Revisit ‘Achtung Baby’ – and Question Their Future

Bono: 'We'd be very pleased to end on 'No Line on the Horizon''

By Brian Hiatt

October 24, 2011 1:15 PM ET

Bono of U2

George Pimentel/WireImage

Ask Bono a tough question and you might get a tougher answer. U2 are about to release their most expansive reissue project yet, for 1991's Achtung Baby – the album where they traded in earnest uplift for funk, noise, sex, irony and self-doubt. So how does this lavish look back square with the band's old lyric "You glorify the past when the future dries up"?
"I'm not so sure the future hasn't dried up," says Bono, who's been irritating his bandmates lately by publicly questioning U2's relevance – despite the fact that they just finished the highest-grossing tour of all time. "The band are like, 'Will you shut up about being irrelevant?'" he says. But Bono can't help himself – even though U2 have been in and out of the studio with various producers recently, he raises the possibility that the band may have released its final album. "We'd be very pleased to end on No Line on the Horizon," he says, before acknowledging the unlikelihood of that scenario: "I doubt that."
Bono concedes that revisiting the album where U2 punched themselves out of a tight corner – after 1988's Rattle and Hum movie and album helped convince some music fans they were hopelessly solemn and pompous – suggested a way forward. "Ironically, being forced to look back at this period reminds me of how we might re-emerge for the next phase," says Bono. "And that doesn't mean that you have to wear some mad welder's goggles or dress up in women's clothing. Reinvention is much deeper than that."
Moving forward has never been easy for U2, as chronicled in the outtakes, B sides and early versions of Achtung songs unearthed for a new box set – and set forth in moving detail in From the Sky Down, a documentary about Achtung Baby's genesis by It Might Get Loud director Davis Guggenheim. The movie, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival, makes it clear that trying to find a new sound led to what the Edge calls "a potentially career-ending series of difficulties." In tracing the creation of "One," the film also reveals that lyrics such as "We're one, but we're not the same" are as much about the band's fraught brotherhood as anything else. "I thought [Achtung Baby] was a really supercool moment in a not always supercool life," Bono says with a laugh, "and [Guggenheim] goes and makes an uncool film about us!"
Rattle and Hum, and the horn-section-and-B.B.-King-accompanied Lovetown Tour that followed, were U2's rootsiest moment. But for a band whose actual roots were in late-Seventies post-punk, the cowboy hats and denim were starting to chafe. The Edge was listening to My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails and Einstürzende Neubauten, while also noting the fusion of rock and dance coming out of Manchester, with groups like the Stone Roses. "I always remember the intense embarrassment when I happened to be in a club and a generous-spirited DJ would put on one of our tunes from the War album," the Edge says. "It was so evident we had never been thinking about how it would go down in clubs. So we just wanted to stretch ourselves in the area of rhythm and backbeat and groove."
The band recorded the bulk of the album in Berlin's Hansa Studios, just as Germany was reunifying – and as co-producer Brian Eno wrote, aesthetic guidelines soon emerged: "Buzzwords on this record were trashy, throwaway, dark, sexy and industrial." "We found it was more interesting to start from an extreme place," says the Edge.
Hence the buzz-saw guitars that kick off the opening track, "Zoo Station," followed by a blast of Larry Mullen Jr.'s drums distorted almost beyond recognition. "Some of the extreme sounds weren't achieved with sophisticated, outboard equipment, dialed in carefully," says the Edge. Instead, they simply overloaded their vintage recording console. "It was literally, 'What happens if you try to go to 11?'" says the guitarist.
For the band, rediscovering the wildly different lyrics and arrangements on the early "kindergarten" versions of the songs was revelatory – "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World," for instance, sounds like an Irish folk tune. "The first time the paint goes on the canvas is a very, very exciting moment," says Bono. He was intrigued by a line in the early "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" that recasts its story as a "parasitic" love affair ("Your innocence I've experienced"), while the Edge is convinced the more restrained vocal melody on that version is superior to the released track.
One of the more intriguing outtakes, "Down All the Days," has the same backing track as "Numb," from U2's 1993 follow-up, Zooropa, with Bono singing an entirely different song. "It's this quite unhinged electronic backing track with a very traditional melody and lyrics," says the Edge. "It almost worked."
Meanwhile, U2's future plans are not set. "It's quite likely you might hear from us next year, but it's equally possible that you won't," says the Edge. Adds Bono, "We have so many [new] songs, some of our best. But I'm putting some time aside to just go and get lost in the music. I want to take my young boys and my wife and just disappear with my iPod Nano and some books and an acoustic guitar."

Q Magazine elege os 125 melhores álbuns dos últimos 25 anos!

Confira abaixo quais são, segundo a Q, os melhores discos do último quarto de século.

1.U2 – Achtung Baby (1991)
2.Prince – Sign O'the Times (1987)
3.The Smiths – The Queen is Dead (1986)
4.Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)
5.Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)
6.Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)
7.Guns N' Roses – Appetite for Destruction (1987)
8.PJ Harvey – Rid of Me (1993)
9.Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted (1992)
10.Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral (1994)
11.The Replacements – Tim (1985)
12.Outkast – Stankonia (2000)
13.Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation (1988)
14.Beastie Boys – Paul's Boutique (1989)
15.Hüsker Dü – New Day Rising (1985)
16.Pixies – Doolittle (1989)
17.De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising (1989)
18.The Strokes – Is This It (2001)
19.Jay-Z – The Blueprint (2001)
20.My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)
21.Oasis – (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)
22.Eric B. & Rakim – Paid in Full (1987)
23.Daft Punk – Discovery (2001)
24.Metallica – Master of Puppets (1986)
25.Nas – Illmatic (1994)
26.Guided by Voices – Bee Thousand (1994)
27.Nirvana – In Utero (1993)
28.Radiohead – The Bends (1995)
29.Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)
30.A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (1991)
31.Massiva Attack – Blue Lines (1991)
32.Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
33.Björk – Debut (1993)
34.Beck – Odelay (1996)
35.R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (1992)
36.The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy (1985)
37.Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville (1993)
38.Run DMC – Raising Hell (1986)
39.Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (1990)
40.Tricky – Maxinquaye (1995)
41.Pulp – Different Class (1995)
42.Green Day – Dookie (1994)
43.The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die (1994)
44.Beastie Boys – Licensed to Ill (1986)
45.Pixies – Surfer Rosa (1988)
46.N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton (1988)
47.Portishead – Dummy (1994)
48.Elliot Smith – Either/Or (1997)
49.D'Angelo – Voodoo (2000)
50.Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt (1996)
51.Rage Against the Machine – The Battle of Los Angeles (1999)
52.Kanye West – The College Dropout (2004)
53.The Cure – The Head on the Door (1985)
54.Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me (1987)
55.Hole – Live Through This (1994)
56.Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1999)
57.The White Stripes – Elephant (2003)
58.DJ Shadow – Endtroducing (1996)
59.Belle and Sebastian – If You're Feeling Sinister (1998)
60.Fugazi – 13 Songs (1989)
61.Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream (1993)
62.U2 – The Joshua Tree (1987)
63.R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
64.The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin (1999)
65.Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
66.Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)
67.Tom Waits – Rain Dogs (1985)
68.Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx … (1995)
69.The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (1991)
70.Pearl Jam – Ten (1991)
71.Oasis – Definitely Maybe (1994)
72.Lucinda Williams – Lucinda Williams (1988)
73.The Pogues – Rum Sodomy & The Lash (1985)
74.Sleater-Kinney – Dig Me Out (1997)
75.Björk – Post (1995)
76.Outkast – Aquemini (1998)
77.Boogie Down Productions – Criminal Minded (1987)
78.Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
79.The Breeders – Last Splash (1993)
80.The Fall – This Nation's Saving Grace (1985)
81.Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
82.Dr. Dre – The Chronic (1992)
83.Steve Earle – Guitar Town (1986)
84.LL Cool J – Radio (1985)
85.Missy Elliott – Supa Dupa Fly (1997)
86.TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain (2006)
87.The White Stripes – White Blood Cells (2002)
88.Jeff Buckley – Grace (1994)
89.Basement Jaxx – Remedy (1999)
90.Elliott Smith – XO (1998)
91.The Smiths – Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)
92.Jay-Z – The Black Album (2003)
93.Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole (1997)
94.Jane's Addiction – Ritual De Lo Habitual (1990)
95.Soundgarden – Superunknown (1994)
96.The Roots – Things Fall Apart (1999)
97.Arcade Fire – Neon Bible (2007)
98.Johnny Cash – American Recordings (1994)
99.PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)
100.Kanye West – Late Registration (2005)
101.Blur – Parklife (1994)
102.Queen Latifah – All Hail the Queen (1989)
103.M.I.A. - Arular (2005)
104.The Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs Vol. 1, 2 & 3 (1999)
105.Massive Attack – Mezzanine (1998)
106.Fiona Apple – When the Pawn Hits … (1999)
107.Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
108.Fugees – The Store (1996)
109.The Chills – Submarine Bells (1990)
110.Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997)
111.Teenage Fanclub – Bandwagonesque (1991)
112.Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
113.Danger Mouse – The Grey Album (2004)
114.Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)
115.Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)
116.Against Me! - New Wave (2007)
117.The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
118.Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It's Blitz! (2009)
119.Green Day – American Idiot (2004)
120.Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III (2008)
121.Queens of the Stone Age – Rated R (2000)
122.LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver (2007)
123.The Hives – Veni Vidi Vicious (2002)
124.Prince Paul – A Prince Among Thieves (1999)
125.Moby – Play (1999)

"I never wanted to be a musician. I wanted to stand upright and sing out. I didn't want to look down as most people onstage do. I wanted to walk the plank, to dive in, to take it on the chin. I wanted to give too much, like Al Martino or Maria Callas or Edith Piaf or Tom Jones in his mad days. I loved it when singers were so over-emotional that onlookers would feel slightly embarrassed or uncomfortable and then absolutely love it. You very rarely see modern singers or modern groups taking the audience somewhere." Morrisey