Achtung Baby - Choose Three

22 Dec 2021201

Achtung Baby: Choose Three

Hard as it is to believe, in November we marked the thirtieth birthday of Achtung Baby.

(Although not as hard to believe as it had been the month before, when we marked the fortieth birthday of October. )

Arriving a couple of years after the band had vowed to go away and 'dream it all up again',  Achtung Baby was a promise kept and the record was widely seen as a sonic and visual reinvention.

As Miriam Jonker posted on our earlier story, 'I loved this album from day one and it is still the album I listen to the most. Excellent capture of the zeitgeist at the time and a great reinvention of U2….'

Or as pawel_peczak added, 'No one has ever recorded anything like Achtung Baby before, after and ever after. It's a masterpiece. Reflects the whole generation. It's Yellow Submarine of the 1990's. Its new Europe, unified. It's personal story of love and divorce, love hurts, love loves ....so emotional. It changed my entire life forever...'

But let's imagine you're making your own playlist of the band's finest songs and you can only choose THREE songs from any one album… what are the three songs from Achtung Baby that you could not live without? 

Vote for those three in our poll…  then tell us why in the comments below.

Achtung Baby

1. Zoo Station 
2. Even Better Than The Real Thing 
3. One 
4. Until The End Of The World 
5. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses 
6. So Cruel 
7. The Fly 
8. Mysterious Ways 
9. Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World 
10. Ultra Violet (Light My Way) 
11. Acrobat 
12. Love Is Blindness

Comments
201
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Onefly_1
Masterpiece
it's really hard to choose just three songs from this album because they are all great and I love them all. Forever U2 int the Heart.❤️❤️❤️
Moni_h269
Wonderful
I love all songs on this album, it's a masterpiece.
chuckle.brothers
Impossible
Well picking just 3 is almost impossible!
hardti
Masterpiece
The Fly - I never will forget seeing the "new" U2 for the first time, midnight on MTV, someday in September 1991. One - The song that saved U2 and is, besides being a greatest hit everyone knows, such a wonderful and meaningful song. Acrobat - Because I waited 27 years to hear that song live. And "I must be an acrobat to act like this and talk like that" ist kind of one of my lessons for life.
THEJOSHUA73
Impossible only 3 songs..
I love akl 12 songs... All masterpieces... So i close my eyes a......
dawnboo
Damn, this was hard!!
Arghh, I had to leave out Acrobat, Zoo Station, The Fly, Mysterious Ways. I could easily make a case for any three songs from this album being ones that I cannot live without. A masterwork by a band stretching to their full potential.
AvANiceDay
So hard to pick!
It’s such a difficult thing to try and pick from this album, I mean I feel guilty for the ones I didn’t choose. It’s genuinely perfect start to finish but ultimately I had to pick One, Ultra Violet, and most importantly Acrobat
IntoU2
Only 3?? Oy Vey, Baby!
5 would have been a MUCH LESS PAINFUL decision point!
Ramesh Paramjothy
One and only biggest band in universe
Difficult to choose since, but standing out in terms of lyrics, voice and music
Raheny66
Achtung
Just a perfect album in a perfect decade every song just perfect, it’s my go to album. Hope they light our way for years to come
jonny1374
So there can be new music
It was at a time in rock n roll history, after the slap in the face shock of grunge, we’ve officially heard it all. Then this alternate universe version of a band we’ve (thought) known for decades appears with this sonic depth and album direction like nothing before or since (if I’m being honest) . When a band does a great job creating an album we call it their “White Album”, now when a band shatters all expectations of what could or should have been and cements a legacy, we call it their “Actung Baby”
willesg
Best ever album!
"Until the end of the world": perfect guitar, bass, drums and voice for a perfect song. "One": united U2 for united people. "Acrobat": don't believe what you see but believe what you hear in this song.
orange12
So Cruel!
Capturing the zeitgeist of a crumbling superpower in the dark shadows of Berlin, rewriting the sonic template with dissonance, distortion and dance, majoring in on love and loss, dreams and decay, this was the completely unexpected sound of a dirty revolution, deep in the mire, hands off the steering wheel, ready for what's next. There was nothing like it. There never has been and there never will be. And you want our Top 3?!
BigBunny
just 3, this is tough.
UTEOTW, Ultraviolet and Acrobat.
walter2703
Ultra Violet
For me an epic song, still lightening my way
Lemonette
Great song — should have been a single
One is the greatest song on the album and rivals With or Without You for best overall U2 record. Ultraviolet is one of my all time favorite songs and the second best song on the album. I thought it was perfect for a single and I kept waiting for it’s release, that never happened. Played live on the Zooropa Tour it was loud and proud sung by MacPhisto. It’s the best “ hard “ rocker U2 has done. Mysterious Ways is just one of the most unusual and lyrically interesting songs on the album. Is she the spirit or the flesh? Is she holy or Salome?
Mariagiovanna
Soundtrack of a lifetime
It was a trickle to choose only three of them: really, “so cruel”!
JACK1978
3 song
It's very difficult to choose but for me I choose 3 ballad becouse they are beautiful
acrobat
acrobat
Very hard to choose just 3 tracks because I love the whole album. It was not this way to start with, though. It took me a while to get into this album it was so different from what had gone before. I had been into “Germanic” music years before with Kraftwerk, Can, Amon Dull, Tangerine Dream etc and had grown out of it, so to go back to that influence took some time. But repeated playing over and over it grew to being my favourite U2 album and still is.
Spriggsy
Mike
Always been the favourites but only by a slight margin
Oussou
Lové U2
Best song
   Newer comments    181 - 201 of 201    Older comments

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