Berlin had to be a heady place to be recording a new album in
\n1990-91. The Wall had just fallen. East and West Germans were
\nmixing and partying and rediscovering one another’s cultures for
\nthe first time in a generation. And U2 needed a hit.<\/p>\n
They needed a hit because the arc of fame and
\nadmiration\/adulation that had risen through
\nWar<\/i> and
\nThe Unforgettable Fire<\/i> and
\nThe Joshua Tree<\/i> had leveled, perhaps even slid a bit, in the
\nwake of the somewhat bloated and self-indulgent
\nRattle And Hum<\/i> album and movie. The whispers were out that
\nmaybe the band that had been plastered across the cover of
\nTime<\/i> magazine as global icons was growing out of touch,
\nmaybe even threatening to become irrelevant.<\/p>\n
If that malady was the disease,
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> was the cure.<\/p>\n
This disc is the sound of U2 catching fire yet again, of a band
\nthat had already reinvented itself from angry post-punks to
\nearnest, majestic rock and rollers going through yet another
\nmetamorphosis. Exit bombastic dabblers in American r&b and
\ngospel, enter Euro-hip purveyors of brash experimental rock.<\/p>\n
The one thing that’s absolutely consistent here with the music
\nthat came before it is that this band simply oozes charisma. From
\nthe purposefully startling harsh industrial opening of kickoff
\ntrack “Zoo Station” to the frequently distorted riffs to the
\ncomplex rhythm patterns and dense layers of percussion to the
\nrefocusing of the lyrics on relationships rather than larger
\nconcepts, the band finds a host of new ways on this disc to simply
\ndemand listeners’ attention.<\/p>\n
And let’s face it, it’s pretty tough to accuse a band of
\nirrelevance when they throw off the kind of sparks emitted by
\npowerhouse tracks like “Even Better Than The Real Thing,” “Until
\nThe End Of The World” and “Mysterious Ways.” “Real Thing” is a
\nsharply arranged track featuring stinging, almost otherworldly
\nguitar licks slicing through the middle of Bono’s lushly layered
\nvocals. “Until The End\u2026” starts out with a dose of tribal
\nthump from Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton before the Edge brings
\nit hard, slamming down an appropriately apocalyptic riff that
\nbludgeons you silly. This is super-sized rock and roll — and the
\nlyrics aren’t half bad either, a batch of surrealistic poetry with
\nmemorable lines like “In my dream I was drowning my sorrows \/ but
\nmy sorrows they learned to swim.”<\/p>\n
Ah, but they’re just the appetizer for “Mysterious Ways,” one of
\nthe band’s greatest creations, turbo-charged by a simply monstrous,
\nthrobbing Jimi Hendrix-meets-George Clinton riff laid down over a
\nbrilliantly propulsive bass line, dense percussion and Bono’s
\necstatic vocals. The bridge\/breakdown\/solo section is a thrill ride
\nall by itself. “Kiss the sky,” indeed — Jimi would smile at this
\none, I think.<\/p>\n
Other memorable tracks like “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”
\nand “Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World” seduce with
\nmelody. “Ultra Violet (Light My Way)” sounds a bit more like
\nUnforgettable Fire<\/i> material except that it’s once again
\nrelationship-focused.<\/p>\n
And then there’s “One,” a track that I’ve been startled to hear
\nplayed at more than one wedding. Although the “we’ve got to carry
\neach other \/ one love” refrain is on the mark, I keep wondering if
\nthese people actually listened to the verses, which describe a
\ntortured affair in which the two victims\/lovers are in an utterly
\nmiserable state of emotional co-dependence. Whatever gets you to
\nthe altar, I guess\u2026!<\/p>\n
In the end, “The Fly” may encapsulate what I love most about
\nthis album, though, with its combination of dirty, raucous guitar
\nand Bono doing his best Earth Wind & Fire imitation on the
\n“Love, we shine like a burnin’ star” harmony vocals. This is the
\nsound of a band at the height of its creative and musical powers,
\ncutting loose and having a blast.<\/p>\n
That’s a beautiful thing, and also, not coincidentally, the
\nstuff hit albums are made of. “Achtung, world!” said this album —
\nU2 is back on top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":24744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5708],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38167","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\/38167","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38167\/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=38167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38167"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}