Personally, I consider this album my first U2 album. Though I
\nbought
\nPop<\/i> first, I remember hearing and seeing this album come out
\nand thinking how great it was. I also remember hearing some other
\npeople complaining about U2 selling out and being tools of “the
\nman.” I never got it and still never do.<\/p>\n
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> was U2’s follow-up to
\nRattle And Hum<\/i>. (Though, technically, there was an EP
\nreleased in between. Also, I think
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> is more of a follow-up to
\nThe Joshua Tree<\/i> than to
\nRattle And Hum<\/i>, but those are discussions for another time).
\nAfter the amazing success they had in the late 80s, the public and
\nthe fans wanted to find out what this band of Irish lads would put
\nout to follow up their success. They were rather surprised, I
\nthink.<\/p>\n
Gone were the four quiet lads with their acoustic guitars and
\ntheir dreams of changing the world. In came four seasoned rock gods
\nthat were more concerned with getting one more chance at satisfying
\ntheir babies. They were loud and glitzy and glammy — definite
\nshock to their fans. But listen to the music and you will find that
\nU2 just changed the wrapping. The candy bar was still the same.<\/p>\n
Yes, the album was filled with noises and tweaks. You couldn’t
\nfind the dreamy landscape of “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
\nInstead, you got the sonic barrage of “Even Better Than The Real
\nThing” and “Zoo Station.” They mixed in their own brand of rock
\nwith techno (“The Fly”) and managed to still retain that rock edge
\n(“Until The End of The World”).<\/p>\n
But you see, the band had moved away from talking about the
\nproblems of the world. Now, they were interested in the problems of
\nthe soul. “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,” “So Cruel” and the
\nover-played “One” all deal with more personal themes. Add to that
\nthe album-closer “Love Is Blindness” and “Throw Your Arms Around
\nthe World” and you can see that the band still spoke the same
\nlanguage.<\/p>\n
They were also smart enough to add other elements to the album.
\n“Even Better Than The Real Thing” and “Ultaviolet (Light My Way)”
\nhave lyrics that could have been written by any of the glam rock
\nbands of the late 80s. That’s just it. In the 80s, they opposed
\nthose bands. In the 90s, they took their place and made fun of them
\nat the same time. Furthermore, the songs are great — so you don’t
\nmind them being happy and horny for a while.<\/p>\n
Finally, there’s “Mysterious Ways.” I think that this is one of
\ntheir biggest triumphs ever. Not only because of the cool guitar
\nlicks by The Edge or the way that it slithers, but because this
\ncombines both sides of U2. The song is both deep and light at the
\nsame time. You forget that this is U2 and listen only to the
\nsong.<\/p>\n
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> marked a change in the style of U2 — which was
\nlater accented by
\nZooropa<\/i> and by
\nPop<\/i>. At this stage, the band was able to create an album
\nthat is as far away from what they were, but an album that was
\nclose to who they were. So much was going on in there that, I
\nthink, they may not equal it. But what do I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":24744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5708],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-35948","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-u2","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35948"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35948"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}