U2: Achtung Baby (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

For 10 years, the sound of U2 has matured. Between 1980 and 1990, the themes approached by the group evolved, the musical identity of each member became clearer with different influences from one album to another but without ever losing the common thread. With "Achtung Baby", a break has been made, and better still, it has been assumed.

In 1989, when leaving the stage of the Lovetown Tour, Bono stated "We need time to dream again". Who could have been smart enough to know what U2 was going to dream about! So we had to swallow our frustration, wait and see.

The album starts with an unrecognizable guitar, supported by a mechanical echoing drum and a low bass. More than in a song, we dive with 'Zoo Station' in a living hybrid organism. And the voice, which could have been a sign of humanity, is also passed to the Phaser for a magnetic rendering, attractive but disturbing.

This technological as well as artistic approach will be adopted for the quasi-totality of the titles. For example, 'The Fly' sees Bono's voice going from a haunting, almost languid whisper to a clear voice close to the androgynous on the choruses, an effect that we find in the splitting of the voices on 'Even Better Than The Real Thing', and which contributes to lighten a whole that could have become oppressive. The tricks to discover in this domain are infinite, from the vocal loops in the background on the chorus of 'Until The End of The World' to the percussions played by hand on 'Ultraviolet (Light My Way)', you'll need a lot of listenings to discover them all! Still, U2's music has not become unnecessarily complex and these five tracks are all unstoppable hits that are immediately accessible.

The softer compositions have been subjected to the same treatment. Whether it's the epic 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses' with its saturated guitar background or the sensual 'So Cruel' with its use of a particularly dry and mechanical snare drum, an idea, an atmosphere is imprinted each time. And then there is 'One', a unique track, a track we know was born in pain and source of reconciliation between the members of the band, carrying a strong message 'We're one, but we're not the same', which can qualify the album and U2 himself.

However, the record suffers from a major flaw: it lacks energy. The most sustained rhythmic is presented only in 11th place with a dark but slender 'Acrobrat'. A burst of energy that comes a little late unfortunately, and 'Love Is Blindness' will only push the nail in by plunging us into an infinite torpor, to fortunately get us out of it before the end thanks to a final and beautiful intervention of The Edge. Too bad, the perfection was not far...

U2 revolutionizes the rock by showing a real control in this kind of exercise. The influences are not copied/pasted and, from dancefloor music to a more experimental electro, each element has been thought and totally assimilated. The problem is that the band has lost its ardor, maybe because they tried to make a perfect copy. This tiny feeling of disappointment is a rock in the shoe of this march towards perfection: it is infuriating! If we had foreseen the continuation of the events, we could even have said that it was worrying... But at the time we were too busy playing the disc in loop! - Official website

U2

ACHTUNG BABY

ISLAND

ROCK