U2 - Achtung Baby (1991)

SOLD! $56.00

Auction Link (ends September 17th)

NM Original U.S. Issue
Uncensored Nude Adam Cover

Island Records: 510347-1
Format: 12" LP, Standard Black Vinyl
Includes: Original Custom Graphics/Liner Notes Inner Sleeve
Cover Condition: NM! Awesome copy! No splits, cut-outs or ring wear. Always stored vertically in a protective poly sleeve.
Vinyl Condition: NM! Beautiful copy, clean. Lables are very nice. The inner sleeve is also NM!

Release Info:  Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate alternative rock, industrial, and electronic dance music influences into their sound. Thematically, the album is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than the band's previous work. Achtung Baby and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, which replaced their earnest public image with a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one.

Seeking inspiration on the eve of German reunification, U2 began recording Achtung Baby in Berlin's Hansa Studios in October 1990. The sessions were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. After weeks of tension and slow progress, the group made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One". They returned to Dublin in 1991, where morale improved and the majority of recordings were completed. The album's title and colourful multi-image sleeve were chosen to confound expectations of U2 and their music.

Achtung Baby is one of U2's most successful records. It earned favourable reviews and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 Top Albums, while topping the charts in many other countries. It spawned five hit singles, including "One", "Mysterious Ways", and "The Fly". The album has sold 18 million copies worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. One of the most acclaimed records of the 1990s, Achtung Baby is regularly featured on lists of the greatest albums of all-time.

The sleeve artwork for Achtung Baby was designed by Steve Averill, who had created the majority of U2's album covers. To mirror their change in musical direction, the band considered sleeve concepts that used multiple colour images to contrast with the seriousness of the mostly black-and-white images of their previous album sleeves. Rough sketches and designs were created early during the recording sessions, and some more experimental designs were conceived to closely resemble, as Averill put it, "dance-music oriented sleeves. We just did them to show how extreme we could go and then everyone came back to levels that they were happy with. But if we hadn't gone to these extremes it may not have the been the cover it is now."

An initial photo shoot with the band's long-time photographer, Anton Corbijn, was done near U2's Berlin hotel in late 1990. Most of the photos were black-and-white, and the group felt they were not indicative of the spirit of the new album. They re-commissioned Corbijn for an additional two-week photo shoot in Tenerife in February 1991, for which they dressed up and mingled with the crowds of the annual Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, presenting a more playful side of themselves. It was during the group's time in Tenerife, and during a four-day shoot in Morocco in July, that they were photographed in drag. Additional photos were taken in Dublin in June, including a shot of a naked Clayton. The images were intended to confound expectations of U2, and their full colour contrasted with the monochrome imagery on past sleeves.

A single image scheme had been planned for the sleeve, and among the photographs considered were those of a cow on an Irish farm in County Kildare, the nude Clayton, and the band driving a Trabant—an East German automobile they became fond of as a symbol for a changing Europe. Ultimately, a multiple image scheme was used, as U2, Corbijn, Averill, and the producers could not agree on a single image; the resulting front sleeve is a 4×4 squared montage. The band wanted to balance the "colder European feel of the mainly black-and-white Berlin images with the much warmer exotic climates of Santa Cruz and Morocco". Some photographs were used because they were striking on their own, while others were used because of their ambiguity. Images of the band with Trabants, several of which were painted bright colours, appear on the sleeve and throughout the album booklet. These vehicles were later incorporated into the Zoo TV Tour set as part of the lighting system.

The nude photo of Clayton was placed on the rear cover of the record. On the US compact disc and cassette sleeves, Clayton's penis is censored with a black "X" or a four-leaf clover, while vinyl editions feature the photo uncensored. In 2003, music television network VH1 ranked Achtung Baby's sleeve at number 39 on its list of the "50 Greatest Album Covers". Three years later, Bono called the sleeve his favourite U2 cover artwork.

The album's title, "Achtung Baby", is German for "Attention, baby!" or "Watch out, baby!", and it was used by the band's sound engineer Joe O'Herlihy during recording. He reportedly took the phrase from the Mel Brooks film The Producers. The title was selected in August 1991 near the end of the album sessions. According to Bono, it was an ideal title, as it was attention-grabbing, referenced Germany, and hinted at either romance or birth, both of which were themes on the album. The band was determined not to highlight the seriousness of the lyrics and instead sought to "erect a mask", a concept that was further developed on the Zoo TV Tour, particularly through characters such as "The Fly". Of the title, Bono said in 1992, "It's a con, in a way. We call it Achtung Baby, grinning up our sleeves in all the photography. But it's probably the heaviest record we've ever made... It tells you a lot about packaging, because the press would have killed us if we'd called it anything else."

For the album, U2 had considered several titles, including Man (in contrast to the group's debut, Boy), 69, Zoo Station, and Adam, which would have been paired with the nude photo of Clayton. Other possible titles included Fear of Women, and Cruise Down Main Street—a reference to The Rolling Stones' record Exile on Main St. and the cruise missiles launched on Baghdad during the Gulf War. Most of the proposed titles were rejected out of the belief that people would see them as pretentious and "another Big Statement from U2". The album's lighthearted title influenced other musicians, including David Bowie, who was an inspiration to U2 and Eno during recording of Achtung Baby. Bowie's band Tin Machine called their live record Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby, putting a Yiddish spin on U2's German title.

All songs written and composed by U2, with lyrics by Bono.

1. "Zoo Station" 4:36
2. "Even Better Than the Real Thing" 3:41
3. "One" 4:36
4. "Until the End of the World" 4:39
5. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" 5:16
6. "So Cruel" 5:49
7. "The Fly" 4:29
8. "Mysterious Ways" 4:04
9. "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" 3:53
10. "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" 5:31
11. "Acrobat" 4:30
12. "Love Is Blindness" 4:23