So why is U2’s The Joshua Tree on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
It’s funny. The year that The Joshua Tree was released, 1987, reminds me that’s the year I think of as when the 1980s became THE 1980s.
We’re talking neon belts, leg warmers, wild avant-garde sunglasses like the dude from Mannequin wore, and synthetic pop music both great (see: INXS’ Kick, #84 of best 1,000 albums ever) and really not great (I’ll just go ahead and call out Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s “Head to Toe” here, but I’m sure you can come up with your own examples).
But then we also have U2 – who at that point had not released a studio album since 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire (beloved by some, but an album that was not included in the best 1,000 albums ever project) – coming out with a yearning, driving, yet deeply soothing album from a band exploring both the United States and also something deeply personal, deeply internal at the same time.
An antidote and a balm to THE 1980s, really.
Think about that if you like while giving the quiet yet powerful and all kinds of wonderful “Running To Stand Still” a listen.
The Joshua Tree also coincided precisely with the year that I became a teenager and started to become seriously interested in music.
I’ve written before about how U2 and R.E.M. became the “current” bands that I latched onto back then – in addition to the “classic rock” music of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix – to set myself apart from the guys I grew up with on Long Island, New York who identified with the hair metal and power ballad-y music that reigned supreme at the time.
The Joshua Tree became an even more important part of my life many years later. Perhaps over time I grew into being able to fully appreciate it. What I do know is that it became an album that I’d put on to inspire me or calm rattled nerves, and I’d especially enjoy listening to it while driving out on the open road.
“In God’s Country,” while probably in the bottom half of the most well-known songs on this iconic album, is the one that represents all of the above most to me. It’s not related to the song’s lyrics at all, really, though I dig this description by someone on Reddit who said it’s a song “laden with imagery of the American desert, with political allusions and iconography of the two Americas.”
I think that I probably connected to the allusions of the American West most.
Desert sky, dream beneath the desert sky
The rivers run but soon run dry
We need new dreams tonight
This ties to my growing up in the suburban strip mall sprawl in the east and becoming inspired to travel and wander in my twenties, partially motivated by books like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road but mostly by my restless spirit back in those days.
If you’ll rewind with me back to the late ‘80s for a moment, I’ve written before about The Joshua Tree’s album cover, a black and white shot of the band out in Joshua Tree National Park, located east of Los Angeles, not terribly far from Palm Springs.
My friends and I spent a lot of time at my friend Jake’s house during that era, and in his bedroom was a large poster of the album cover. I’d stare at it in wonder, thinking about how exotic the locale seemed compared to my suburban surroundings.
It’s fascinating to think about what we absorbed in our younger years that may have played some small but vital role in all that would happen next.
I have similar feelings about “One Tree Hill” – a relative deep cut – as I do about “In God’s Country.” Both are deeply gorgeous tracks, perfection really for a band just starting to hit its prime.
And look at this: I’ve gotten this far without having once mentioned the Big Hits on The Joshua Tree.
How big is big? “With Or Without You” has 1.1 billion plays on Spotify and counting, for example. If you want to consider the first three tracks the Big Three of The Joshua Tree (“Where The Streets Have No Name,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and “With Or Without You”), I’d easily pick “Where The Streets Have No Name” as my favorite of these.
This makes sense to me as it’s both a driving and moving track but one that again speaks to my restlessness and wanderlust when I was a kid. Bono is also perfection, which helps, and The Edge’s soaring and stadium-ready guitar effects give convey a towering grandness.
Some stats & info about U2 – The Joshua Tree
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Album Rock, Contemporary Rock, Pop Music
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #135
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was The Joshua Tree released? 1987
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #78_ out of 1,000
U2’s The Joshua Tree on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from U2’s The Joshua Tree that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I want to run, I want to hide, I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.