Coming off the commercial and critical success of 1987's The Joshua Tree, U2 quickly followed it up with Rattle And Hum, a tour film and double album, tracing the band's exploration of American music, specifically Rhythm and Blues. It was panned by critics as being pretentious and trying too hard. At the end of 1989's Lovetown tour, Bono and co. decamped to Berlin to "dream it all up again". Unfortunately, reinvention was harder to come by than originally thought.
I think my favourite part of the entire documentary was (SPOILER ALERT) hearing the chord progression that eventually became uber-ballad 'One' as a bridge in an early demo of 'Mysterious Ways'. Really cool. Achtung Baby was the album that got me into U2. I quickly acquired all of the back catalogue. I loved the first three albums (Boy, October and War) but found the middle period a bit, well, mainstream (which of course they were). Achtung Baby was U2 reinventing itself from serious, mainstream behemoth into a modern (futuristic even), cool, alternative juggernaut. For many years, I was in bands that used U2 and specifically, early 90s U2, as a template. But, more on that later.
Last June, U2 played the Glastonbury Festival and to celebrate Achtung Baby's 20th anniversary, they opened their set with five tracks from the album. My particular favourite is the slightly re-imagined version of 'Even Better Than The Real Thing'. Of course, 'The Fly' was always at the top of my list though. Thanks for reading.
