Best Albums !: U2. Achtung Baby (1991)

Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2, released on 19 November 1991. The album arrived nearly two years after lead vocalist Bono announced the band would have to "go away and dream it all up again", following the mixed response to 1988's Rattle and Hum.

The album marks a dramatic change in the band's sound, taking on electronic influences in the rhythms, denser, more detailed production, and more guitar effects, as well as darker and more personal lyrical content. The effect reflected the textures of then-emergent techno and electronic music, as well as the innovations of younger alternative rock groups such as My Bloody Valentine and the trippy dance-rock fusions of the Madchester groups contemporary to the early 90s. The results were considerably more adventurous and less traditionally rock-based than their previous efforts, and Achtung Baby is one of U2's best-selling and most critically acclaimed albums.

On the Billboard Music Charts (North America), Achtung Baby topped the Billboard 200 chart. It won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Rolling Stone magazine

declared that U2 had "proven that the same penchant for epic musical and verbal gestures that leads many artists to self-parody can, in more inspired hands, fuel the unforgettable fire that defines great rock & roll."

The album is frequently cited as one of the greatest in rock history. In 19

98 Q magazine readers voted Achtung Baby the 15th greatest album of all time; in 2001 the TV network VH1 placed it at number 65. Also in 2003, Q declared its third track, "One", "the greatest recorded song of all time". In 2003, the album was ranked number 62 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. It was voted #11 on Spin's "Best Albums of the Last 25 Years" list.