U2 - The Joshua Tree

Before I had a CD collection of my own, I was listening to my dad’s collection on my mp3 player. I didn’t have an iPod until middle school or so, but I do remember having an mp3 player with a tiny lcd screen that had albums by groups like The Eagles, Boston, and Mannheim Steamroller on it. The Joshua Tree was on that thing. Its criticisms of American capitalism and military interventionism went way over my head back then (most likely my father’s, too). Still, skyscraping hits like “With or Without You” and “Where the Streets Have No Name” were among the most modern-sounding in his backwards-facing CD collection, so I’ve listened to this album a lot without ever owning it myself. Thanks to the restrained production and avoidance of the trends of the time, this doesn’t feel like an “80s album”. It may no longer feel modern, but it still feels fresh, if that makes sense.

I’m not going to go through every song, but I will highlight a few. As a kid, my favorite song off the record was “Red Hill Mining Town”, which contains all U2’s best elements in one song: a big prechorus that builds into a humongous chorus, yearning but optimistic lyrics delivered with abandon, an understated rhythm section, big whoas, and a charming chiming guitar part. I didn’t know it was about the British miners’ strike, I just liked the chorus. “With Or Without You” churns and builds a single chord progression for the entire length of a normal pop song before it finally hits the big catharsis. It hearkens back to the October era, dealing the conflict between rock and roll and true faith, but this time the faith is in a relationship rather than in Christ.

“Bullet the Blue Sky” is the heaviest song on the record, its Archangel Michael doing battle with America’s innumerable sins. The pure venom that flows through this track! Everyone talks about Edge and Bono, but this is Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.’s track. It just wouldn’t work without its bitter, funky foundation. “Exit” and “Mothers of the Disappeared” are thematically similar, important but musically more forgettable.

The themes of this album have been litigated to death by every music mag worth a damn. The “only good Evangelicals”, good Irish protestant boys who came over to the USA and engaged in good faith with both its mythology and its reality. But it’s not just about God’s judgement of America, but also about the faithful, about Ireland, about personal stories and personal bonds as much as the macro-level sins and promises of an empire. The fact that a major label album with “themes” of any kind became as huge as the Joshua Tree did is something truly special.

I’m much more charitable towards U2 than most of my contemporaries in the DIY music scene because a) I’ve listened to their first three albums and b) I went to a church with a pipe organ rather than a church with a U2 rip-off band. All that to qualify the fact that I’m grateful that this thing made its way back into my collection.

The Joshua Tree by U2 is a good album, and I like it.