends on the spot, they assembled themselves in the Duke's same studios and let their minds run free. But nothing came. Only arguments and arguments. The best band of the '80s according to Rolling Stone was on the brink of breaking up. Then, suddenly, came a song that spoke of separation, misunderstanding, and failed loves, a certain "One." A song not exactly "fresh" musically, as they were seeking, but one that brought them all together. Riding a wave of enthusiasm (and with the contribution of the master Eno) they managed—relocated to Dublin—to build, piece by piece, what they really wanted. As the American journalist Bill Flanagan wrote, "Achtung Baby" is a bit like a journey into the night of a man who wants to "taste and touch and feel as much as possible before he might regret it", a metaphor for Bono himself and U2, in search of new music, a new look, redemption after ten years spent being the "good guys."

For that, the singer seems to have already set himself up, complete with fly sunglasses and a black leather suit, a true rockstar greedy and hungry for success, he heads to the terminus of the Berlin U 2 subway: the Zoologischer Garten Station. ZOO STATION. With an electronic intro that immediately disorients those who remained at the symphonic overture of "All I Want Is You," the song develops as a series of intentions of the singer for the near future, so much so that he says he's "ready for whatever will come" and to his '80s fans still clinging to leather vests "that everything's all right, time's a train, it makes past the future." After the metro journey, he deals with a series of things that are "Even Better Than The Real Thing," slides over the surface of things, Edge's guitar was never so dirty, celestial, angry, after two songs you already understand where it will lead you and what "Achtung Baby" truly is. An escape, an escape toward the new, but despite this quest, there's always room for a classic U2 piece, the aforementioned "One," then off again with the end of the world, "Until The End Of The World," a hypothetical discussion between Judas and Christ, then we stop again, with two tracks put there to let the listener catch their breath, to make them understand that—anyway—they are really listening to U2 and not a combination of Happy Mondays and NIN. Thus, we find the ballads "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" and "So Cruel," strictly-text linked, since the first talks about a "surplus" girl, the second about Edge's marriage breakdown. Thus, after revealing and analyzing the guitarist's personal drama, he comes out with his masterpiece, a response to the last two tracks, "The Fly." The sound is raw, never heard from him before. The solo in the middle is among his best. The man who started from the Berlin metro is in a state of confusion, talking to the devil and probably the victim of a colossal drunkenness. He entertains a dance with the shining Moon ("Mysterious Ways"), tries to return home but can't find the way ("Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World"), and then has a relationship with a woman, but without sexual intercourse. They decide to stay in bed and watch the night ("Ultraviolet (Light My Way)"), then he starts telling her that he's a hypocrite, that he must be an acrobat to talk this way and act that way. "Acrobat" is probably Bono the author's most intimate text. The track is one of the most beautiful in their career (unfortunately never played live). As is "Love Is Blindness," the true gem of the song. Love is blindness and doesn't want to see, like a terrorist who believes so much in his ideal that he doesn't want to see the other side of the coin. In fact, the song is about the 1987 Enniskillen bombing (to which the "Sunday Bloody Sunday" in the film Rattle and Hum will be dedicated), the danger of ideologies and how they are synonymous with a kind of ignorance that leads people not to want to know and understand.

The journey is over, the man has achieved his purpose. U2, on the other hand, will start with this album, the journey will last until 1997, with Pop, the last of an "electronic" trilogy (in between is 1993's Zooropa) that consecrated U2 as the best band in the world, both in the studio and live, thanks to works like the Zoo TV Tour (1992-1993) and PopMart (1997-1998), considered by many to be the best ever.

Returning to the initial discussion about "Nevermind," "Achtung Baby" is not in the least inferior for a number of reasons, besides those listed above:

1- It saved one of the best bands that ever existed;

2- Compared to the Nirvana album, which was a step back musically speaking, this one instead is a step forward, music for our times;

3- It broke down any barrier between dance, electronic, and alternative, bringing the latter to a higher level, favoring the birth of bands like Coldplay and Radiohead, and a genre, Britpop.

But it's not like "Nevermind," you know very well the reason why (hint: it has nothing to do with the quality of the songs). Probably if Bono had been the one to die, today "Achtung Baby" would be the masterpiece of the '90s.