Achtung Baby - Reception

Reception

Achtung Baby received favourable reviews from critics. Elysa Gardner of Rolling Stone, in a four-and-a-half-star review, said that U2 had "proven that the same penchant for epic musical and verbal gestures that leads many artists to self-parody can, in more inspired hands, fuel the unforgettable fire that defines great rock & roll." The review said that the album, like its predecessor Rattle and Hum, was an attempt by the band to "broaden its musical palette, but this time its ambitions are realized". Bill Wyman of Entertainment Weekly gave the record an "A" and called it a "pristinely produced and surprisingly unpretentious return by one of the most impressive bands in the world". Steve Morse of The Boston Globe echoed these sentiments, stating that the album "not only reinvigorates their sound, but drops any self-righteousness. The songs focus on personal relationships, not on saving the world." Morse commended the album's "clanging, knob-twisting sound effects" and The Edge's "metallic, head-snapping guitar". In a four-star review, Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times stated, "the arty, guitar-driven textures are among the band's most confident and vigorous ever". He said the album is a difficult one for listeners because of the dark, introspective nature of the songs, which contrasts with the group's uplifting songs of the past. Jon Pareles of The New York Times lauded the record not only for featuring "noisy, vertiginous arrangements", but also for the group's ability to "maintain its pop skills". The review concluded, "Stripped-down and defying its old formulas, U2 has given itself a fighting chance for the 1990s."

Q's Mat Snow gave Achtung Baby a five-star rating and called it U2's "heaviest album to date. And best." Snow praised the band and its production team for making "music of drama, depth, intensity and, believe it, funkiness". Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune wrote a favourable three-out-of-four stars review, saying the record "shows the band in a grittier light: disrupting, rather than fulfilling, expectations". He praised Lanois' production and said that due to The Edge's guitar playing, "U2 sounds punkier than it has since its 1980 debut, Boy". Kot concluded his review by calling the album "a magnificent search for transcendence made all the more moving for its flaws". Niall Stokes of Hot Press gave the record a score of 10-out-of-12, writing, "Ostensibly decadent, sensual and dark, it is a record of, and for, these times." The New Zealand Herald published a favourable three-and-a-half star review, calling the album "pretty damn good" and its sound "subdued, tightly controlled, introverted". However, it said that too many "downbeat moments where songs seem to be going nowhere" prevented it from being a "truly wondrous affair". Spin was more critical of the record, calling it an "ambitious failure"; the review welcomed its experimentation but judged that when the group "strays from familiar territory, the results are hit-and-miss". Robert Christgau rated it a dud, and in 1993, he reflected on this sentiment: "After many, many tries, Achtung Baby still sounded like a damnably diffuse U2 album to me, and I put it in the hall unable to describe a single song." In a retrospective five-star review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic praised the band's musical transformation as "thorough", "effective", and "endlessly inventive". Erlewine concluded that few artists at that stage in their career could have "recorded an album as adventurous or fulfilled their ambitions quite as successfully as U2 ".

The success of Achtung Baby and the Zoo TV Tour re-established U2 as one of the most popular and critically acclaimed musical acts in the world. The group nearly swept Rolling Stone's 1992 end-of-year readers' polls, winning honours for "Best Single" ("One"), "Artist of the Year", "Best Album", "Best Songwriter" (Bono), "Best Album Cover", and "Comeback of the Year", among others. The album placed fourth on the "Best Albums" list from The Village Voice's 1991 Pazz & Jop critics' poll. At the 35th Grammy Awards in 1993, Achtung Baby won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and it earned Lanois and Eno the award for Producer of the Year (Non-Classical). The record was also nominated for the Album of the Year award.