U2
Achtung Baby: Deluxe Edition
Mercury Records
www.umusic.com
By George W. Harris

I’m probably the only guy over 30 on this planet that’s never heard
anything by the iconic rock band U2. Ok, maybe “Haven’t Found What I’m
Looking For” over the Muzak at the local CVS drug store, but that’s
about it. I was boycotting anything that wasn’t jazz back in the 80s
and 90s, and then was too busy raising a family to pay attention to the
rock scene. I did once read an Rolling Stone article in which the lead
singer Bono defended his Christian faith by telling the startled
interviewer, “You have to believe in either Karma or Grace, and I’ve
done enough stupid things in my life to realize that I want to be on
the side of Grace.”

With that in mind, I was startled by the thick layers of guitars and
other instruments. You couldn’t cut the textures with a Lakota knife,
to be sure! Bono’s voice pierces through the sonic hurricane with some
white knuckle of a ride singing. This guy lays himself bare, to be
sure. The themes themselves are quite jarring; these guys are no Johnny
Mercers or Jerome Kerns, to be sure. Lots of isolation, loneliness and
despair fly around, and the album ends on a disturbing note with “Love
Is Blindness” making you come up gasping for air. There are tons of
extra remixes and tracks here, and depending on which edition you get,
you might get extra little buttons and stickers as well. The music
must’ve been light years ahead of its time when it first came out, as I
can’t think of anything presently that even comes close.