Pros: Buy it just for Where the Streets Have No Name – everything else is bonus
Cons: notice the lone tumbleweed as it rolls by in a gritty gust of wind…
The Bottom Line: #1 of the Top Ten Albums that molded my musical tastes, the greatest rock album ever, and the true story of the blue moon sunrise over a high desert plain
If you already own U2's The Joshua Tree, I want you to find it – cue it up and be ready to play the Where The Streets Have No Name in a few moments – we're going to try a little experiment, and I'd love to hear about your personal experience. If you don't have The Joshua Tree, then it is my hope that this somewhat odd "review" will give you a vivid picture in your mind of what I consider to be the greatest rock album ever conceived. Before we take the journey I will propose later, I suppose that I must bow to the gods of epinions and provide some semblance of a review of this album. That's only fair, given my grand statement of its position in the pantheon of music history.
What goes into crafting a great album? What makes The Joshua Tree so special?
Quality Music
The performances are seductively engaging, grabbing hold of your brain, forcing you to pay attention to the sounds sliding into your ears. The music is inventive, staying away from the norm, creating the outside edges of what is new in music. Most importantly, great music never fades – it retains it's power over you no matter how often you listen to it, no matter how long it has been since these sounds were first heard.
Quality Lyrics
The content of the songs is as important as the sounds that carry them, and the sounds complement the content perfectly. The music and lyrics join together to create a vivid picture of a place, an event or an emotion and you are transported to that place each time you listen. The lyrics of a great album take root in your soul and resonate within you, drawing your attention to things long hidden, releasing hurts so they can be soothed, joyously lifting that place within you that responds best to the rhythm and the muse.
The entire length of The Joshua Tree is a sound painting, a vivid waking dream of the wide open spaces of the American Southwest, echoed in mind expanding themes of soul searching, passion and redemption. Bono's vocals are at their most poignant, weathered and raw. The Edge stands in the foreground of this landscape of sound, guitar effects and echoes turned to canyonero. Larry Mullin and Adam Clayton drive the mule team across the desert as the rhythm section, bass and drums in perfect harmony of purpose and execution. Daniel Lanois' production is flawless, bringing the band to it's full potential as the new face of rock music.
There are no mis-placed songs. There are no mis-steps. The album flows from it's anthemic overture into declarations of faith still searching, passion still unfulfilled, through hellish depictions of war and warmongers to a ghost town of lost souls desperately clinging to a haunted past. Angels and devils appear from a shimmering mirage to tempt the wandering soul, blood cries out from the earth for the dead and the missing, nameless victims of wars and endless crimes. The balance of a life lays in the hands that hold love and a gun, hands that build can pull down too. The wind and rain come to wash away the hurts that our hearts could never forget, and the desert night falls over a landscape still rocky and barren, yet somehow redeemed, brought to life by the possibility of love's redemption still unseen…
Ready to experience Where The Streets Have No Name the way that I hear it?
push play, then read on...
Quietly now and I shall tell you a true story of the desert night. Read carefully, drink deeply of these words, and I will show you a place high on a desert plain…
.
..
….
4:25 am
july 31, 2004
the continental divide
interstate 25 southbound
the blue moon lies full within immense purple shadows
mountains looming in the darkness, ancient peaks stretching
stretching toward heaven to touch Luna herself
black, blacker still the night sky, faintly glowing with stars unseen
tiny angels gazing down on a desert plain waiting
waiting for the glory of the morning to arrive
this is the time for awe and wonder
this is the time of men and angels
this is the time between when earth and sky exist in perfect balance
this is the time where there is no time
this is the time when heart and heaven become one
the drone of night's silence lifts from the hard ground
rising to run with Luna's last light fading
fading to the west's eternal embrace
far, farther than the east, faintly glowing with sparks unseen
fire leaps to the desert's rim blazing
blazing with the advent of heaven's bright sun
Music transcends anything that humanity can create. You cannot experience anything greater in your lifetime than the feelings evoked in your soul by music that reaches the very core of your being. I have found several songs and albums that reach that place within me, and I have sung songs in churches and concerts that have lifted me to another plane. But if I need to find that inner core, that special place that is "me", The Joshua Tree can take me there. I don't know if it can take you there, but it's a marvelous place to start searching.
I want to run, I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside
I want to reach out and touch the flame
Where the streets have no name
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Originally released in March 1987 by Island Records
All lyrics quoted are the copyrighted property of U2 Original Track Listing
Where The Streets Have No Name / I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / With Or Without You / Bullet The Blue Sky / Running To Stand Still / Red Hill Mining Town / In God's Country / Trip Through Your Wires / One Tree Hill / Exit / Mothers Of The Disappeared
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My Top Ten List of albums that molded my musical tastes
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