“Achtung Baby… U2’s daring descent into darkness” – Robert Hilburn, LA Times

Island Records, Interscope and UMe today announce the 30th Anniversary Edition release of U2’s seminal album Achtung Baby, which will see a special Standard and Deluxe vinyl release on 19th November, ahead of a 50-track digital boxset available 3rd December 2021.

Thirty years ago, Bono described Achtung Baby as “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree” while Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that “stripped-down and defying its old formulas, U2 has given itself a fighting chance for the 1990’s”. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance and became one of the most significant records of the nineties and of U2’s career.

Recorded over six months at Hansa Studio in Berlin and Windmill Lane in Dublin, Achtung Baby is U2’s seventh studio album. Produced by long time U2 collaborators, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno with Steve Lillywhite, Achtung Baby was engineered by Flood and released on 18th November 1991. Lead by The Fly, four other singles followed: Mysterious Ways, One, Even Better Than The Real Thing and Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.

In celebration of Achtung Baby’s anniversary, the band have collaborated with Berlin-based French artist Thierry Noir (the first artist to paint on the Berlin Wall) for a special one-off installation at the legendary Hansa Studios in Kreuzberg. Thirty years ago, the band commissioned Noir to paint a series of now iconic Trabant cars, which featured on the album artwork, as well 1991’s Zoo TV Tour. U2 x THIERRY NOIR sees Noir return with a newly painted Trabant for 2021, as well as an exclusive mural painted on a section of the Berlin wall.

The bonnet of the Trabant will be auctioned at Phillips, London on 9th December as part of their New Now sale with proceeds going to Berlin Institute for Sound and Music.

Achtung Baby (30th Anniversary Edition) is available on Standard black vinyl and Deluxe colour vinyl on 19th November, with Achtung Baby (2018 Remaster) and Achtung Baby (Unter Remixes) also available digitally that day. A 50-track digital boxset – to include Uber Remixes, Unter Remixes, B-Sides with 22 tracks never before available digitally – will be released on 3rd December 2021.

U2 X-Radio, the band’s SiriusXM channel, will this month present an Achtung Baby special to include interviews with band members and album collaboration Daniel Lanois, Flood and Anton Corbijn.