124. U2, "Achtung Baby"

 


Well, it's definintely the most popular U2 album, I guess.  It sold like 18 million copies and is regularly listed as their best album.  It's not, Joshua Tree is, but I'm not a huge U2 fan so YMMV.  I actually don't have a ton to say about this record.  You know all the hits; it's got the ballad where Bono does his "ooooooooooooooooooo-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh" thing ("One") and the singalong rocker ("Mysterious Ways") and the moody Bono getting deep song ("Acrobat").  I guess the album's hook was the move out of their comfort zone, sound-wise, aided by the production of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois.  Everybody loved it but now I'm kinda sick of it tbh.

I do quite like "Love Is Blindness," the album closer, but I like Jack White's cover even more.  He takes Bono's sad song and turns it into an angry song.  Absolutely one of my favorite singles of 2011.

But what I do want to talk about is this incredible rumor about Bono, which I have been thinking about almost nonstop since it was published on the blind item gossip site Crazy Days and Nights:


TL/DR: U2 was recording next door to Joy Division; Bono bullied Ian Curtis so much that it led to Curtis's famous suicide; then Bono hounded Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook trying to get them to make him the singer of New Order.  I love this rumor because (1) come on, New Order with Bono?  You have to admit that would be fucking hilarious; (2) It playes on Bono's already-existing reputation as a dick; and (3) one more time, Bono fronting New Order would be objectively ridiculous.  

Anyway, yeah, everyone loves this album.

Is this album in my personal Top 500? Nah.

Comments

  1. GGJuly 7, 2022 at 11:14 AM

    The placement of this album on the list seems to invalidate the list as a whole.

    ReplyDelete

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