The Beatles going psychedelic on
\nRubber Soul<\/i>. Dylan plugging in the electricity on
\nHighway 61 Revisited<\/i>. Metallica embracing pop on
\nMetallica<\/i>. These are the moments that are called “great
\ndepartures” for bands. For many fans, these are the moments that
\ndefine fans as ‘pre’ — (fill in the era) and ‘post.’<\/p>\n
It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that U2’s
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> represented one of the greatest departures for
\na mainstream band in rock music history. And what a departure it
\nwas: U2 was basically throwing away the modesty, sparseness and
\nmostly traditional straightforward rock arrangements in favor of
\navant garde feedback, irony-rich lyrics and enough camp to set the
\nstage for one of the greatest rock concert spectacles of all time.
\nThis was not your 80s-era U2. It was the dawn of the 1990s and U2
\nwere one of the first major artists to try and define what they
\nwanted the 1990s to mean.<\/p>\n
It was a humongous risk for U2. One of the most common praises
\nsaid about
\nThe Joshua Tree<\/i> was from fans saying U2 was bringing back
\n“realness and authenticity” to mainstream music. Now, their hero
\nwas trading in his cowboy hat and a leather vest for wraparound
\nshades and eel-skin-shiny leather jackets. Surprisingly, the uproar
\nfrom most fans was relatively restrained. True, some fans did run
\nfor cover from the dirty opening riff of “Zoo Station,” but for the
\nmost part, fans came to warm to this new alien baby after
\n“Mysterious Ways” and “One” became singles.<\/p>\n
Much of
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> was recorded in Berlin. Recorded around the
\nsame time of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the band was letting
\nGerman-style club beats and Middle Eastern riffs into its arsenal.
\nIn a time where the world was falling in love with Nirvana’s
\nstripped down aesthetics, it was welcoming to have an album with
\nthis grand of a spectacle.
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> was one of those time-spanning rarities in
\nrock: a big, conceptual album that bled a very human heart.<\/p>\n
“So Cruel” and “Love is Blindness” were some of U2’s darkest
\nsongs. Even the more optimistic tunes, such as “Acrobat” and “One”
\nhad a black sheen of melancholy coated over their hopeful messages.
\nHell, the chorus of “Acrobat” was “Don’t let the bastards grind you
\ndown.” The Edge helped make this transitioning period easier for
\nfans to digest with some of his finest work. “The Fly” and “Even
\nBetter Than The Real Thing” were irresistible air guitar moments
\nfor music geeks.<\/p>\n
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> yielded Zoo TV, a tour that still has the
\nability to bond Gen-Xers. Be it fans discussing what city they
\ncaught Zoo TV, who Bono called on the satellite phone during the
\nconcert or the opening act (The Sugarcubes, Disposable Heroes of
\nHiphopricy, The Pixies or Primus), fans seem to share their own
\nstories about their experiences more readily than any other concert
\nin the 1990s, including Lollapalooza.<\/p>\n
\nAchtung Baby<\/i> could have been a career suicide album for U2.
\nInstead, it freed them up of the pretension that came to make them
\nthe butt of jokes after
\nThe Joshua Tree<\/i>. Music-wise, the album absolutely rocks. The
\nfuturistic sounds that hit listeners were equally matched by tunes
\nthat could have been heard in pre-war Berlin. The result was a
\ntimeless piece of music that hasn’t aged a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":24744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5708],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38169","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\/38169","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38169\/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=38169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38169"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}