U2's "Achtung Baby" Turns 20: Its Legacy

(Originally published on Yahoo! Voices on November 15, 2011)

It's difficult to define "Achtung Baby". It is akin to defining a zeitgeist, a generation, to someone who was not yet alive or too young to remember clearly. It is a culture, a world view, a need, a belief, the news, television, and art. It is a love song and an anthem for Generation X that has profoundly affected everything after. (I could say that it would be equally difficult to define who I am without understanding "Achtung Baby".)

But that is exactly what the world is trying to do. November 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of this unique, extraordinary album. All across the world of music, artists, producers, journalists, photographers and more are attempting to explain just why this little album is so important to world and personal histories- and all are aware the effort is falling short.

It has been an amazing year of anniversaries in music. 1991 was the year the world changed. It was the year synth '80s pop all but disappeared. It was the year that saw the mainstreaming of grunge and the underground Seattle scene. It was the year that often showy and always painfully relevant '80s alternative from the likes of U2, The Cure, The Smiths, The Cult, etc., itself a descendant of late '70s post-punk, matured into a real force. Already, 2011 has seen extensive celebrations for iconic albums like Pearl Jam's "Ten" and Nirvana's "Nevermind".

Indeed, these two albums have in many respects overshadowed the anniversary of "Achtung Baby" for the American public. "Spin" magazine devoted almost an entire issue to "Nevermind" and really to everything that was the early 1990's. It is essential reading for those who may find it difficult to understand just why everything was so ripe for the grunge point-of-view, to explain the zeitgeist that these albums stood on the back of. ("Spin's" online coverage of "Nevermind" is at http://www.spin.com/nevermind.) "Rolling Stone" magazine has attempted to play neutral by catering equally to all these albums, and as a result has ultimately failed to fully honor any of them. But in the U.K. and other parts of the world the story is quite different.

British music magazine "Q" has put together the most beautiful and fitting tribute, out-doing all others. Their December issue (which is also their 25th anniversary issue) includes a four or five page interview in which each of the four members of U2 are given equal opportunity to answer every question, a full page review of the 20th anniversary box-set rerelease packages, the cover image, an attempt to highlight how the album has influenced various popular bands today like Coldplay, The Killers, and Florence and the Machine, and a free tribute CD of covers of all the songs on "Achtung Baby" (titled "Ahk-toong Bay-bi") by various artists who themselves influenced U2 or have been influenced by them and even one cover by a childhood friend of the band.

But why was it so important? There are the obvious explanations: "Achtung Baby" nearly tore U2 apart and yet saved the band from collecting dust in the back of people's closets. As long-time friend of U2 and music journalist Bill Flanagan put it in his contribution to the anniversary box-sets: "People will always argue over which one was their best album, but there is no doubt that "Achtung Baby" was their most important." "Achtung Baby" changed our perception of what music is, what it should be, and there is not a single song on the radio today, regardless of genre, that does not bear its mark.

Then there are the not-so-obvious and the personal reasons. Everyone has a personal story about "Achtung Baby" because love it or hate it, it simply could not be ignored. It is the gloriously profound fact that it shaped people on the individual level that is its true legacy. Ask anyone, give them time to formulate their answer, and you'll hear a truly moving story. Go ahead.

For those of us who were there, so to speak, the fall of communism and the tearing down of the Berlin wall was as unexpected and psych-shaping as 9/11 would later be. Suddenly, as if overnight, the paranoid world we had been born into was splitting open like a chasm created by a powerful earthquake. There was air to breathe, a breeze even. It seemed that there was no longer any need to fear being vapourized by a nuclear bomb. No more drills for how to respond when you could actually be learning in class. It was exhilarating in a communal sense, and frightening. Because the question was "What now?" There was a great deal of uncertainty in that breathable air. We had no way of knowing what would result. We couldn't exactly see light at the end of the tunnel, just the desperation for light. There was also the siege of Sarajevo, the Gulf War, millions dying in Somalia, genocide in Rwanda, etc. The 1990s were a paradox. On the one hand the world was experiencing a decadence and economic prosperity before unknown and on the other a lifetime of paranoia had no clear expression. Uncertainty is the very anti-thesis of stability. Some people believed the world would end on New Year's Day 2000, so party like it's 1999! There was an unlimited possibility and a deep-seated weary despondency, even hopelessness, in the same moment. It was a difficult environment in which to navigate adolescence; and, apparently, an equally difficult environment for a band to find their way back to themselves.

But that's what they did with "Achtung Baby". They had grown much too serious during the "Joshua Tree" days, even their family said so. "Achtung Baby" became the vehicle through which they lightened up again, became themselves again, and got comfortable in their own skins. Like the times, it is a paradox. While they were dealing with a whole slew of personal challenges- such as learning to be parents, going through divorce, working through the disillusionment of the post-honeymoon period, so to speak, in their career as a band, and learning to love their art again- they also perfectly chronicled a unique decade right at the start of it.

I was raised as a U2 fan. It is literally mother's milk. My first conscious personal attachment to them was when I was five years old and saw back to back videos of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" from the "War" album and "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" from the "Unforgettable Fire" on MTV. But it wasn't until "Achtung Baby" that I really discovered them for myself. "Achtung Baby" was the first U2 album I actually owned, and for me, that period is who U2 is. The rest I discovered in retrospect or as it was released. And it changed my world.

It was the summer of 1992. I was 13 years old. "One" was climbing the charts to number 1, so I was already familiar with it. I had surgery again and faced another summer in a wheelchair recovering and learning to walk again in order to be ready to return to school in the Fall. And I wasn't happy about it. Mom brought me a cassette walkman with "Achtung Baby" in it to listen to while in hospital. For the first day, I listened to "One" over and over. Then I got curious and listened to the entire cassette.

It quite literally blew my mind. I had no idea of what was going on outside my little bubble then. It never occurred to me to find out. The top forty charts and MTV were all I really knew (with the exception of the greats of music like Elvis Presley and on through Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd- and some of the blues). The only German band I had knowingly heard was the Scorpians. I saw their performance for the concert played at the Berlin Wall as it came down for which their song "Wind of Change" was written. But I hadn't yet any concept of industrial music, of what was going on in the German music scene, in the rest of Europe. I knew nothing about North African rhythms and the Manchester blend of rock with club and house music. I didn't even know what house music was. I had never heard any of Brian Eno's ambient works, or Patti Smith's growling complaints, and even Bob Dylan was just a shadowy outline for me. This was the beginning of the end of my personal cultural myopia. Europe was changing, the Eastern bloc no longer existed and was opening up, and I was opening with it. But my ignorance meant I had no real basis for comparison with the music that is "Achtung Baby". If I had been familiar with those concepts, I might have been more prepared for "Achtung Baby"; however, there was still no point of comparison to be found. It was utterly unique. And a little difficult to digest.

From the very first note until the last, this album was an assault on the senses and to established sensibilities. The guitar was channeled through technology and not simply for the echo and chime effects that I was already accustomed to from The Edge; it was distorted, warped, angry, weeping, straining for hope, and restrained all at once. The combination of beat box rhythms and Larry Mullen's (the Jr. now optional) homemade military snare battering completely surrounded you in rhythm and was overwhelming. Adam Clayton's bass resonated now to the deepest depths of the human soul (the thing is downright tribal when played on a good stereo with woofers). And Bono almost didn't sound like himself. Gone were the earnest power notes of earlier albums because now the music nearly reached those emotional crescendos for him, to complete them required a totally new way of singing. He stretched his voice into new ranges. This is the very beginnings of the development of his now famous falsetto. Technology was now applied to his voice as well, roughing it, making it guttural, ethereal, moody. The result was an album of atmospheric distortion, a sexy, sci-fi creation from some faraway planet on the other side of a black hole somewhere, music from an alternate reality that, as it turned out, was more our reality than we could know at the time. And that's just the music: the lyrics are a world unto themselves. I could write an entire literary thesis on the lyrics and what they mean to me as a poet and as a human being. An entirely insufficient sum-up of them would be to say that this album personified that desperation for light mentioned earlier.

It isn't easy to reach back to my 13 year old self to recall my very first impressions of "Achtung Baby". I am not accustomed to looking back; I'm always concentrated on the future, sometimes, I admit, at the expense of the present. But as U2 said in the documentary film "From the Sky Down": "There is a point when it becomes dysfunctional not to look back at the past." So to celebrate this anniversary I have tried to do just that. This music has grown up with me, become a part of me. In nearly every memory- good, bad, sad, traumatic- "Achtung Baby" is in the background playing or in my head. It has shaped how I see the world, understand the world, interact with it, and have attempted to make it into. Almost every time I listen to the album I hear something new in its musical compositions or garner some fresh interpretation of its lyrics and emotional soundscapes that I didn't before.

This album is frank truth and potent ambiguity in the best sense, and the balancing of these concepts is at the core of what living is about. It doesn't get easier with age and experience because one only becomes more aware of it. There is no concept that is deeper than these, more difficult to fathom. Love, for instance, is a form of truthful ambiguity, and hopefully, a successful balancing of it. My point is: that is what makes this album so important to its time in history and why it continues to be equally important today. That is why it changed the world- because it was the album to which an entire generation grew up. It introduced them to these concepts. Albums like "Nevermind" and "Ten" and bands like Mazzy Star bolstered the development of music in tackling them. The music that has followed it, particularly since 2000, has been consciously determined to focus on the light rather than the desperation for light, which feels like a step backward, especially in the post 9/11 zeitgeist. But it cannot escape that ambiguity even as it fails to balance it, because it cannot escape the awareness of it. That is the legacy of "Achtung Baby".

As the world celebrates "Achtung Baby's" 20th anniversary, the world is finally beginning to grapple with what it meant and means in a conscious sense, to put words to it. "Spin" magazine listed it as the number 1 album of the last 25 years. The readers of "Q" voted U2 "The Greatest Act of Last 25 Years" for the 2011 Q Awards. But all the accolades in the world do not describe its effect. Its effect was personal and that made it more important than anything more generally felt. What is your "Achtung Baby" story?

Top Ten Alternative Albums of the 1990s

(Originally published on Yahoo! Voices on February 23, 2011)

Alternative was a more fluid genre in the 1990s than it is now. Back then, the genres were big and encompassing. There was Rock, Country, Pop, R&B, Hip Hop was getting started and Rap matured. Everything that didn't fit comfortably into one of those was called Alternative and divided within that category into sub-genres. Also, artists were experimenting with their sounds so that they were taken out of their former genres and were selling out of the Alternative racks in the shops (internet was not yet the force to be reckoned with that it is today). At the end of the decade, many of those artists were returned to their former catagories and the numerous sub-genres became full-blown genres in their own right, making Alternative a much more specific and competitive catagory of music. Since this article is meant to numerate the top 10 Alternative albums of the 1990s, I have taken the view of the genre that existed then in my considerations. The albums are listed from least to best and reflect merely my opinion. Please, feel free to open a discussion regarding your favorites and why in the comments. I'd love to know!

10. Barenaked Ladies- "Gordon":

This Canadian group remains unique in its blatent good humour. They were masters at tackling serious and not-so-serious subjects by making them hilarious and giving them a peppy beat. They were also famous for the fact that their live shows were almost entirely impromtu events. Released on July 28, 1992, "Gordon" has the most songs that eventually landed on their greatest hits compilation. Here you will find "Enid", "Brian Wilson", "Be My Yoko Ono", "What A Good Boy", "New Kid (On The Block)", and the perennial favorite of many "If I Had A $1000000". That still has to be one of the funnest songs ever: "Haven't you always wanted a monkey?"

9. The Cranberries- "Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We?":

With a lead vocalist siren with a voice somewhere between Sinead O'Connor and Enya, this group became the biggest Irish musical export since U2 about a decade earlier. And their timing was impeccable. In the 90s, there was a modern Irish revival with Broadway sensations "Lord of the Dance" and "Riverdance" selling out packed houses and going on the road and traditional Irish aires showing up in movie soundtracks of all kinds. Hybernophiles spang up everywhere wearing Celtic harps and claddaghs and drinking Guinness (myself among them). The Cranberries rode that wave and swelled it. With O'Riordan's otherworldly voice and the music that backed her, they created dreamscapes overflowing with feeling and nuance. The lyrics about O'Riordan's bad romance spoke to a generation who felt that society itself was one long, abusively bad relationship.

8. Smashing Pumpkins- "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness":

The Smashing Pumpkins are probably the most underrated band of 1990s Alternative music. This album in particular is epic in ambition and execution. Released October 24, 1995, it was described by the band as being "'The Wall' for Generation X". It was released in three formats: cassette, CD, and vinyl. The cassette and CD versions consisted of two cassettes and two CDs respectively. The first was called "Dawn To Dusk" and the second was "Twilight To Starlight". The vinyl version had six sides that were titled thus: side 1 "Dawn", side 2 "Tea Time", side 3 "Dusk", side 4 "Twilight", side 5 "Midnight", and side 6 "Starlight". It includes the songs "Tonight, Tonight", "Take Me Down", and "1979". "1979" remains the Smashing Pumpkins most recognised song. That being said, I also like their album "Siamese Dream" because on it is the song "Disarm".

7. Nirvana- "MTV Unplugged in New York":

"MTV Unplugged" was probably one of the last good shows on a network that originally had the best idea, but it had already begun to go wonky and turn into smut. Interestingly, Nirvana's performance on this show gorged with great acoustic performances is almost the only one remembered now. It aired on December 14, 1993. Nirvana did the unusual thing, choosing for their setlist lesser known tracks and covers. This supergroup from Seatlle (mother-city of the Grunge sub-genre which they catapolted to national fame with the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit") was never comfortable with the limelight and perhaps they were tired of hearing their own hits. At any rate, it proved to be a good call. It became the first Nirvana album to be released following Kurt Cobain's famous suicide in April 1994 and debuted at number 1. The episode was released on DVD in 2007. My favorite song here is their cover of David Bowie's "Man Who Sold The World".

6. No Doubt- "Tragic Kingdom":

Does anyone else think that Gwen Stefani was more palatable in her No Doubt days? Released October 10, 1995, this album played across several sub-genres. It became the go-to album for every oppressed and marginalised girl in Gen X with songs like "Just A Girl", "Excuse Me Mr.", "Sunday Morning", and its most famous song "Spiderwebs". But it wasn't just feminine angst. It described the battle of a generation against hopelessness with songs like "The Climb" and "Tragic Kingdom". After the failure of the experiments of the 60s and 70s and the resignation of the 80s, this was the sound of a generation taking notice of pain and suffering and bearing the full weight of it on their shoulders unapologetically.

5. Alanis Morissette- "Jagged Little Pill":

Speaking of unapologetic, this album certainly was that. It defined a new role for women in music and new expectations. Released June 13, 1995, it just barely beat No Doubt to this definition. Morissette stepped out as a force to be reckoned with as uncontrollable as the weather. No woman artist before her had been so free with profanity (my copy was self-edited). She stretched her voice mercilessly, cooing, screaming, and warbling as no one had done before. She proved herself a poet as well as musician. Who knew you could pack so many multi-syllable words into one song? And she was one of the first to add a secret song (a track hidden away at the end of a CD which can only be heard by playing the last listed track and waiting, sometimes as much as 20 minutes).

4. Oasis- "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?":

No list of 1990s Alternative would be complete without Oasis. This band relied on two legendary Irish brothers and was a volatile one. It was not uncommon for them to break up on stage in the middle of a gig in full view of their audience only to get back together a few weeks later (I think they are currently broke up). But their following was fanatical. Often, opening bands for their shows were booed and abused until they left the stage because Oasis was the only thing their fans wanted to see, so the band's instability could never hurt them. "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?" may be their best album. There is no denying the greatness and staying power of its songs. "Some Might Say" can be found on the video game "Guitar Hero World Tour". Yes, there is plenty of Gen X melancholy here, but my nephew was a fan before his death last year at almost 12 years of age. So there.

3. Radiohead- "The Bends":

Actually, you could probably insert any of Radiohead's albums from the 90s here. "The Bends" is my personal favorite. The title refers to what happens when you come up out of the water too fast when scuba diving and that's pretty much what you'll find on it. Thom Yorke's uniquely falsetto voice and Radiohead's boundary pushing music is kind of like- pardon the expression- tripping without acid on most of their albums. This one is the most tame, but don't let that description fool you. Released March 13, 1995, this album is home to some of their best songs: "The Bends", "High and Dry", my favorite "Fake Plastic Trees", "My Iron Lung", "Black Star", "Sulk", and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)". Yes, I left some unlisted.

2. Pearl Jam-"Ten":

Do I really have to say anything about this one? Pearl Jam was, next to Nirvana, the iconic band of the Grunge sub-genre and it seems to me that they are proving themselves the greater over time. The fact that they recently released a strong album probably doesn't hurt in that regard ("Backspacer"). Originally released August 27, 1991, "Ten" was re-released in 2009 in 4 formats: Legacy, Deluxe, Vinyl, and Super Deluxe. It generated 3 hits: "Alive", "Even Flow" (which can also be found on a version of "Guitar Hero"), and "Jeremy" (based on the true story of a tormented boy who shot himself in the face at school). Other strong tracks include "Once" and my favorite Pearl Jam song "Black". To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of "Ten", Pearl Jam are reportedly planning a music festival somewhere in the middle of the U.S. sometime this summer. Details have not yet been released.

1. U2- "Achtung Baby":

So here I am at number 1 and I'm tongue-tied. There is so much to say about this album that there is nothing to say. And you might think it ridiculous or cliche to find it listed here since it can be found on almost every list that has been composed of the greatest and most influential albums of all time. You might be right. But I'm going to give this a shot anyway:

..."It's time to go away and dream it all up again." Bono famously remarked in 1989 after the mind-blowing success of "The Joshua Tree" and the exhaustion of years of touring. U2 wanted to make an album that would sound like anything except U2. They recorded in Hansa Studios in Berlin and in Dublin. This album nearly ended the band who fought violently over artistic differences. The Edge went through a nasty divorce. Bono welcomed the arrival of his second child. The Berlin wall had come down and Communism collapsed. The world was finally beginning to come to some kind of grips with that new terrifying disease AIDS. All of this and more found its way onto an album that not only succeeded at not sounding like U2, but that in fact sounded like nothing ever heard before. Released November 19, 1991, this Attention, Baby! has been vital in creating the definition of Alternative as we know it today. Music critic Neil McCormick, commenting in a review of U2's 2009 release "No Line On The Horizon" in his column, wrote: "Who doesn't sound like U2 these days?" Every song is breathtaking. This album is exuberant, decadent, ironic, playful, dark, sexy, mad, and joyous. It is joie de vivre in audio form. And did I mention daring? With songs written from the viewpoint of various fictional characters, we eavesdrop on a mad philosopher's phone call from hell, a song about love of the divine, and a woman, and bellydance all at once, a song about a father/son relationship that is cracked by AIDS, a song about divorce, a song about loving someone even when it's not perfect, or gone completely bad, or even when the significant other is gone, a song about the numbing effects of pop culture and celebrity, Judas Iscariot singing to Jesus after his suicide, and a song about terrorism. And that's just the meanings that U2 have openly discussed. Add to that the numerous nuances that the songs take once they become part of the listener's psyche and you have endless possibilities. This is a real contender for best album of all time.

Resources:
Gordon (Album), Wikipedia.
Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We?, Wikipedia.
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Wikipedia.
MTV Unplugged In New York, Wikipedia.
Tragic Kingdom, Wikipedia.
Jagged Little Pill", Wikipedia.
(What's The Story) Morning Glory?, Wikipedia.
The Bends, Wikipedia.
Ten (Pearl Jam Album), Wikipedia.
Achtung Baby, Wikipedia.