Jeff’s Playlist: Achtung Baby

U2 — Achtung Baby

I often dis­cuss music with my friend John, who once asked my opin­ion of U2’s gui­tar work. I said I was not par­tic­u­lar­ly impressed by it — or by the band itself. That con­ver­sa­tion was for­got­ten until I read Randy Patrick’s WinCity Voices piece “Love’s the high­er law – Bono’s faith jour­ney,”  which prompt­ed me to review my music library. I actu­al­ly have sev­er­al U2 CDs and, after lis­ten­ing to them again, real­ize I misspoke.

U2 has been putting out good music for over 35 years, and the band’s pop­u­lar­i­ty con­tin­ues to grow. Wikipedia’s cur­rent discog­ra­phy lists “15 stu­dio albums, one live album, three com­pi­la­tion albums, 83 sin­gles, and nine extend­ed plays (EPs).”

I have obvi­ous­ly been exposed to this music for decades and liked it enough to buy sev­er­al CDs, which some­how got lost in my vast col­lec­tion of music.

This is a rea­son to revis­it music you haven’t lis­tened to in a while — (thank you Randy) — and to think before you speak.

Give Achtung Baby a lis­ten; I think you’ll like it.

Album Information

All lyrics are writ­ten by Bono; all music is com­posed by U2.

No.      Title     Producer        Length

1.         “Zoo Station” Daniel Lanois            4:36
2.         “Even Better Than the Real Thing”           Steve Lillywhite, with Brian Eno and Lanois 3:41
3.         “One”  Lanois with Eno        4:36
4.         “Until the End of the World”            Lanois with Eno        4:39
5.         “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”    Lillywhite, Lanois, and Eno 5:16
6.         “So Cruel”     Lanois 5:49
7.         “The Fly”        Lanois 4:29
8.         “Mysterious Ways”   Lanois with Eno        4:04
9.         “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World”    Lanois with Eno 3:53
10.       “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”            Lanois with Eno        5:31
11.       “Acrobat”       Lanois 4:30
12.       “Love Is Blindness” Lanois 4:23

Total length:   55:27

Personnel

U2

Bono – lead vocals, gui­tar
The Edge – gui­tar, key­boards, vocals
Adam Clayton – bass gui­tar
Larry Mullen Jr. – drums, percussion

Additional per­form­ers

Brian Eno – addi­tion­al key­boards (tracks 3, 9, 12)
Daniel Lanois – addi­tion­al gui­tar (1, 3, 9), addi­tion­al per­cus­sion (4, 8)
Duchess Nell Catchpole – vio­lin and vio­la (6)

Technical

Daniel Lanois – pro­duc­tion, mix­ing
Brian Eno – pro­duc­tion, mix­ing, string arrange­ment (track 6)
Steve Lillywhite – pro­duc­tion (2, 5), mix­ing
Flood – engi­neer­ing, mix­ing
Robbie Adams – engi­neer­ing, mix­ing
Paul Barrett – engi­neer­ing
Joe O’Herlihy – engi­neer­ing
The Edge – mix­ing, string arrange­ment (6)
Shannon Strong – engi­neer­ing assis­tance, mix­ing assis­tance
Sean Leonard – mix­ing assis­tance
Arnie Acosta – mas­ter­ing
Stewart Whitmore – dig­i­tal edit­ing
Cheryl Engels – qual­i­ty control

Released   November 18, 1991
Recorded  October 1990 – September 1991
Studio        Hansa (Berlin) Elsinore (Dalkey)[nb 1] STS (Dublin) Windmill Lane (Dublin)
Length.      55:27
Label         Island
Producer   Daniel Lanois Brian Eno