U2:
Achtung Baby
(1991)

Genre: Rock with a touch of dance.
Produced By: Daniel Lanois with Brian Eno
Record Label: Island

Even though the U2 era of the eighties is pretty impressive looking back, it's even more amazing that they managed to reinvent themselves going into the nineties. Having majestic albums like "The Unforgettable Fire" and not least "The Joshua Tree" behind them, it seemed unlikely that they could ever top these. To me, however, this is just what they did with "Achtung Baby". It's a completely different album and a very different U2. "The U2 we knew on acid" or whatever...At least, "Achtung Baby" is much more daring, industrial, sexy and full of edges than what the band had done before. At the time I wasn't too much into U2. I knew them but hadn't surrendered yet. And it also took me a very long time before I discovered the immense strengths of "Achtung Baby". I guess I had to get used to the new personality of the band. But the arrogant and loud screaming identity really suits U2 and they probably would have met the same destiny as a band like Simple Minds if they hadn't done something drastic at the time. They did, and the music world was never the same thereafter.

Overall Rating (on a scale from 1 to 10):9

Del Amitri, Simple Minds, all kinds of dance rock of the late nineties.