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As 2011′s grande finale comes into sight, I find myself getting introspective about the music I truly love, or have loved for a long time. Thus, I’ve decided to write about it in a little web mini series called “Record Player”, where I’ll talk about why certain albums mean a lot to me. These are not album reviews. Sometimes they’ll probably barely talk about the tracks on the album at all. Thing of them simply as musical letters. This is probably the closest I’ll come to “National Novel Writing Month” this November…

(quick aside: has anyone else noticed that the abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo – sounds like a kick-ass Norse god name? Anyway…)

I’ve chosen this first entry based on it being timely. This November, U2′s Achtung Baby celebrates its 20th anniversary. I’m not nostalgic for that anniversary, per se – this was not an album I picked up upon its initial release. In fact, this album didn’t really hit me until my final university days in 2003. But when it really hit, it stuck.

I can tell you that I probably know more about Achtung Baby than a large percentage of the population. That’s not bragging. In fact, sometimes I think it’s a little sad. If I were to tell you I wrote the book on this album, I’d be lying, but I can say I’ve read several books about this album and about U2′s career at this time in general, and I’ve also written multiple papers on this album. I’m not kidding. I did a course in university called “Religion and Popular Music” where I wrote about religion and post-modernism throughout this record. Yep. I got all the girls with that one…

In all seriousness though, beyond the actual songs, I know so many anecdotes that surround the band during the early 90s, it’s hilarious. Their dalliances with Bill Clinton and Salman Rushdie. Their trysts with supermodels. The batch of stories from the various members’ personal lives that prove Achtung is probably the most lyrically and musically complex album they ever released (beating by far the other fan favourite, The Joshua Tree). But I’ll go back to my beginnings with the album:

This record was given to me by my friend Ray when I was still in High School. I don’t really remember much of our conversation about it at the time – I just remember really liking “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” and “Even Better Than the Real Thing,” and that was about it. Nothing more to really say about it for several more years. This illustrates one of my favourite ideas about music as art – some music you have to wait for. It’s not about how high or low art it is. It’s not about you being ‘not smart enough,’ or ‘not evolved enough’ for it either. Sometimes, you just need certain music at different points in your life. When I was sixteen, I didn’t need Achtung Baby.

But then I was twenty, and twenty one, and things had changed. Aside from changes to my musical taste, I found myself reading some of the writers I would later learn had inspired the direction of Achtung (Charles Bukowski being one of those writers). I’d also found myself intrigued by the philosophy surrounding the album, which is another of my favourite ideas about music as art: that a collection of songs done right can be more than that. It can be a world onto itself, just like other artistic mediums like the novel or a film. Yes, the songs have to be great (which they obviously are), but to me, there has to be more meat on the bones for an album to step across the line from really good to truly great. And we all know that not every album has the gravitas to do that – sometimes songs are just songs.

This one was more than that, though, and I think it defined what I looked for in an album when it came to the above paragraph’s idea. I’m not a huge fan of “the concept album” in a strict sense. Personally, I find it either fails on the level of not developing said concept well enough, or does so to the detriment of the songs themselves. An album with strong themes, however, is much more attractive – at its best, I think such albums go for the heart in the microcosm of the individual song, and yet hint at the larger world in their connection to one another. And the best part is it’s not elitist in the slightest. If you put on Achtung Baby at a party, most people (who are in their late twenties and above) will comment/react in the following ways if they like the album (1) They will try to dance awkwardly to “Even Better Than the Real Thing” or “Mysterious Ways” (for the record: both are un-danceable), (2) they may try to dance romantically to “One,” (oh the irony) (3) if it’s in video form, they will remark about how ridiculous Bono looked/remark about how cool Bono looked at the time (4) They may talk about the three different videos for “One” (5) They may mention the crazy stage show for that tour (which has since been overshadowed by later stage designs, but should be commended as being the first of its kind for them). All of these things are fine, if that’s what you’re into. Say what you want about the band, but U2 are a group of smart people. They knew they wanted to have fun with their image at that time because they were being crushed by their own ‘virtue.’ But they are also a band incapable of truly ‘under-thinking’ their actions. Even if you start listing their failures (Rattle and Hum, Pop, etc.), you can quickly see they were the result of over-thinking what they were doing, not under-thinking. And so Achtung Baby is surface glitz and glam skewered by honesty and depth. And that is what I love about it.

One of my final courses at MUN was a history course in Rock n Roll, taught by a man named Skip Fischer. In his opening lecture, he said a sentence I will never forget: “Rock n Roll helps me to understand things.” A very simple sentence that rang very true to me at the time, especially in the context of describing why it’s important. There are people out there that don’t value music beyond being a soundtrack to more important things in their lives. And then there are people who love music, but feel that most rock n roll – especially mainstream rock n roll – is throwaway. But the best stuff – mainstream or not – has the potential to help you understand your world. It does this both by providing the aforementioned soundtrack to your life, but it also adds an indescribable depth to your experiences through the combination of music and lyrics. It might involve some posturing and silliness, but that’s a part of our lives too, isn’t it? It’s funny to think back to my experiences as a twenty year old, when I would listen to certain songs on this hugely popular album made by four superstars from Ireland and feel like I was living the verses and choruses; they knew the score for the kid from St. John’s. Seemingly ridiculous, but that’s the magic, isn’t it?

I think describing this sort of thing could be likened to trying to describe being in love. As in: it’s powerful, it’s at least slightly embarrassing in description a lot of the time, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I feel sorry for you and hope you feel it someday. And our love affairs with albums diminish over time. I certainly don’t spin Achtung Baby as much as I did almost ten years ago. But it was there when I needed it. It was there when it was supposed to be there.