Tuesday, June 24, 2008

609. U2 - Joshua Tree (1987)
















Track Listing


1. Where The Streets Have No Name
2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
3. With Or Without You
4. Bullet The Blue Sky
5. Running To Stand Still
6. Red Hill Mining Town
7. In God's Country
8. Trip Through Your Wires
9. One Tree Hill
10. Exit
11. Mothers Of The Disappeared


Review


From the opening moments of the album you can tell that this is most definitely produced by Brian Eno, then you get the layers upon layers of effects on Edge's guitar and you know you have U2 here, even if you didn't know the song, which you most likely do.

This is definitely one of their best albums, they went out looking for American music and came back with a mix that has been widely influential since then, epic pop-rock bands like Coldplay would not be here if it wasn't for this... and the world might be a better place for it.

We should not, however blame the parents for the sins of their children, and this is a pretty good album, with some big problems, it is extremely preachy, self-important and unbelievably top heavy. They asked Kirsty MacColl to place the songs in the album by the order of favourite to least favourite. You end up with an album with the best tracks at the beginning...

Track Highlights

1. With or Without You
2. Where the Streets Have No Name
2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
4. In God's Country

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Named The Joshua Tree as a "tribute" to (rather than a "metaphor" for) America, the album was released in March 1987. It debuted at number one in the UK and also quickly reached the top of the charts in the U.S. U2 became the fourth rock band to be featured on the cover of Time magazine (following The Beatles, The Band, and The Who), who declared that U2 was "Rock's Hottest Ticket". The Joshua Tree is often cited as one of the greatest albums in rock history. The album brought U2 to a new level of mega-stardom, as the worldwide Joshua Tree Tour sold out arenas and stadiums around the world, the first time the band had consistently played venues of that size.

Live With Or Without You:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

First off, ALL U2 albums are top-heavy. Their clunker tracks are nearly always at or near the end of their albums. But #10 on this one, "Exit", is probably one of my 2 or 3 favorite U2 songs.