“Jaysus…30 years! Good times.” Music fans around the world are celebrating Irish rock sensations, U2, who have reached another milestone today. November 18th marks an astonishing 30 years since the release of their 1991 hit album, Achtung Baby.
Jaysus…30 years! Good times.
Pre-order the 30th Anniversary Edition of the record now. Vinyl out 19th November. Digital Boxset out 3rd December.https://t.co/4ZLBLANAHE pic.twitter.com/rM7OAcdBch— U2 (@U2) November 18, 2021
Thirty years ago, U2 front man Bono described Achtung Baby as “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree”. The album went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance and became one of the most significant records of the nineties and of U2’s career. Reaching 2nd position on the Official Charts, the classic album has spent a whopping 92 weeks in the charts.
Recorded across a six-month period at Hansa Studio, Berlin, and Windmill Lane in Dublin, the band’s 7th studio album was a musical shift for the Irish quartet. Incorporating industrial sounds, electronic dance music, distorted guitars, and experimental vocals, the album remains one of the key releases in the band’s career three decades on.
Produced by long time U2 collaborators, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno with Steve Lillywhite, Achtung Baby was engineered by Flood, and released on November 18th, 1991. Its success was led by the single The Fly, followed by four others in Mysterious Ways, One, Even Better Than The Real Thing, and Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.
To celebrate another career milestone, U2 have collaborated with Berlin-based French artist Thierry Noir – the first artist to paint on the Berlin Wall – for a special one-off installation at the legendary Hansa Studios in Kreuzberg. Noir’s paintwork of a series of Trabant cars was commissioned for the album artwork of Achtung Baby, and again for 1991’s Zoo TV Tour.
U2 x THIERRY NOIR sees Noir return with a newly painted Trabant for 2021, as well as an exclusive mural painted on a section of the Berlin wall. The bonnet of the Trabant will be auctioned at Phillips, London on December 9 as part of their New Now sale with proceeds going to Berlin Institute for Sound and Music.
In celebration of the exiting news, U2 recently announced a new Achtung Baby (30th Anniversary Edition) 50-track digital boxset. Releasing Friday December 3rd, the boxset will include Uber Remixes, Unter Remixes, B-Sides with 22 tracks never before digitally available. A Standard black vinyl and Deluxe colour vinyl will be available to purchase on Friday., alongside with Achtung Baby (2018 Remaster) and Achtung Baby (Unter Remixes).
U2 X-Radio, the band’s SiriusXM channel, is also set to get in on the celebrations with an Achtung Baby special. The special is set to include interviews with band members and album collaboration Daniel Lanois, Flood and Anton Corbijn.
