Achtung Baby!

The album was released nearly two years after lead vocalist Bono announced the band would have to "go away and dream it all up again", following the mixed reception of 1988's Rattle and Hum.

"Achtung, Baby!" in German means "Attention, baby!" or "Careful, baby!"

One of U2's best-selling and most critically acclaimed albums, Achtung Baby was a vast departure for the band, adding more European than American influences, especially the avant-garde theatrics of David Bowie, Lou Reed, and other artists. During the 1970s, Producer Brian Eno collaberated with Bowie in the same Berlin studio in which U2 did its earliest session work for Achtung Baby, and the Edge uses guitar effects and pedal similar to those used by Bowie on albums such as Low and "Heroes". U2 sampled techniques and sounds from other musical genres previously unused by the band, including Dance, House and Electronica, whilst maintaining their original feel of rock and roll. The album's new sound was a source of conflict in the band because The Edge and Bono favored the new sounds they were coming up with while recording their sessions in Berlin, while drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. and bassist Adam Clayton were partial to the band's traditional sound. The conflict amongst the members of U2 very nearly led to the band breaking up, but the fighting subdued after The Edge arrived at the studio with an alternate guitar riff for the song "Mysterious Ways". The band rallied around the riff and was inspired to write the song "One", which was able to heal the rising tensions between the members of U2. It essentially changed the band's entire outlook on the album. It helped bring the band back from the brink during recording sessions and it was responsible for a renewed sense of optimism towards the material they had already recorded. Leaving Berlin on a high note, the band was able to complete the rest of the album in Dublin. While ostensibly a song of loss, "One" and its three separate music videos came to be seen by the band, and many of its fans, as an anthem extolling hope wrought from despair.

Achtung Baby was also darker sounding than previous efforts, thanks in large part to songs such as "So Cruel," "Acrobat," and "Love Is Blindness," which deal with themes of helplessness and broken relationships. The spiritual yearning of U2's eighties work began to take on a more existential, despairing element in Achtung Baby. The band's political activism moved to the AIDS crisis and environmental issues, even using the CD single and one of the song's videos to draw public attention to AIDS. At the same time, the band also took on a lighter tone, electing to use irony rather than earnestness in its music and public appearances, and poking-fun at its own self-importance during the 1980s. This evolving outlook culminated in the pleaful soul-searching (and jaded skewering of contemporary life) on 1997's Pop and would not subside until the more hopeful tracks on 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind. Other tracks included the distorted opener "Zoo Station," the danceable single "Even Better Than The Real Thing," and the thumping rocker (and future live favorite) "Until the End of The World," an allegorical afterlife confession of Judas Iscariot. Lead singer Bono described the album, and its first single, the bombastic and fuzzy guitar raver "The Fly," as "the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree".

The album was supported by the Zoo TV Tour, a ground-breaking multimedia extravaganza.

U2 entered the studio in late 1990 and began recording the album before they had written any material, mainly improvising and developing ideas into songs. The more interesting ideas were preserved on working tapes. In April 1991, these tapes fell into the hands of bootleggers, well before the album's November release date. The most widely circulated compilation of these tapes is the three-disc Salomé: The Axtung Beibi Outtakes, released in February 1992.

Since these songs were leaked very early in the production process, they provide a rare insight into the band's songwriting process. On the same note, many of the ideas—including eight different takes of the song "Salomé"—were frustratingly undeveloped, so the bootleg remains a curiosity strictly for hardcore fans. "There were no undiscovered works of genius, unfortunately, it was more just gobbledy-gook." --Bono

Some of the ideas were revisited—there are, for instance, early instrumental versions of "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and "North and South of the River" (the latter of which wouldn't be recorded by the band until 1997)—and one song—the B-side "Where Did It All Go Wrong?"—was even released as a rough composite of the two takes available on the bootleg. There are also a handful of developed ideas that were wholly abandoned, such as "She's Gonna Blow Your House Down", a song the group had been working on since the Rattle and Hum days.

1. "Zoo Station" (4:36)

2. "Even Better Than the Real Thing" (3:41)

3. "One" (4:36)

4. "Until the End of the World" (4:39)

5. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (5:16)

6. "So Cruel" (5:49)

7. "The Fly" (4:29)

8. "Mysterious Ways" (4:04)

9. "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World" (3:53)

10. "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)" (5:31)

11. "Acrobat" (4:30)

12. "Love Is Blindness" (4:23)