New, 30th anniversary editions of U2’s seminal Achtung Baby album are to be released by Island Records, Interscope, and UMe. The Standard and Deluxe vinyl release will be this Friday (November 19) with a 50-track digital box set available from December 3.
Achtung Baby (30th Anniversary Edition) will be available on standard black vinyl and deluxe color vinyl on November 19, with Achtung Baby (2018 Remaster) and Achtung Baby (Unter Remixes) available digitally the same day. The 50-track box set will include Uber Remixes, Unter Remixes, and B-Sides, featuring 22 tracks never before available digitally.
U2 have collaborated with the Berlin-based French artist Thierry Noir, the first artist to paint on the Berlin Wall, on a one-off installation at the famed Hansa Studios in Kreuzberg. Thirty years ago, the band commissioned Noir to paint the series of Trabant cars that featured in the album artwork, and on 1991’s Zoo TV Tour. U2 x THIERRY NOIR marks Noir’s return with a newly-painted Trabant for 2021, as well as an exclusive mural painted on a section of the Berlin wall. Click here for free access and information.
The bonnet of the Trabant is to be auctioned at Phillips, London on December 9, as part of their New Now sale, from which proceeds will go to the Berlin Institute for Sound and Music. More information is available here.
The band’s SiriusXM channel U2 X-Radio will this month present an Achtung Baby special that will include interviews with band members and their collaborators on Achtung Baby, Daniel Lanois, Flood and Anton Corbijn. More details here.
Achtung Baby, recorded over six months at Hansa and at Windmill Lane in Dublin, was released on November 18, 1991. It topped charts worldwide and went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance. Upon its release, Bono described it as “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree,” in reference to its classic 1987 predecessor. Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote: “Stripped-down and defying its old formulas, U2 has given itself a fighting chance for the 1990s.”
The album was produced by Lanois and Brian Eno with Steve Lillywhite, and engineered by Flood. It featured the hit singles “The Fly,” “Mysterious Ways,” “One,” “Even Better Than The Real Thing,” and “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.”
Pre-order the 30th anniversary editions of Achtung Baby.