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*****
"...Even Better Than The Real Thing..."
The first things that hits you about this 'Super Deluxe Edition' LP-Sized Box Set of the November 1991 genre-breakthrough U2 album "Achtung Baby" is the weight.
Released late October 2011 as a massively comprehensive 20th Anniversary Box Set - it came loaded to the gunnels - 6 x CDs, 4 x DVDs, a 92-Page LP-Sized Hardback Book and a separate pouch holding 16 x LP-Sized Achtung Baby Artprints. And more than any other Super DE I have, the presentation went a long way to creating a superb balance between AUDIO and VIDEO – in fact you could argue (sure they are not BLU RAYS) that the Visuals are where it is at for collectors – years of effort and documenting having gone into them.
The ARNIE ACOSTA Mastering is both old and new – Guitarist The Edge admitting that a full on Remaster has not taken place here because they went to such extraordinary lengths to get that original in-yer-face grunge sound on the 1991 album in the first place (get away from the Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum U2 in 1987 and 1989 that preceded it). Edge advises that some tweaking here and there has taken place, but most did not get Remastered and I for one loved how it sounded then and now.
A proper nerdy fan back in the day - I was one of those guys who bought all five CD singles that came off the monster Number 1 album and their duo partners (CD2's) – so CD3 "Über Remixes" and CD4 "Unter Remixes" are just gathering up what many die-hard fans will probably already have. But what a listen it is – the huge array of Guest Producers and Remixers - Brian Eno, Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois, Flood, Paul Oakenfold, Steve Osborne, Ian Bryan, Paul Barrett, Apollo 440, The Stereo MCs, David Morales, Pete Heller, Terry Farley (and more) with Filmmakers like Kevin Godley (of 10cc fame), Anton Corbijn, Smyth, Davis Guggenheim, Mark Pellington and many more.
The legendary dancefloor goodies of "Salomé (Zooromancer Remix)" and "Even Better Than The Real Thing (The Perfect Mix)" are fantastic reinterpretations - while CD6 called "Kindergarten – The Alternative Achtung Baby" is a great idea and a genuinely fresh look. I wouldn't call it better than the (ahem) real thing, but I liked it and appreciate the effort. And I dig the "Zooropa" album being included as CD2 because it was Part 2 of the whole German reinvention vibe and look – even if it wasn't a patch on its album predecessor. To the details...
UK released 28 October 2011 - "Achtung Baby" by U2 on Mercury/Interscope 2779370 (Barcode 602527793702) is a 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition Box Set with 6xCDs and 4xDVDs, a 92-Page Hardback Book, 16xLP-Sized Art Prints and Previously Unreleased Audio and Visual Material that play out as follows:
CD1 "Achtung Baby" (55:27 minutes):
1. Zoo Station [Side 1]
2. Even Better Than The Real Thing
3. One
4. Until The End Of The World
5. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horse
6. So Cruel
7. The Fly [Side 2]
8. Mysterious Ways
9. Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World
10. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
11. Acrobat
12. Love Is Blindness
Tracks 1 to 12 are their ninth album (Eighth studio) "Achtung Baby" – released 18 November 1991 in the UK/EUROPE on Island 262 110 (CD) and 19 November 1991 in the USA on Island 314-510 347-2. Produced by BRIAN ENO and DANIEL LANOIS – it peaked at No.1 in the UK and USA.
CD2 "Zooropa" (51:19 minutes):
1. Zooropa [Side 1]
2. Babyface
3. Numb
4. Lemon
5. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
6. Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
7. Some Days Are Better Than Others
8. The First Time
9. The Dirty Day
10. The Wanderer [with Johnny Cash]
Tracks 1 to 10 are their ninth album (eight studio) "Zooropa" – released 3 July 1993 in the UK on Island CIDU29 (518047-2) and 5 July 1993 in the USA on Island 314-518 047-2. Produced by BRIAN ENO, FLOOD and THE EDGE – it peaked at No. 1 in the USA and UK.
CD3 "Über Remixes" (67:16 minutes):
1. Night And Day (Steel String Remix) – Youth Remix, 6:58 minutes
2. Even Better Than The Real Thing (The Perfecto Mix) – Paul Oakenfold and Steven Osborne Remix, 6:37 minutes
3. Mysterious Ways (Solar Plexus Extended Club Mix) – Howard Gray, Steve Lillywhite and Trevor Gray Remix, 7:01 minutes
4. Lemon (The Perfecto Mix) – Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne Remix, 8:56 minutes
5. Can't Help Falling In Love (Triple Peaks Remix) – Ian Bryan and Paul Barrett Remix, 4:35 minutes
6. Lady With The Spinning Head (Extended Dance Mix) – Alan Moulder, 6:08 minutes
7. Even Better Than The Real Thing (V16 Exit Wound Remix) – Apollo 440 Remix, 3:19 minutes
8. Mysterious Ways (Ultimatum Mix) – Stereo MCs Remix, 5:01 minutes
9. The Lounge Fly Mix – Flood Mix, 6:28 minutes
10. Mysterious Ways (The Perfecto Mix) – Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne Remix, 7:06 minutes
11. One (Apollo 440 Remix) – Apollo 440 and Steve Lillywhite Remix, 5:03 minutes
NOTES:
Track 11 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
CD4 "Unter Remixes" (69:11 minutes):
1. Mysterious Ways (Tabla Motown Remix) – Apollo 440 Remix, 4:27 minutes
2. Mysterious Ways (Apollo 440 Magic Hour Remix) – Apollo 440 Remix, 4:26 minutes
3. Can't Help Falling In Love (Mysterious Train Dub) – Paul Barrett Remix, 8:29 minutes)
4. One (Apollo 440 Ambient Mix) – Apollo 440 and Steve Lillywhite Remix, 5:07 minutes
5. Lemon (Momo's Reprise) – David Morales Remix, 4:08 minutes
6. Salomé (Zooromancer Remix) – Pete Heller and Terry Farley Remixes, 8:02 minutes
7. Even Better Than The Real Thing (Trance Mix) – Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne Remix, 6:47 minutes
8. Numb (Gimme Some More Dignity Mix) – Rob D and Rollo Remix, 8:47 minutes
9. Mysterious Ways (Solar Plexus Magic Hour Remix) – Apollo 440, Howard Gray, Steve Lillywhite and Trevor Gray Remix, 8:14 minutes
10. Numb (Soul Assassins Mix) – The Soul Assassins Remix, 3:57 minutes
11. Even Better Than The Real Thing (Apollo 440 Stealth Sonic Remix) – Apollo 440 Remix, 6:42 minutes
NOTES:
Track 4 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
CD5 "B-sides And Bonus Tracks" (65:17 minutes):
1. Lady With The Spinning Head (UV1)
2. Blow Your House Down
3. Salomé (Backing vocals by Paul Barrett and Ian Bryan)
4. Even Better Than The Real Thing (Single Version)
5. Satellite Of Love (Lou Reed cover, Additional Vocals by Gavin Friday)
6. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horse (Temple Bar Remix)
7. Heaven And Hell
8. Oh Berlin
9. Near The Island
10. Down All The Days
11. Paint It Black (Rolling Stones cover)
12. Fortunate Song (Creedence Clearwater Revival cover)
13. Alex Descends Into Hell For A Bottle Of Milk/Korova 1
14. Where Did It All Go Wrong?
15. Everybody Loves A Winner
16. Even Better Than The Real Thing (Fish Out Of Water Remix)
CD6 "Kindergarten – The Alternative Achtung Baby" (60:23 minutes):
1. 'Baby' Zoo Station
2. 'Baby' Even Better Than The Real Thing
3. 'Baby' One
4. 'Baby' Until The End Of The World
5. 'Baby' Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horse
6. 'Baby' So Cruel
7. 'Baby' The Fly
8. 'Baby' Mysterious Ways
9. 'Baby' Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World
10. 'Baby' Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
11. 'Baby' Acrobat
12. 'Baby' Love Is Blindness
DVD1 "From The Sky Down – A Documentary" (1 hour, 15 minutes)
Includes Glastonbury Festival Performance
DVD2 "The Videos"
17 Videos from "The Fly" filmed in September 1991 to "Numb" filmed in 1993
Directors include Richie Smyth, Anton Corbijn, Kevin Godley, Mark Pellington, Phil Joanou, Wim Wenders, Mark Neal and many more – includes Greenpeace footage from 1992
1. The Fly (Directors, Jon Klein and Richie Smyth)
2. Mysterious Ways (Director, Stéphane Sednaoui)
3. One (Director, Anton Corbijn)
4. Even Better Than The Real Thing (Director, Kevin Godley)
5. One (Buffalo Version) (Director, Mark Pellington)
6. One (Restaurant Version) (Director, Phil Joanou)
7. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horse (Director, Phil Joanou)
8. The Fly (Performance Only) (Director, Richie Smyth)
9. Even Better Than The Real Thing (The Perfecto Mix) (Director, Richie Smyth)
10. The Fly (Text Only) (Director, Mark Pellington)
11. Until The End Of The World (Live) (Director, Maurice Linnane)
12. The Fly (Live From The Stop Sellafield Concert)
13. Even Better Than The Real Thing (Live From The Stop Sellafield Concert)
14. Love Is Blindness (Director, Matt Mahurin)
15. Lemon (Director, Mark Neale)
16. Stay (Faraway, So Close!) (Director, Wim Wenders)
17. Numb (Director, Kevin Godley)
18. Numb (Video Remix) (Director, Emergency Broadcast Network)
DVD3 "Bonus Material"
1. Zoo TV Special – A Documentary (Filmed in the USA August 1992 by Kevin Godley – 1 hour and 10 minutes)
2. MTV's Most Wanted - ZooTV Special (Filmed in the USA by Justin Murphy, 45:33 minutes)
3. MTV Rockumentary (Filmed in the USA by Maurice Linnane, 24:13 minutes)
4. U2 on Naked City, 1993 (11:46 minutes)
5. U2 on TV-AM, 1992 (15:12 minutes)
6. Trabantland Documentary (Director, Maurice Linnane, 7:54 minutes)
7. ROM Content (Screensavers, Web-links, Desktop Wallpapers etc)
DVD4 "Zoo TV Live From Sydney – The Concert" (1 hour and 58 minutes)
1. Show Opening
2. Zoo Station
3. The Fly
4. Even Better Than The Real Thing
5. Mysterious Ways
6. One
7. Unchained Melody
8. Until The End Of The World
9. New Year's Day
10. Numb
11. Angel of Harlem
12. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
13. Satellite Of Love
14. Dirty Day
15. Bullet The Blue Sky
16. Running To Stand Still
17. Where The Streets Have No Name
18. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
19. Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
20. Lemon
21. With Or Without You
22. Love Is Blindness
23. Can't Help Falling In Love
A quick look to the rear artwork of the Box set to check for original artwork and we see that the square photo of Adam Clayton's genitals are the covered up X-ed Version (the British and European originals had his full lunch pale on display) and none of the 16 Art Prints inside the embossed Baby Face Star and Car Logo pouch have the naughty version either (no balls, har har). The LP-Sized Card Art Prints are essentially large version of the photos used on the cover and in the booklet – the Trabant, U2 ring, the Band dressed as women like the Rolling Stones did back in the day – all that stuff. It all has that blurred look, but mostly you will look at them once and forget about them.
The hardback book however is properly gorgeous. Stunning photos buffer the writing, essays coming from Andrew Mueller where he sets the Berlin scene. That is followed by Producer Daniel Lanois talking about a blur of creation and intensity, Photographer and Band Depicter Anton Corbijn remembering five full months creating the graphics with the Band in Germany, Morocco, Tenerife and Dublin (the most they ever spent working on an image and look). Martin Scholz discusses other artists that had taken to Germany's capitol city too (Bowie, Iggy Pop and Depeche Mode) which is followed by a full LP-sized page showing the handwritten lyrics to "One" – a song he refers to in his superb essay. There is a reprint of the Martin Wroe article in the 1991 Propaganda Magazine (Issue No.14) that includes interviews with Edge and Bono as they struggled - and then a very Irish slant from Brian Eno described the restless creative nature of the four – the Producer most associated with this great band. Eno explains that the yearlong recordings did not produce a polish he calls democratically neutered – but instead represented a search that ultimately produced a result even they initially thought was beyond them – an album of musical oxymorons - as he describes it. And so on to minutely detailed track-by-track credits. To the actual music...
Deliberately breaking away from their previous sound and determined to move forward (reinvent) - "Zoo Station" acts more as a Mission Statement than as a starter to the new U2. It grunts out of your speakers and takes the punter by surprise. This was their David Bowie in Berlin moment – we start all over again as something different whether you wanted the old or not. And yet their updated sound was strikingly commercial. The 1991 album provided five singles out of its twelve tracks and enough Remixes and Promos to sink a collector’s monetary nest egg - "The Fly" (October 1991), "Mysterious Ways" (November 1991), "One" (February 1992), "Even Better Than The Real Thing" (June 1992) and "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (November 1992).
Producers DANIEL LANOIS and BRIAN ENO and Engineer MARK "Flood" ELLIS worked with the band to get that almost garish gruff sound (a deliberate decamp to the Hansa Studio in Berlin after initial Demo Sessions in Dublin). The artwork too was less black and white single-photo posturing in deserts and stage lamps and more Trashy Glam Rock in its abandon, clothing and gimmicks. The in-yer-face front and rear cover collages with their barrage of blurred images added too - lipstick smudges, bling festooned pants, Trabant cars and even dressing up as pouting tarts – saw the band literally Rock Out With Your Cock Out (or at least Adam did). In some ways too – the fall of the Berlin Wall with images of people chiselling at concrete and cutting wires and toppling domineering statues of old regimes – played into the reinvention. They had ended the Eighties as the biggest Rock Band in the World but began the new decade of change feeling like they were already the old dreaded farts in the rear view mirror – pastiches of Rock and Roll instead of actual purveyors. Something had to change and "Achtung Baby" – complete with its deliberately off-the-cuff title – was that move forward.
It helped though that the new songs were actually fantastic – hooky choruses – and every one becoming monster in the live environment - which is why the Tour documents on DVD in the back pouch of the Hardback Book represent such a full picture of the two years that engulfed them. To this day there is a magnificence to "One" – a song that was surely another "Every Breath You Take" moment – powerful, epic and yet entirely within the new soundstage. Making the 1993 follow-up album "Zooropa" listen Number 2 is actually quite a smart move because in overall context it works. "Lemon", "Stay..." and the wonderful Johnny Cash duet on "The Wanderer" brought together two giant talents in a perfect yet new way.
CD3 and CD4 present interesting and cool listens – CD3 opens with a B-side to "One" - the pinging guitars and Drum whacks of "Night And Day (Street String Remix)" from the Cole Porter Tribute Album project "Red Hot + Blue" in 1990. The famous Lounge Lizard standard is utterly transformed by a near-seven-minute Electronic Dance meets Rock soundscape - a clever starter-for-ten that sets the Remix scene - somehow Youth making the band sounding like they naturally recorded the song this way. Love, love, love The Perfecto Mix of "Even Better Than The Real Thing" – the perfect blend of Rock and Dance in a single that could have easily a stand-alone release. Fans will head for Track 11 – the first of two Previously Unreleased Versions by Apollo 440 - "One" preceded by the sound of children giggling against a backdrop of church organ – then that guitar – and it works. It does not take on the original, but it is interesting. The Non-LP B-side "Lady With The Spinning Head" (a B-side for "Even Better Than The Real Thing") gets a full-force Audio assault – an Alan Moulder Dance Remix that is fantastically attacking but in all the right ways – Edge going ape on the Guitar while Mullen locks into a tight drum pattern that sounds huge. Another favourite is the Egyptian Reggae vibe to the Ultimatum Mix of "Mysterious Ways" – offsetting the disappointing Lounge Fly Mix that somehow manages to emaciate all the power of the grab-your-throat original – but not in a good way.
Amongst the B-sides and Outtakes on CD5 is an excellent "Blow Your House Down" – a drug of choice rocker that could easily have been a Rattle & Hum throwback and was probably left off because it wasn't radical enough for the new direction. "Salome" has always been a fave in any form – gotta love the riffage guitar of the standard B-side version to "Even Better Than The Real Thing" and then the extraordinary Zooromancer Mix on CD2. The Lou Reed classic "Satellite Of Love" is a so-good fit for U2 (a B-side to "One") while another newbee "Heaven And Hell" feels like a possible epic in the making – five-minutes of ballad with Declan Gaffney on Backing Vocals. The Sessions Outtakes continue with "Oh Berlin" – another track recorded at Artillery Studios in London – where Bono starts singing some lines in German – it’s good but again you can hear why it was left behind despite some lovely old-style guitar work from The Edge.
The pretty instrumental "Near The Island" might only be 2:56 minutes long with just Acoustic Guitar and a Piano – but it has a calm at the centre of the storm loveliness that will one day see it used in a movie. Two more new come in the shape of "Down All The Days" that feels like a Rattle & Hum song reworked while "Everybody Loves A Winner". They then cover The Rolling Stones with "Paint It Black" and Creedence Clearwater Revival with "Fortunate Son" and Maria McKee shares duet vocals with Bono on the old William Bell Soul single "Everybody Loves A Winner" (originally on Stax in 1967). The Remixes end with The Fish Out Of Water Version of "Even Better Than The Real Thing" from the U2360 Tour – short and sweet.
The movie/documentary samples everyone from Kraftwerk ("Man Machine") to The Clash ("Should I Stay Or Should I Go") to Iggy Pop doing "Lust For Life" to The Beatles "All You Need Is Love" to the obvious "Heroes" by Bowie and the co-write with Iggy on "Some Weird Sin". There are Glastonbury Festival performances in the UK – BBC interviews – "From The Sky Down" is a hugely comprehensive display that in itself is complimented by an actual gig on another DVD with the full bore of ZooTV in Australia – the crowd completely transfixed as Can’t Help Falling in Love plays out the spectacle. There is even Dolby 5.1 Sound in DVD1 and DVD4.
You could argue that overload might be a good word to describe this Box Set and the Uber Deluxe Version has indeed gone into legend as just that (it's been deleted years and has a three-figure price premium because of that). But somehow "Achtung Baby" and its sibling "Zooropa" could only be this way – big – loud – brash and frankly unapologetic for being so. Let your fingers wander all over this bad boy and just this once – excess is the one to bless...
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