The Alternative Number Ones: U2’s “One”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

Achtung Baby was U2's grand reinvention, the moment when they threw out their old playbook and tried to figure out who they could be in a changing world. They looked outside rock 'n' roll for inspiration, pulling sounds from the worlds of dance and industrial. They adopted a winking, ironic pose and actively repudiated the kind of sincerity that they'd put into the world in the '80s. They went for flash and spectacle and gaudiness, and they were supremely successful at all of it. Achtung Baby got great reviews, sold a kajillion copies, spun off a gang of hit singles, and launched an enormously successful stadium tour. All of that had a tremendous effect on U2's future, to the extent that they just opened the Sphere in Las Vegas with a run of shows pegged to an Achtung Baby anniversary.

So there's something funny about the most enduringly successful song from Achtung Baby being the grand, aching, sincere power ballad. The whole idea of Achtung Baby pretty much disappears on "One." Instead of going for choppy, clubby barrage, "One" hits the kind of magisterial grandeur that U2 always brought to their ballads. U2 talked a big game about tearing the Joshua Tree down with Achtung Baby, but with minor adjustments, "One" could've easily appeared on that record. But then again, "One" is also the song that allowed U2 to make Achtung Baby in the first place. Without "One," you don't get Achtung Baby.