Word: achtung
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...time is irrelevant, it’s not linear’ / Then she put her tongue in my ear.” Attempts at musical experimentation—electronics, techno sampling, and global influences—have yielded U2’s best (“Achtung Baby”) and worst (“Zooropa”) efforts, and the results here are middling. Their only “experimental” album that can be called an unequivocal success was 1991’s “Achtung Baby”—and nothing...
...best albums (The Joshua Tree; Achtung Baby), the answer is both. But convergence rarely happens here. Some songs - like "Stand Up Comedy," a goofball attempt at funk - are explicitly told through Bono's rose-colored specs. ("Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels/ Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas.") But on the otherwise breezy power pop of "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight," the rock star can't resist intruding with a lyric that first appeared as a pull quote in several of his magazine profiles ("The right...
BONO: It was fresh not to be seen as a celebrity but as a piece in the puzzle of how we communicate the jeopardy of all those lives--and the opportunity of helping if we can just agree on something. It was nice not to be asked how the Achtung! Baby sessions went in Berlin...
U2’s relevance may never diminish. We all gave up somewhere around Achtung Baby, when the group’s drastic immersion into 90’s alternative failed to collapse as drastically as we wanted it to, given the band’s self-righteousness and potential for pretension by the 80s’ close. The cycle repeated, though, and we kept watching through the relative failures of experimental albums Zooropa and Pop, and as the band won back their audience of baby boomers and their kids with the sappy balladry of 2000?...
...integrates fuzzy new ones for the kids and delivers a staggering number of indelible hooks. The only notable weakness is that the pursuit of those hooks keeps Bomb rooted in the thrill-delivering formula of verse-chorus-verse-pedal-steel solo, depriving it of the mood-altering qualities of Achtung Baby or The Joshua Tree. Listening to Bomb straight through a few times is a bit like staring into a closetful of sequins. But depth is not what this album is after. It's a statement of competitiveness and relevance, and the best example of intelligent pop hitmaking this year...