Album News, Anniversary, Box Sets — June 22, 2011 at 11:56 am

U2 preps ‘Achtung Baby,’ ‘Zooropa’ reissues for expanded ZOO TV-era box set this fall

U2, 'Acthung Baby' and 'Zooropa'

Looks like Nirvana’s Nevermind won’t be the only big 20th anniversary reissue coming out this fall: U2 finally is set to release its long-expected reissue of 1991’s Achtung Baby later this year paired, somewhat more unexpectedly, with a re-released edition of the band’s 1993 companion album Zooropa.

According to fan site @U2, a report in the new issue of Rolling Stone — which is not yet online, and hasn’t yet arrived at Slicing Up Eyeballs world headquarters — says the two albums are “likely” be reissued separately this fall and combined in a deluxe box set featuring bonus audio and video material from the ZOO TV era.

The article quotes U2 manager Paul McGuiness:

“There will be multiple formats. If you pile a lot of extra material and packaging and design work into a super-duper box set, there are people who will pay quite a lot for it, so you can budget it at a very high level and pump up the value.”

Last September, word emerged that Achtung Baby was being remastered at a Los Angeles studio. And last month while on tour in Winnipeg, Canada, the band reportedly filmed part of an Achtung Baby documentary with “It Might Get Loud” director Davis Guggenheim, although it’s not yet known whether that will be included in the box set. The new Rolling Stone report is the first indication that a Zooropa reissue also is imminent.

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8 Comments

  1. Perhaps the reason that Zooropa (the song) has made it back into the set list?

  2. very excited about this! :)

  3. Awesome news!

  4. BigFatGeek

    Okay, now when are they going to get around to reissuing Joshua Tree? In 2012 for the 25th anniversary?

  5. “there are people who will pay quite a lot for it, so you can budget it at a very high level and pump up the value”

    I’m a huge U2 fan, but I often feel like they don’t actually offer much value with their “exclusive” material. I’m never too impressed with the packaging of these things either. As a fan, you usually have most of the “bonus” material anyway. For the cost, it would be nice to get some sort of substance, not a book full of some design studio’s art projects.

  6. Honestly the only song off Zooropa I like is….Zooropa, lol.

    What I would like to see U2 do is play something off October other than ‘Scarlet’ which is a bit of a cop out. Every so often we get ‘Gloria’, but that album is very underrated. As well something other than ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ or ‘New Years Day’ off War.

    Vertigo tour was still the best imo. They played venues where you could actually ‘see’ them and played rare stuff like ‘An Cat Dubh’, ‘The Electric Co’, ’40’, ‘Running to Stand Still’, etc… 360 tour sets have been way better in 2011 than the first round in 2009, only thing they played rare then was ‘Unforgettable fire’…

    But Jesus Christmas we had the $250 seats and they were still a mile away…

    Anyway I would love to see these songs pulled out of the archives:

    Rejoice
    Tomorrow
    October
    Fire
    Seconds
    Two Hearts Beat as One
    Surrender
    A Sort of Homecoming

    Throw the old fans a bone or two other than the same chewed up ones we usually get every tour…

  7. “there are people who will pay quite a lot for it, so you can budget it at a very high level and pump up the value”. Seriously, did their manager just say that in print? It’s not as if U2 needs the money. Can’t they just reissue an album for the love of the music and not because of the money to be made? Jesus.

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