Waller Reviews: Written by UnhitchedWildhorsey for U2 Graffiti Wall: Mormon pioneers named this Yucca variety the "Joshua" Tree after the prophet Joshua from the Old Testament. They saw the upraised, outbranched limbs of this scrappy desert tree; and it reminded them of Joshua pointing out the way for his people to the Promised Land. This is a fitting image for the album cover. I think U2 conveys here that in the middle 80's people were getting disallusioned. They began searching for some kind of personal Promised Land. They needed a moral compass...someone to forge on ahead and lead them. They needed hope.
U2 delved deep in the making of this album; way down in the soul wells. They were dipping into some water of life. They saw people wandering in the midst of all the wealth and yuppies, political boasting, hunger for power and trampling of the underdog. I think they thought the world had left behind their collective conscience. So here they came with this bold, shouting, blazing, glorifying sound and imagry.
The Joshua Tree was both musically complex and stripped down at the same time. It got back to the Rock basics. Superb song structure, vocal beauty, electrifying guitar solos, and strong underlying rhythm. There was a need for simplicity in music of the time and also in people's lives. Taking away all the fakeness and seeing what was left and what mattered.
What I get from this album and what I think mattered the most then and now are people. The Joshua Tree is about people. If you think of the songs, they are stories about people. Something at a loss in the dance music and bubblegum pop of the middle 80's. The Joshua Tree was about our spiritual relationships/needs (Where The Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For), love (With or Without You, Red Hill Mining Town, Trip Through Your Wires), life struggles ( Running To Stand Still, In God's Country) even our well being and death (Bullet The Blue Sky, One Tree Hill, Exit, Mothers of the Disappeared). It all comes down to people.
U2 stood there in the studio and screamed with instruments and voices; Hey, look at people being killed in the drug trade (Bullet The Blue Sky); as it rampantly grew in the 1980's. They said care about those living under tyranny (Mothers of the Disappeared). Look at those struggling to make a living and a home in a world where industry was dying a slow agonizing death (Red Hill Mining Town, In God's Country). They wondered if there was real help for the hopeless (Running to Stand Still). They came to us wearing their hearts on their sleeves. They said in the shallowness of this decade it is ok to care. It is the right thing to do.
U2 used the haunting melodies and mesages of The Joshua Tree to bring us back from the watered down news and back to reality. This was serious and somber stuff for the most part. You might say a CNN type of album. Black is the main color choice for this album and it is fittingly so. This is no 1980's party with the bright pastels and gay synthesizer beat. This is a wake up call to pay attention. And a lot of us did. We reached for the lyric book because the singer's emoting made us want to know every word. We heard the striking musical composition and were hit with energy to accomplish.
This album to me is chock full of meaning. It is outstandingly relavent. Guitar justice. Singing that bleeds with emotion. A drum and bass heartbeat of new life. U2's choice to use examples of a tree that grows amidst dry soil and harsh conditions, somber expressions, black clothing and color schemes, and that stark landscape of the desert were very deliberate. They wanted to stand out amongst the hairbands, club dance scene, techno beats, and carefree pop music; in order to affect our souls. They wanted to put feeling and lives back into Rock and Roll. They wanted us to remember Rock's roots in affecting social change. This album is about people to me. It is global society, and it succeeded in making U2 into global superstars.
The Joshua Tree Remastered Edition (2007)
Released November 20, 2007
The album was released in four different formats:
- CD format: remastered album on CD
- Deluxe format: remastered album on CD, bonus CD with b-sides and rarities from The Joshua Tree sessions, and a 36-page booklet
- Box set edition: remastered album on CD, bonus CD with b-sides and rarities from The Joshua Tree sessions, bonus DVD with a concert from the Joshua Tree Tour and other videos, and a 56-page hardback book.DVD also has``easter egg``section, which contains `Dalton Brothers` performance from Los Angeles, November 18, 1987
- Double vinyl edition: remastered album on two 180 Gram virgin vinyl gramophone records and pressed at Nashville's historic United Record Pressing. It includes a 16-page booklet.
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
