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 19 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.