U2: The Joshua Tree 30th Anniversary Edition Celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of it's 1987 release, it's the ultimate collector's edition of The Joshua Tree. - Time Magazine put U2 on it's cover in April 1987, proclaiming them "Rock's Hottest Ticket" in a defining year for the band that saw their arena dates roll into stadium shows to accommodate escalating demand - setting them on course to become one of the greatest live acts in the world today. - The 12 months that followed saw the band create now-iconic moments: the traffic-stopping Grammy Award-winning music video on the roof of a Los Angeles liquor store, winning a BRIT Award and two Grammys - including Album of the Year - their first of 22 received to date, distinguishing U2 as the most awarded rock band in Grammy history; as well as a triumphant return home with the original Joshua Tree Tour for four unforgettable shows in Belfast, Dublin and Cork in the summer of 1987.
Using the textured sonics of The Unforgettable Fire as a basis, U2 expanded those innovations by scaling back the songs to a personal setting and adding a grittier attack for its follow-up, The Joshua Tree. It's a move that returns them to the sweeping, anthemic rock of War, but if War was an exploding political bomb, The Joshua Tree is a journey through its aftermath, trying to find sense and hope in the desperation. That means that even the anthems -- the epic opener "Where the Streets Have No Name," the yearning "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- have seeds of doubt within their soaring choruses, and those fears take root throughout the album, whether it's in the mournful sliding acoustic guitars of "Running to Stand Still," the surging "One Tree Hill," or the hypnotic elegy "Mothers of the Disappeared." So it might seem a little ironic that U2 became superstars on the back of such a dark record, but their focus has never been clearer, nor has their music been catchier, than on The Joshua Tree. Unexpectedly, U2 have also tempered their textural post-punk with American influences. Not only are Bono's lyrics obsessed with America, but country and blues influences are heard throughout the record, and instead of using these as roots, they're used as ways to add texture to the music. With the uniformly excellent songs -- only the clumsy, heavy rock and portentous lyrics of "Bullet the Blue Sky" fall flat -- the result is a powerful, uncompromising record that became a hit due to its vision and its melody. Never before have U2's big messages sounded so direct and personal. [The Joshua Tree was re-released on LP in 2017.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
U2: Bono (vocals, harmonica); The Edge (guitar, keyboards, background vocals); Adam Clayton (bass); Larry Mullen, Jr. (drums).
Additional personnel includes: Daniel Lanois (guitar, keyboards, tambourine, background vocals); Brian Eno (keyboards, programming, background vocals).
Recorded at Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin, Ireland.
THE JOSHUA TREE won the 1987 Grammy award for album of the year.
- Format: Vinyl
- Genre: Rock
- Remastered
- Gatefold Sleeve
- Black Vinyl
- Double vinyl
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Track Listings
| 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 |
