Achtung Baby [Super Deluxe]

An alternate and/or nascent mix of Achtung Baby not only doesn't add to the dialog, it perhaps subtracts from it.

Since that time in 1991, U2 has had other weighty tracks, sensualist personal soliloquies and dense production - but nothing better than this truly real thing.

The bonus material on discs five and six of the box set (which also includes Achtung Baby's severely underrated 1993 follow-up Zooropa and two pointless discs of remixes that likely won't be of much use even to die-hards) only serve to illuminate how much had to go right for the album to be as good as it was.

Upon further reflection, an Achtung Baby shorn of any extras should be more than enough to satisfy you, after all-that's how it's been served for the past two decades. Everything else is mere garnish on top of a flat-out genius work.

Musically and lyrically, Achtung Baby sounds as fresh and relevant as it did 20 years ago.

The worthy additions in this "super deluxe edition" are nearly all visual.

These tracks are not enough to justify the second disc as anything more than marketing filler, so again, unless you've purchased the biggest, baddest, bank-breaking box set (complete with a replica of The Fly sunglasses), it would be smart to stick to the single-disc version.

Achtung Baby is worth the admission fee alone and ultimately a must-have addition to anyone's music collection.

Two decades on, it remains U2's brightest, darkest, finest hour. [Nov 2011, p.100]

Achtung Baby sounds a like a typical U2 record--a terrific U2 record, arguably the best record U2 has ever made, but not exactly the decisive break from the band's past it is remembered as. What Achtung Baby instead represents is U2's last great creative gasp.

The bonus material is not essential listening, but since U2 rarely pull back the curtain on their creative process, it's fascinating to hear this rough draft of history.

Twenty years on, Achtung (German for "Attention") Baby still sounds zestful and compelling, with some of U2's all-time highs.

The six discs in Achtung Baby: Uber Deluxe Edition may seem like overkill, but most everything here, from the raw demos (a stripped-away "Mysterious Ways" is especially revelatory) to the cache of beat-science remixes that put 1993's confusing Zooropa into better context, is essential to understanding the most inscrutable stadium-filling band in history.

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.

Achtung Baby is the last great U2 album and one of the best records ever made, but is this $150 six-CD, four-DVD 20th anniversary edition worth your time and money? Short answer: F--k yeah