Achtung Baby (Super Deluxe Edition) [Box set]

U2 | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 1, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 1991
• Number of Discs: 10
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Island Records
• ASIN: B005FVA3LK
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,486 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

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Editorial Reviews

Super Deluxe 10 disc (six CDs + four DVDs) edition including the original Achtung Baby album, the follow-up album, Zooropa, b-sides and re-workings of previously unheard material recorded during the Achtung Baby sessions. Four DVDs including "From The Sky Down", Zoo TV, all the videos from Achtung Baby plus bonus material. Hardback book and 16 art prints.

Recorded at Hansa Studio in Berlin and Windmill Lane in Dublin, Achtung Baby was U2's seventh studio album and went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance, becoming one of the most significant records of the 1990s.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

101 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have for your U2 collection, November 2, 2011

By 

Bags (Visalia, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Achtung Baby (Super Deluxe Edition) (Audio CD)

Okay I'm going to do my best to break down Achtung Baby Super Deluxe Edition.

First, the packaging: The set comes in a nice box that includes 16 LP size cardboard photos from the album sessions. The other part of the set is the book. The book is great with essays by Andrew Mueller, Daniel Lanois, Anton Corbijn, Martin Scholz, Martin Wroe, Brain Eno, and Bill Flanagan. There are also tons of photos and the hand written lyrics to "One". There are also several pages dedicated to the CDs and DVDs in the set with the track listings, times, original release info, etc. The one complaint is all of the CDs and DVDs are actually housed in the inside covers rather then having individual cases (got to get the Uber edition for that).

The Music: Most U2 collectors will have 85% of the music on these 6 discs. There have been some tweeks to Achtung Baby and I think it sounds great. Zooropa appears to be the same mix but is still a great album and I hope it gets its own edition when the time comes. Disc 3 is the first of the re-mix CDs. All have been release before except the final track which is "One (Apollo 440 Remix) which basically adds a new intro, throws some beats in the middle and tags on a new drum ending. That being said, Achtung Baby is an album that really lends itself to remixes but I think Disc 4 is the better of the remix CDs. Again Disc 4 has only one unreleased song. Another remix of "One" again by Apollo 440 but I prefer this "Ambient" mix to the one on Disc 3.

Discs 5 and (especially) 6 are the reasons most are buying the set. Disc 5 has B-Sides and some unreleased songs. The Unreleased songs are mostly from the Achtung Baby sessions. The only one not from the sessions is "Even Better Then the Real Thing (Fish out of Water Remix)". The unreleased songs are "Blow Your House Down" a nice rocker, "Heaven and Hell", a moody song that seems to be Bono riffing with lyrics. "Oh Berlin" kind of a mid-tempo song that feels like the band felt like they had to write a song about the city in which they were recording. "Near the Island" a nice little instrumental which has a real Edge/Eno (even though Eno isn't credited) feel to it. "Down All The Days", this is a really good song that with a little work could have been great. Not sure why it got put away. One of those songs that just builds and builds. Finally there is "Everybody Loves A Winner" a slower song with Bono mostly singing in falsetto and some nice Edge background vocals. The rest of Disc 4 are previously released B-Sides.

Disc 6-Kindergaten: I'd love to go into a song by song review of just this CD. This is a billed as an early version of Achtung Baby or demos from early songs. It feels more like pieced together bits of demos from each song but that is not a bad thing. Some stick fairly close to the original (Zoo Station, One) and some are almost brand new songs (Even Better Then The Real Thing, Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World). This is a fantastic Disc! It will never replace the original but it is definitely something that will get repeated listens and not just the once over and put away.

The DVD's: The set also includes 4 DVDs. The first is the Documentary "From the Sky Down". While I really enjoy this documentary it seems to have a problem decided if it is a film about the history of U2 or a film about the making of Achtung Baby. I would have preferred more of the behind the scenes from the making of the album. There is one great part though when Bono and The Edge are listening to some of the original sessions a certain song suddenly morphs into another and a huge light bulb goes off...don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it but it is one of the best moments caught on tape of the birth of a song.

DVD 2 is a collection of the music videos from Achtung Baby and Zooropa. Some are better then others but it's nice to have them all.

DVD 3 has quite a bit on it. There is Zoo TV Special. Which is sort of but not quite behind the scenes of the ZooTV tour. Basically the concert intercut with some behind the scenes and some ZooTV news updates and other things. The rest of the DVD is comprised of shorts. There is The MTV show "Most Wanted" where a fan won a chance to see a U2 show via satellite from his house. It shows some interviews and music videos but is actually a bit boring. There is also a MTV documentary, U2 on Naked City, and U2 on TV-AM which are all about the same...interview clips, music clips, ZooTV craziness all mashed together. The last documentary is called Trabantland. It's about the small, East German car that is featured in some of the videos and promo photos. It's enjoyable especially after seeing "From the Sky Down" and how the band used to see these cars abandoned daily because their East German drivers made the pilgrimage to Berlin just as the cars gave out. There is also some CD-Rom content on this disc. Wallpapers, Screensavers, and links to websites.

Disc 4 is the ZooTV live in Sydney Concert. I didn't own the video of this (just the CD) so I was glad to add this to my collection. Concert films aren't my favorite things to watch but this was a really great show with a nice set list. I wish they could have cleaned up the video for this release but that may have something to do with how it was originally shot.

Overall this is a 5 star buy for me. Yes I own a lot of the material already but the new items and the packaging (mainly the book) justify double dipping for this release. I hope this review helped. It's my first music review but I wanted to let people know what to expect from this wonderful set.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Regarding the remastering..., November 2, 2011

By 

Giacomo Holdini (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Achtung Baby (Super Deluxe Edition) (Audio CD)

Other reviewers are covering the content and the packaging pretty well. I will mainly comment on the sound quality of the original albums. First, Achtung Baby was remastered. There seems to be some confusion over this, since some reviewers, including those in the music press, claim it wasn't remastered, but that it has only been "boosted," "tweaked," or "polished." Apparently they do not understand that those changes, however slight, are achieved through remastering. That said, I do agree that the changes are pretty subtle, and may not equate to "remastering" as a lot of people understand the term, which is to say, substantial and obvious sonic changes. To my ears, there is a slight increase in gain and presence in the newer Achtung Baby mastering, but it's nothing revelatory. Comparing the tracks of the new and old CDs in a wave editor reveals a slight, but definite, increase in overall loudness on the newer version. Despite that, I have to listen pretty closely to hear the differences. This is not a put-down of the mastering job done for this release; actually, just the opposite. It's nice to see mastering engineers using some restraint and not fixing what isn't broken. So often, it seems engineers feel the need to justify their efforts by making substantial changes, regardless of whether or not those changes need to be made. The original Achtung Baby CD from 1991 already sounded great, which is confirmed by the remastering here. If forced to choose, I would probably go with the newer mastering, but honestly, I don't think the improvements are significant enough to warrant re-purchasing the album, if your only interest is to get updated sound.

Upon first listening, the new Zooropa CD struck me as sounding identical to the original 1993 CD. Based solely on those A/B comparisons, I could not tell the difference between the two CDs. However, viewing the tracks of the old and new CDs in a wave editor reveals some slight differences in certain areas of certain songs, mainly in terms of loudness and dynamics. In listening to those specific areas, I could hear the differences, but only in those specific areas. Elsewhere, the tracks sound identical. Certainly, the differences on Zooropa are more subtle than those on Achtung Baby. Had I not had a visual aid to show me where the differences are, I would not have noticed them. I think under normal listening conditions, the differences will be imperceptible to most listeners.

I gave the package four stars, not because it's not outstanding in its own right, but because there is so much here that most fans already own, which nevertheless contributes to the high cost of the set. As mentioned, the remastering, while good, doesn't really provide much incentive to pony up the cash. The really good stuff in this set - in particular, the "Kindergarten" album and the "From the Sky Down" documentary - is excellent and well worth getting. It just seems a shame to have to pay for such an expensive - and redundant - package in order to obtain the best of what it has to offer. While the set is impressive in its scope, I would have been just as happy - happier, actually - with a pared down set that offered the most important content for a lower price.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I LOVE it, but also wish content was better, November 2, 2011

By 

Erin E. Mulkearns (Seattle) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Achtung Baby (Super Deluxe Edition) (Audio CD)

I was really excited about getting this deluxe edition, even though I already have most of the content, because Achtung Baby is, for me, an absolutely perfect album and my favorite ever. The first four CDs weren't anything special for me, since I already own Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and most of the remixes from the Uber and Unter discs (and I'm not that crazy about remixes in general anyway). The 5th disc I was originally disappointed in, because some of the songs clearly have vocals that were recorded recently; the difference in Bono's voice quality and range is obvious. However, it does call itself "B-Sides and Bonus Tracks," so I'm okay with just telling myself that these are the "bonus tracks" and it's fine if they're recent. I haven't gotten all the way through this disc yet, so I'm not sure how much of the material I already own (looks like most but not all), but I'm still happy to have these songs with decent sound quality. The 6th disc, "Kindergarten - the alternative Achtung Baby" is awesome. It was actually what I popped in first, while I was still perusing the book. I love hearing where these great songs came from and other directions they could have taken, although none are as good as the album versions in my opinion. It's a perfect record, how could they make these songs better?)

I've only watched the first of the DVD discs so far, and I loved "From the Sky Down." I've read Bill Flanagan's book "U2 at the End of the World" many times, and I'm glad they didn't gloss over the importance of "One" in really saving the band. My only small complaint with the film was that it might be difficult for viewers who don't know the band members' voices well to tell who was speaking, and at times it was important to know who it was. I didn't have any problems, but a casual viewer might. I already have the ZooTV Live from Sydney DVD, and I sort of wish they had been able to put in DVD of a different show from the tour (Like Live From Dublin in August of '93, maybe--even a high quality soundboard audio recording, which does exist, of this show would have improved the newness of the material), although I doubt many were filmed in enough detail back in those days.

The book is great; mostly images with a few sections of writing from people who know details about the album. I would have appreciated more words added, but again, I guess that's what Bill Flanagan's book is for.

I'm really glad I bought this, and for me it was worth the money, but I do wish there were more things included that the die-hard fan wouldn't already have in their collection.