Friday, March 9, 2012

THEY STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR: 25 years ago today, The Joshua Tree arrived in record stores worldwide, and has since sold 25 million copies worldwide, propelled by one of the best opening sets of tracks in rock history ("Where the Streets Have No Name"/"Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"/"With Or Without You"), and giving U2 their only US number one hits for the latter two tracks. Despite some darn fine albums later on (Achtung Baby and All You Can't Leave Behind, in particular), Joshua Tree remains the band's pinnacle, and despite being 25 years old, still sounds fairly fresh and modern--it's an achievement that renders it a pretty essential part of a record collection.

20 comments:

  1. Do the kids laugh when we call them "records" (yet)?

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  2. The Pathetic Earthling1:38 PM

    The Little and Wee Earthling's pre-school still uses a record player for their very big collection of children's vinyl.

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  3. isaac_spaceman2:17 PM

    Matt, what on earth are you thinking, doing a post about U2 in a week reserved for love letters to Every Wall Street Trader's Favorite Patron Saint of Steel Workers? 

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  4. One more outburst and we extend to a second week.

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  5. Fred App3:27 PM

    Those first three songs are indeed the most prominent on this album, but for me, it's songs like "One Tree Hill," "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Red Hill Mining Town" that make this my favorite U2 album. Or record. Or whatever we're calling it.

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  6. isaac_spaceman3:30 PM

    Agreed -- when it came out, I hated "Streets" and "With or Without You"; loved "Red Hill Mining Town," "Exit," "One Tree Hill," "Trip Through Your Wire," etc.

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  7. The Pathetic Earthling3:42 PM

    What I like about Joshua Tree is that it rewards listening to the entire album.  My favorite track on the album is indeed One Tree Hill, but it's just not as good if you don't get set up for it first.  Although there are a couple of great albums from that era - Gabriel's "So" and Paul Simon's "Graceland" - Joshua Tree really deserves to be listened front to back.

    I don't listen to much Pink Floyd anymore since I rarely have time to listen to all of "Dark Side of the Moon" without interruption, which is how it should be done, and I can't recall the last time I didn't change the channel when "Money" comes on by itself.

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  8. That's reassuring on one level, and awesome on another.

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  9. isaac_spaceman4:38 PM

    I still love "Money," but I do agree it seems out of place.  What I really have to do there is FF all the clocks going off. 

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  10. The Wife has Joshua Tree, I've never listened to it. The only U2 I ever purchased was the Wide Awake in America EP (vinyl). I enjoyed that. Back then, I had a lot of friends who were huge fans of U2, so I head more than enough. A bunch of us worked at a pizza shop that closed at 2am Saturdays. Close up, head for the Mississippi river bluffs, drink a bunch of cheap beer, and there was usually a U2 tape in the boom box. Good times and 25+ plus years burnt out on U2.

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  11. in other Irish musician news, Sinead O'Connor's new album is pretty good. Ranges from "4th and Vine," an incredibly upbeat and peppy song about getting married, to the lecturing hector of V.I.P (takes a shot at Bono and other celebrities). And Dexys (dropping the Midnight Runners) have a new album out June 4. They just released one song today on Soundcloud -- Nowhere is Home.

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  12. Joseph J. Finn5:47 PM

    I'm sorry, but Achtung is the pinnacle of U2 for me, followed by Joshua Tree, both of which are great in different ways.

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  13. The Joshua Tree was the soundtrack of high school for me. It came out when I was a sophomore, and I think I finally wore out my cassette when I graduated. (Freshman year was consumed by love of all things Duran Duran. John Taylor's dreamy!) "Running to Stand Still" is still in my top 5 favorite songs. I knew at the time that it was about heroin addiction, but the song got me through a lot of high school trauma, both trivial and not-so-trivial.

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  14. Watts6:14 PM

    Well, if you're listening to "Dark Side of the Moon" on vinyl (and if you're not, WHY AREN'T YOU?) "Money" is track 1 on side 2, so it's not as jarring, especially if you have a not-so-fancy turntable that doesn't flip the record for you. That walk across the room to turn it over puts you in the mood for the uptemp "Money."

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  15. Watts6:17 PM

    And now that I'm thinking about it, you kind of need that walk across the room to recover from "Great Gig in the Sky".

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  16. Becca8:00 PM

    I do love Joshua Tree, but if I want to listen to U2, I admit I always go to Rattle and Hum. I'm not much of a concertgoer, but the live versions of those songs works SO WELL, and that album is the best road trip CD ever. 

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  17. Carmichael Harold10:07 PM

    Plus, R&H has "All I Want Is You" on it, which is one of my favorite album-closing songs of all time.

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  18. Heather k10:49 PM

    So tomorrow I know what I will be listening to as I qult the day away.

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  19. One of my 3 favorite albums ever. I went to the U2 concert in Austin in '87 for this album. Loved it so much I followed them to Houston for the show there the next night.

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  20. Tosy and Cosh10:08 AM

    Should have mentioned last week, but see Coverville.com for a Joshua Tree cover show next week - covers of every song, in order.

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