U2 Achtung Baby Uber Deluxe Edition Torrent
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Reinventions rarely come as thorough and effective as Achtung Baby, an album that completely changed U2's sound and style. The crashing, unrecognizable distorted guitars that open 'Zoo Station' are a clear signal that U2 have traded their Americana pretensions for postmodern, contemporary European music. Drawing equally from Bowie's electronic avant-garde explorations of the late '70s and the neo-psychedelic sounds of the thriving rave and Madchester club scenes of early-'90s England, Achtung Baby sounds vibrant and endlessly inventive. Unlike their inspirations, U2 rarely experiment with song structures over the course of the album. Instead, they use the thick dance beats, swirling guitars, layers of effects, and found sounds to break traditional songs out of their constraints, revealing the tortured emotional core of their songs with the hyper-loaded arrangements. In such a dense musical setting, it isn't surprising that U2 have abandoned the political for the personal on Achtung Baby, since the music, even with its inviting rhythms, is more introspective than anthemic. Bono has never been as emotionally naked as he is on Achtung Baby, creating a feverish nightmare of broken hearts and desperate loneliness; unlike other U2 albums, it's filled with sexual imagery, much of it quite disturbing, and it ends on a disquieting note. Few bands this far into their careers have recorded albums as adventurous or fulfilled their ambitions quite as successfully as U2 do on Achtung Baby, and the result is arguably their best album.
For the 20th birthday of Achtung Baby, U2 went all out and released no less than five anniversary editions: a single-disc remaster, a double-disc Deluxe Edition, a vinyl box set, a six-CD/four-DVD Super Deluxe Edition, and finally an Uber Deluxe Edition that takes the Super Deluxe Edition and adds various tchotchkes like a magnetic puzzle, badges, stickers, and a replica of Bono’s Fly sunglasses. Only those with deep wallets will need to concern themselves with the Uber edition -- most fans will debate between the Deluxe double-disc set and the Super Deluxe set. The Deluxe Edition contains only the album’s non-LP cuts -- primarily B-sides and bonus tracks, plus the unreleased outtake “Blow Your House Down.” Although the assorted covers on this collection are a bit dodgy -- U2 have never sounded as uncertain as they do on a Euro-disco cover of CCR’s “Fortunate Son” -- the originals are by and large very good, particularly “Lady with the Spinning Head,” “Blow Your House Down,” and “Salome.” The Super Deluxe Edition adds the 1993 album Zooropa, written and recorded during the supporting Zoo tours for Achtung Baby, then two discs of remixes, the B-sides discs that pop up on the Deluxe Edition, and, finally, a fledgling version of Achtung Baby called Kindergarten, which contains nascent versions of all 12 songs from the finished album.
Some of the remixes sound like little more than historical curios, but a surprising amount are either vigorous or imaginative and they all underscore how Achtung Baby truly was the first U2 album that could lend itself to these kind of mixes. And if the Kindergarten version of Achtung Baby has few real revelations -- most of the differences lay in Bono’s lyrics; many of the cuts are incomplete mixes instead of demos -- it nevertheless is a fascinating listen for those who know the album by heart. Finally, there are four DVDs: a making-of documentary by David Guggenheim, director of the Edge-starring guitar doc It Might Get Loud, called From the Sky Down; a disc of videos from Achtung Baby and Zooropa; a disc of odds and ends from these years, including a Zoo TV Special, MTV shorts, and appearances on Naked City and TV-AM, plus ROM content; and, to round out the package, the Zoo TV Live from Sydney disc. Whether this is overkill is completely in the eye of the consumer: surely, it’s possible to enjoy just the simple single disc of Achtung Baby, but for those who want to live within the world U2 created in the early ‘90s -- and it surely was its own world, driven by its own sounds and styles -- the Super Deluxe Edition will be hard to resist. [A Deluxe Edition was also released.]
Jan 23, 2018 - Here At You Can Free Download Lossless Music flac. U2 - Achtung Baby 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (2011) [FLAC] [CD1-3 of 6].
Title/Composer | Performer | Time | Stream |
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1 | 4:36 | SpotifyAmazon | |
2 | 3:41 | SpotifyAmazon | |
3 | 4:36 | SpotifyAmazon | |
4 | 4:38 | SpotifyAmazon | |
5 | 5:16 | SpotifyAmazon | |
6 | 5:49 | SpotifyAmazon | |
7 | 4:29 | SpotifyAmazon | |
8 | 4:03 | SpotifyAmazon | |
9 | 3:52 | SpotifyAmazon | |
10 | 5:30 | SpotifyAmazon | |
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12 | 4:23 | SpotifyAmazon |
U2 Achtung Baby Album
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10 | 5:41 |
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2 | 6:37 | SpotifyAmazon | |
3 | 7:01 | SpotifyAmazon | |
4 | 8:56 | ||
5 | Luigi Creatore / Hugo Peretti / George David Weiss | 4:35 | |
6 | 6:08 | SpotifyAmazon | |
7 | 3:19 | SpotifyAmazon | |
8 | 5:01 | SpotifyAmazon | |
9 | 6:28 | SpotifyAmazon | |
10 | 7:06 | SpotifyAmazon | |
11 | 5:03 | SpotifyAmazon |
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1 | 4:27 | SpotifyAmazon | |
2 | 4:26 | SpotifyAmazon | |
3 | Luigi Creatore / Hugo Peretti / George David Weiss | 8:29 | |
4 | 5:07 | SpotifyAmazon | |
5 | 4:08 | ||
6 | 8:02 | SpotifyAmazon | |
7 | 6:47 | SpotifyAmazon | |
8 | 8:47 | ||
9 | 8:14 | SpotifyAmazon | |
10 | 3:57 | ||
11 | 6:42 | SpotifyAmazon |
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1 | 3:53 | SpotifyAmazon | |
2 | 3:30 | SpotifyAmazon | |
3 | 4:31 | SpotifyAmazon | |
4 | 3:40 | SpotifyAmazon | |
5 | 4:00 | SpotifyAmazon | |
6 | 4:48 | SpotifyAmazon | |
7 | 5:02 | ||
8 | 4:31 | ||
9 | 2:46 | ||
10 | 5:36 | ||
11 | Mick Jagger / Keith Richards | 3:20 | SpotifyAmazon |
12 | 2:40 | SpotifyAmazon | |
13 | 3:37 | SpotifyAmazon | |
14 | 3:56 | SpotifyAmazon | |
15 | 5:12 | ||
16 | 4:09 | SpotifyAmazon |
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1 | 5:34 | ||
2 | 3:43 | SpotifyAmazon | |
3 | 4:35 | ||
4 | 4:31 | SpotifyAmazon | |
5 | 5:15 | SpotifyAmazon | |
6 | 6:07 | ||
7 | 4:45 | ||
8 | 4:03 | SpotifyAmazon | |
9 | 4:12 | SpotifyAmazon | |
10 | 5:49 | SpotifyAmazon | |
11 | 4:27 | ||
12 | 7:17 | SpotifyAmazon |
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23 | Luigi Creatore / Hugo Peretti / George David Weiss |
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Digital Album
Track Listing: (Regular Version)
U2 Achtung Baby Uber
- 'Zoo Station' (Studio Version) - U2 (04:36)
- 'Even Better Than the Real Thing' (Studio Version) - U2 (03:41)
- 'One' (Studio Version) - U2 (04:36)
- 'Until the End of the World' (Studio Version) - U2 (04:38)
- 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses' (Studio Version) - U2 (05:16)
- 'So Cruel' (Studio Version) - U2 (05:49)
- 'The Fly' (Studio Version) - U2 (04:29)
- 'Mysterious Ways' (Studio Version) - U2 (04:03)
- 'Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World' (Studio Version) - U2 (03:52)
- 'Ultra Violet (Light My Way)' (Studio Version) - U2 (05:30)
- 'Acrobat' (Studio Version) - U2 (04:30)
- 'Love is Blindness' (Studio Version) - U2 (04:23)
Background Information
When the deluxe version of “Achtung Baby” was released in 2011 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the initial release, it arrived in a myriad of formats, including a CD, a double CD, a super deluxe set containing six CDs and four DVDs, an Uber box set which contained the six CDs and four DVDs and added the album in vinyl, as well as five vinyl singles, a vinyl box set, and downloads. One surprise format for many audiophiles was a release through the website hdtracks.com – which released the songs in 44.1kHz, 24-bit sound. The quality of a CD is 44.1kHz and 16-bit sound. The files were made available for download at https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=artistdetail&id=9808 – and there was a one disc or a two disc version available.
The download came in FLAC format, which could be uncompressed to WAV format. Also included with the download is a 19 page digital booklet in PDF format, which matches the booklet content in the two disc CD set that had been released. A review by Alan Taffel of “The Absolute Sound” stated “Both versions, and the LP, have crushing, fuzz-drenched bass, but the download has better low-end pitch definition than the CD. In addition, the CD tends to congeal these incredibly dense mixes, whereas the download allows each layer to come through more clearly. Finally, when an acoustic instrument makes a rare appearance, its sound is more natural on the download. Overall, the HDtracks release very closely resembles the LP. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to sound.”
It was this 24-bit recording which was used for the “Mastered for iTunes” download which could be purchased as a compressed file through iTunes. The version found here is from the same mix that was used for the 20th anniversary editions of the album. At the time of release one of the big questions was whether or not the 20th Anniversary Edition had been remastered as previous album re-releases had been. Reports on u2.com had even listed the album as being remastered, but Neil McCormick reported “In answer to queries about Achtung Baby, I went to the source. It hasn’t been remastered because it “didn’t need to be”, apparently … It’s been sonically tweaked & polished but not, technically, remastered. Hope that makes more sense to you than it does to me. I’m just telling you what I’ve been told. Not remastered. But tweaked & boosted. Its definitely louder.” The Edge would later clarify things further in an interview: “You know we looked at remastering of “Achtung Baby”, we realized how much artistry had gone into the original EQ’ing. So all we were able to do was optimize it, you know tweak the levels, give it a bit of a polish because the original was so right. We just couldn’t get too fancy with it.”
This was the first time to our knowledge that U2 had released commercially a 24-bit recording of their work. The one disc “Achtung Baby” and the two disc “Achtung Baby Deluxe Edition” were both released for purchase through hdtracks.com.
U2 Achtung Baby Uber Box Set
Liner Notes
Related Promotional Videos
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