Various Artists "(Ăhk-to͝ong Ba͞y-bi) Covered: U2 Tribute"

AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered, stylized as (Ăhk-to͝ong Ba͞y-bi) Covered or (Ăℎk-to͝ong Ba͞y-bi) Covered, is a tribute album featuring cover versions of the 12 songs from U2's 1991 record Achtung Baby. It was released on 26 October 2011 as a pack-in CD with the December 2011 issue of Q (issue #305). The magazine commissioned the album to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Achtung Baby's original release and Q's 25th anniversary. The magazine's editor-in-chief Paul Rees said, "This is an entirely appropriate way to mark Q's anniversary and that of Achtung Baby, one of the pivotal albums in our lifetime." The performing artists are a mix of U2's contemporaries and successors, including Jack White, Patti Smith, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, The Killers, and Garbage. Although a tribute album, AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered contains a remix of "Even Better Than the Real Thing" that is credited as performed by U2.

On 15 November 2011, the album was made available via digital download through the iTunes Store. All proceeds from digital sales will go to Concern Worldwide, an Ireland-based non-profit organisation that provides aid to the world's poorest countries. Concern's CEO Tom Arnold said, "Offering the proceeds from (Ahk-toong Bay-Bi) Covered to Concern's East Africa appeal also provides a timely reminder that alleviation of the hunger and wider health crisis in the region must not be forgotten and should remain a global priority." Arnold said he was taken aback but delighted when he was asked by U2 lead singer Bono if his organisation would accept all proceeds from sales of the tribute album.

The album debuted at #53 in the U.S. and #46 in Canada.

U2 "All That You Can't Leave Behind"

All That You Can't Leave Behind is the tenth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and was released on 30 October 2000 through Island Records and Interscope Records. Following the mixed reception to their 1997 album, Pop, All That You Can't Leave Behind represented a return to a more mainstream sound for the band after they experimented with alternative rock and dance music in the 1990s. At the time of the album's release, U2 said on several occasions that they were "reapplying for the job ... [of] the best band in the world". U2 brought back Eno and Lanois, who had produced three of the band's previous albums. The album was originally named "U2000", which had been a working title for their PopMart Tour.

All That You Can't Leave Behind received favourable reviews from critics and sold over 12 million copies. The songs "Beautiful Day", "Walk On", "Elevation", and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" were all successful singles. The record and its songs won seven Grammy Awards; it is the only album in history to have multiple tracks win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year: "Beautiful Day" in 2001 and "Walk On" in 2002. In 2003, the album was ranked number 139 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", but it was re-ranked at number 280 in 2012. The supporting Elevation Tour, on which the band returned to playing arenas with a more intimate stage design, was also a critical and commercial success.

The photograph on the album cover was taken by long-time U2 photographer Anton Corbijn in the Roissy Hall 2F of the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. Unlike the busy colour sleeves of the band's 1990s records, the cover is a single monochrome image of the band in the airport's departure terminal. The designers describe the look they created as "grown up". Early versions of the cover released to the press show a departure sign that reads "F21-36", however, this was changed to J33-3 in reference to the Bible verse Jeremiah 33:3, "Call unto me and I will answer thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not." Bono referred to it as "God's phone number". The lyric "3:33 when the numbers fell off the clock face" appears on the song "Unknown Caller" from the group's 2009 album No Line on the Horizon.

U2 "Achtung Baby"

Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 18 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by criticism of their 1988 release, Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. Thematically, Achtung Baby is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than their previous work. The album and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, by which they abandoned their earnest public image for a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one.

Seeking inspiration from German reunification, U2 began recording Achtung Baby at Berlin's Hansa Studios in October 1990. The sessions were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. After tensions and slow progress nearly prompted the group to disband, they made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One". Morale and productivity improved during subsequent recording sessions in Dublin, where the album was completed in 1991. To confound the public's expectations of the band and their music, U2 chose the record's facetious title and colourful multi-image sleeve.

Achtung Baby is one of U2's most successful records; it received favourable reviews and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 Top Albums, while topping the charts in many other countries. Five songs were released as commercial singles, all of which were chart successes, including "One", "Mysterious Ways", and "The Fly". The album has sold 18 million copies worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Achtung Baby has since been acclaimed by writers and music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. The record was reissued in October 2011 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its original release.

After U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree and the supporting Joshua Tree Tour brought them critical acclaim and commercial success, their 1988 album and film Rattle and Hum precipitated a critical backlash. Although the record sold 14 million copies and performed well on music charts, critics were dismissive of it and the film, labelling the band's exploration of early American music as "pretentious" and "misguided and bombastic". U2's high exposure and their reputation for being overly serious led to accusations of grandiosity and self-righteousness.

Despite their commercial popularity, the group were dissatisfied creatively; lead vocalist Bono believed they were musically unprepared for their success, while drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. said, "We were the biggest, but we weren't the best." By the band's 1989 Lovetown Tour, they had become bored with playing their greatest hits. U2 believe that audiences misunderstood the group's collaboration with blues musician B.B. King on Rattle and Hum and the Lovetown Tour, and they described it as "an excursion down a dead-end street". Bono said that, in retrospect, listening to black music enabled the group to create a work such as Achtung Baby, while their experiences with folk music helped him to develop as a lyricist. Towards the end of the Lovetown Tour, Bono announced on-stage that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again". Following the tour, the group began, what was at the time, their longest break from public performances and album releases.

Reacting to their own sense of musical stagnation and to their critics, U2 searched for new musical ground. They wrote "God Part II" from Rattle and Hum after realising they had excessively pursued nostalgia in their songwriting. The song had a more contemporary feel that Bono said was closer to Achtung Baby's direction. Further indications of change were two recordings they made in 1990: the first was a cover version of "Night and Day" for the first Red Hot + Blue release, in which U2 used electronic dance beats and hip hop elements for the first time; the second indication of change was contributions made by Bono and guitarist the Edge to the original score of A Clockwork Orange's stage adaptation. Much of the material they wrote was experimental, and according to Bono, "prepar[ed] the ground for Achtung Baby". Ideas deemed inappropriate for the play were put aside for the band's use. During this period, Bono and the Edge began increasingly writing songs together without Mullen or bassist Adam Clayton.


In mid-1990, Bono reviewed material he had written in Australia on the Lovetown Tour, and the group recorded demos at STS Studios in Dublin. The demos later evolved into the songs "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses", "Until the End of the World", "Even Better Than the Real Thing", and "Mysterious Ways". After their time at STS Studios, Bono and the Edge were tasked with continuing to work on lyrics and melodies until the group reconvened. Going into the album sessions, U2 wanted the record to completely deviate from their past work, but they were unsure how to achieve this. The emergence of the Madchester scene in the UK left them confused about how they would fit into any particular musical scene.

U2 hired Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno to produce the album, based on the duo's prior work with the band on The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree. Lanois was principal producer, with Mark "Flood" Ellis as engineer. Eno took on an assisting role, working with the group in the studio for a week at a time to review their songs before leaving for a month or two. Eno said his role was "to come in and erase anything that sounded too much like U2". By distancing himself from the work, he believed he provided the band with a fresh perspective on their material each time he rejoined them. As he explained, "I would deliberately not listen to the stuff in between visits, so I could go in cold". Since U2 wanted the record to be harder-hitting and live-sounding, Lanois "push[ed] the performance aspect very hard, often to the point of recklessness". The Lanois–Eno team used lateral thinking and a philosophical approach—popularised by Eno's Oblique Strategies—that contrasted with the direct and retro style of Rattle and Hum producer Jimmy Iovine.

The sleeve artwork for Achtung Baby was designed by Steve Averill, who had created the majority of U2's album covers, along with Shaughn McGrath. To parallel the band's change in musical direction, Averill and McGrath devised sleeve concepts that used multiple colour images to contrast with the seriousness of the individual, mostly monochromatic images from previous U2 album sleeves. Rough sketches and designs were created early during the recording sessions, and some experimental designs were conceived to closely resemble, as Averill put it, "dance-music oriented sleeves. We just did them to show how extreme we could go and then everyone came back to levels that they were happy with. But if we hadn't gone to these extremes it may not have been the cover it is now."

As early as December 1990, the music press reported that U2 would be recording a dance-oriented album and that it would be released in mid-1991. In August 1991, sound collage artists Negativland released an EP entitled U2 that parodied U2's song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". Island Records objected to the release, believing consumers would confuse the EP for a new U2 record. Island successfully sued for copyright infringement but were criticised in the music press, as were U2, although they were not involved in the litigation. Uncut's Stephen Dalton believes that the negative headlines were tempered by the success of Achtung Baby's first single, "The Fly", released on 21 October 1991 a month before the album. Sounding nothing like U2's typical style, it was selected as the lead single to announce the group's new musical direction. It became their second song to top the UK Singles Chart, while reaching number one on the singles charts in Ireland and Australia. The single was less successful in the US, peaking at number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Island Records and U2 refused to make advance copies of the album available to the press until just a few days before the release date, preferring that fans listen to the record before reading reviews. The decision came amid rumours of tensions within the band, and journalist David Browne compared it to the Hollywood practice of withholding pre-release copies of films from reviewers whenever they receive poor word-of-mouth press. Achtung Baby was released on 18 November 1991 in the UK and 19 November in the US on compact disc, tape cassette, and vinyl record, with an initial shipment of more than 1.4 million copies in the US. The album was the first release by a major act to use two so-called "eco-friendly" packages—the cardboard Digipak, and the shrinkwrapped jewel case without the longbox cardboard attachment. Island encouraged record stores to order the jewel case packaging by offering a four-percent discount.

Achtung Baby was U2's first album in three years and their first comprising entirely new material in over four years. The group maintained a low profile after the record's release, avoiding interviews and allowing critics and the public to make their own assessments. Instead of participating in an article with Rolling Stone magazine, U2 asked Eno to write one for them. The marketing plan for the album focused on retail and press promotions. In addition to television and radio advertisements being produced, posters featuring the sleeve's 16 images were distributed to record stores and through alternative newspapers in major cities. Compared to the large hype of other 1991 year-end releases, the marketing for Achtung Baby was relatively understated, as Island general manager Andy Allen explained: "U2 will not come out with that kind of fanfare in terms of outside media. We feel the fan base itself creates that kind of excitement."

"Mysterious Ways" was released as the second single five days after the release of Achtung Baby. On the US Billboard charts, the song topped the Modern Rock Tracks and Album Rock Tracks charts, and it reached number nine on the Hot 100. Elsewhere, it reached number one in Canada and number three in Australia. In addition to the success of the first two singles, the album performed well commercially; in the US, Achtung Baby debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 Top Albums on 7 December 1991, having sold 295,000 copies in its first week. The album fell to number three the following week, but spent its first 13 weeks on the chart within the top ten. In total, it spent 101 weeks on the Billboard 200 Top Albums. On 21 January 1992, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it double-platinum. Achtung Baby peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart, spending 92 weeks on the chart. In other regions, it topped the RPM 100 in Canada, the ARIA Albums Chart in Australia, and the RIANZ Top 40 Albums in New Zealand. The record sold seven million copies in its first three months on sale.

Three additional commercial singles were released in 1992. "One", released in March at the beginning of the Zoo TV Tour, reached number seven in the UK and number ten in the US charts. Like its predecessor, it topped the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the singles charts in Canada and Ireland. The song has since become regarded as one of the greatest of all time, ranking highly on many critics' lists. The fourth single from Achtung Baby, "Even Better Than the Real Thing", was released in June. The album version of the song peaked at number 12 on the UK Singles Chart, while reaching number one on the US Album Rock Tracks chart. A "Perfecto" remix of the song by DJ Paul Oakenfold performed better in the UK than the album version did, peaking at number eight. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" followed in August 1992 as the fifth and final single. It peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, and number two on the US Album Rock Tracks chart. All five commercial singles charted within the top 20 in Ireland, Australia, Canada, and UK. Promotional singles for "Until the End of the World", "Salomé", and "Zoo Station" were also released. By the end of 1992, Achtung Baby had sold 10 million copies worldwide.


In October 1992, U2 released Achtung Baby: The Videos, the Cameos, and a Whole Lot of Interference from Zoo TV, a VHS and LaserDisc compilation of nine music videos from the album. Running for 65 minutes, it was produced by Ned O'Hanlon and released by Island and PolyGram. It included three music videos each for "One" and "Even Better than the Real Thing", along with videos for "The Fly", "Mysterious Ways", and "Until the End of the World". Interspersed between the music videos were clips of so-called "interference", comprising documentary footage, media clips, and other video similar to what was displayed at Zoo TV Tour concerts. The release was certified platinum in the US, and gold in Canada.

U2 "The Unforgettable Fire"

The Unforgettable Fire is the fourth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and released on 1 October 1984 by Island Records. The band wanted to pursue a new musical direction following the harder-hitting rock of their previous album, War (1983). As a result, they employed Eno and Lanois to produce and assist in their experimentation with a more ambient and abstract sound. The resulting change in direction was at the time the band's most dramatic. The album's title is a reference to "The Unforgettable Fire"—an art exhibit about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The band saw the exhibit during the War Tour.

Recording began in May 1984 at Slane Castle, where the band lived, wrote, and recorded to find new inspiration. The album was completed in August 1984 at Windmill Lane Studios. It features atmospheric sounds and lyrics that lead vocalist Bono describes as "sketches". "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and "MLK" are lyrical tributes to Martin Luther King Jr.

The Unforgettable Fire received generally favourable reviews from critics and produced the band's biggest hit at the time, "Pride (In the Name of Love)", as well as the live favourite "Bad", a song about heroin addiction. A 25th anniversary edition of the album was released in October 2009.

U2 feared that following the overt rock of their 1983 War album and War Tour, they were in danger of becoming another "shrill", "sloganeering arena-rock band". The success of the 1983 Under a Blood Red Sky live album and the Live at Red Rocks video, however, had given them artistic—and for the first time—financial room to move. Following a show at Dublin's Phoenix Park Racecourse in August 1983, one of the final dates of the War Tour, lead vocalist Bono spoke in metaphors about the band breaking up and reforming with a different direction. In the 10th issue of U2 magazine, issued in February 1984, Bono hinted at radical changes on the next album saying that he couldn't "sleep at night with the thought of it all" and that they were "undertaking a real departure". As bassist Adam Clayton recalls, "We were looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty."

The band had recorded their first three albums with producer Steve Lillywhite, and rather than create the "son of War", they sought experimentation. Both Lillywhite and the band agreed that it was time for a change of producers and not to "repeat the same formula". The band had considered using Jimmy Iovine to produce a new record. However, they found their early musical ideas for the album to be too "European" for an American producer. They also considered approaching Conny Plank, whose previous credits included Can, Kraftwerk and Ultravox, and Roxy Music producer Rhett Davies.


Guitarist The Edge had a long appreciation of musician Brian Eno's work, and admired his ambient and "weird works". The band were also fond of his work with Talking Heads. Having never worked with music such as U2's, Eno was also initially reluctant. When the band played him Under a Blood Red Sky, his eyes "glazed over". Eno had brought along his engineer Daniel Lanois to his meeting with U2 intending to recommend Lanois work with the band instead. Eno's earlier doubts were resolved by Bono's power of persuasion and his increasing perception of what he called "U2's lyrical soul in abundance", traits which had become less evident on the War album. Eno commented that the band were "constantly struggling against it as if they were frightened of being overpowered by some softness". Eno was impressed by how they spoke, which was not in terms of music or playing, but in terms of their contributions to the "identity of the band as a whole". Eno and Lanois eventually agreed to produce the record. Eno explained that he focused on the ideas and conceptual aspects, while Lanois handled the production aspects. In Bill Graham's words, Eno's task was to "help them mature a new, more experimental and European musical vocabulary". Island Records boss Chris Blackwell initially tried to talk them out of hiring Eno, believing that just when the band were about to achieve the highest levels of success, Eno would "bury them under a layer of avant-garde nonsense". Nick Stewart, also of Island Records, said that at the time he thought they were "mad", but that the group's decision to stretch themselves and find an extra dimension became the "turning point in their career".

The songs "Pride (In the Name of Love)", "The Unforgettable Fire", and "A Sort of Homecoming" were initially composed at Bono's house in a Martello Tower in Bray Co. Wicklow. Recording for the album began in early May 1984 with a month-long session at Slane Castle, County Meath. Windmill Lane Studios, where they had recorded their first three albums, had no live room, so Slane was chosen instead as a venue where they could record and play live in rooms with good sound quality. The band and crew stayed in the castle, and living together during the sessions fostered a camaraderie. They chose the castle's Gothic ballroom, which was specifically built for music with a 30-foot high domed ceiling, and it provided a relaxed and experimental atmosphere. It proved so relaxed, that one day, the band went so far as to record naked. "We got into gaffer art", commented Bono. Their approach at Slane was that rather than use effects and reverberation to revitalise usual studio sound, they would do the opposite and use a live room to "tame...[their]...wild sound".


Randy Ezratty's company Effanel Music, who recorded U2 in Boston and Red Rocks the previous year, was hired with his (then unique) portable 24-track recording system. His equipment was set up in the castle's library with cables run into the adjacent ballroom where the band played. The generator powering the studio often broke down and most of the Edge's guitar parts were recorded with the amplifier outside on the balcony with plastic over it to shelter it from the rain. The ballroom turned out to be too large, so recording was moved to a library in the castle which was smaller, surrounded them by books, and provided improved sound quality. Barry Devlin and his film crew visited the castle to make a documentary for RTÉ-TV about the sessions. The 30-minute programme, The Making of The Unforgettable Fire was released in 1985 on VHS as part of The Unforgettable Fire Collection.

According to the Edge, Eno was more interested in the more unconventional material and did not take much interest in "Pride (In the Name of Love)" or "The Unforgettable Fire". However, Lanois would "cover for him" such that the two balanced each other out. Much of the album was later recast in Windmill Lane Studios, where they recorded from 6 June to 5 August. For the first time on a U2 album, a synthesizer was used; a Fairlight CMI was used to work up a number of songs, the textures of which were later filled out with strings and other orchestration. At Windmill Lane, tension grew between the production team and the band, largely because the band "couldn't finish anything". Twelve days before the official finishing date, Bono said he could not finish the lyrics, and the band worked 20-hour days for the final two weeks. Bono later said he felt songs like "Bad" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" were left as incomplete "sketches".

The Unforgettable Fire was released on 1 October 1984. The album took its name and much of its inspiration from a Japanese travelling exhibition of paintings and drawings at The Peace Museum in Chicago by survivors of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The band spent a few days driving around Ireland with photographer Anton Corbijn looking for potential locations. The castle depicted on the cover is Moydrum Castle. The band liked the image's ambiguity and the Irish mysticism they saw in it. The photograph, however, was a virtual copy of a picture on the cover of a 1980 book In Ruins: The Once Great Houses of Ireland by Simon Marsden. It was taken from the same spot and used the same solarised filter technique, but with the addition of the four band members. For this copyright infringement, the band had to pay an unknown sum to the photographer.

"Pride (In the Name of Love)" was released as the album's lead single in September 1984, and it was at that point the band's biggest hit. It cracked the UK Top 5 and the U.S. Top 40 and would ultimately become the group's most frequently played song in concerts.


"The Unforgettable Fire" was released as the second single in April 1985. The song became the band's third Top 10 hit in the UK, reaching number six on the UK Singles Chart and number 8 on the Dutch singles chart, but did not perform as well in the U.S.