Apologies for the absence, gentle readers. I’m burning the candle at both ends this week, and the result is very little down time for fun projects like this one. However, I have not forsaken you, nor my quest. Here’s the latest album – it’s an oldie, but a goodie.
Disc 1535 is…. The Joshua Tree
Artist: U2
Year of Release: 1987
What’s up with the Cover? Early CD experimentation, that’s what. The original vinyl album cover is a lovely shot of the band in front of a landscape. Here, we have just the band, all blurry, and with faces that look like they’ve been attacked by Head Crusher from Kids in the Hall. I expect there is some reissued version out there that sounds way better and has the proper cover, but I have the ‘original release’ with all its warts.
How I Came To Know It: This album came out when I was in high school, where it was immediately a Very Big Deal with the mainstream audience. Since I was almost exclusively into heavy metal back then, I didn’t think much of this record.
Years later when my musical tastes had expanded, a few different people started playing U2 for me, and I realized my mistake. It is a lesson I’m always relearning: just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it can't be good.
How It Stacks Up: I have five U2 albums. I used to have seven, but both 1980’s “Boy” (Disc 1009) and 2004’s “How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (Disc 106) weren’t up to snuff. “The Joshua Tree” is second best of what remains. I’ll give a full accounting when I review the final record in my collection (hint: only one to go…).
“Wait a minute!” U2 enthusiasts are currently shouting at their screens, “You don’t think “Boy” is a good record?” Sorry, enthusiasts, but much as the teenager in me would like to torment you with a recap, let’s get on with the task at hand, shall we?
Ratings: 4 stars
A lot has already been written about “The Joshua Tree.” Most of it is effusive praise and most of that is deserved. This is an iconic record not just for its time, but for all time. I’m sorry it took me a few years to realize it, but here I am.
From the first slow, building intro of “Where the Streets Have No Name” you know this record is going to swell and soar. U2 has managed to build a collection of songs that always tend to be climbing, but never quite cresting. The effect is to fill your body with energy and your spirit with a yearning for some kind of metaphysical resolution. For the most part these songs will instead leave you hanging, but you will love them for it.
As for that opening track, it is solid but not one of my favourites, maybe because I associate it with the years it was the pre-game tune at Vancouver Canucks games (go Bruins). Or maybe it just kind of cycles a bit too much. Objectively, it’s a great song and a well-earned hit, but for me things don’t get going for realsies until “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” at Track Two.
Here the band does what they do best, blending that cycling guitar sound the Edge created and then perfected, Bono’s vocals peeling out with that ‘searching but not finding’ pang, and even a bit of rock and roll crunch around the edges. This one also has a great melodic drop with the chorus, making it clear that not finding what you’re looking for can still bring acceptance if you let it.
Despite critical effusions to the contrary, the record isn’t perfect (more on that later) but it does have a couple of perfect songs. The one everyone knows is “With or Without You.” I listened to this album in the car three times over the past week, but it wasn’t easy to resist just replaying “With or Without You” every time it came up. That opening line with Bono singing:
“See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side.”
Is pure heartache. It could come off as melodramatic, but Bono has the chops and delivery to make it real. Hearing it you feel like that woman’s cold stare is directed right at you, and the thorn is sticking in your midriff (n.b. – it was just my seatbelt). “With or Without You” is such a perfect song that it commits the egregious sin of the fade out and makes even that work.
The second perfect song is mostly for those who know the whole record (still a lot of people). “Running to Stand Still” is, like “With or Without You” another slow builder with power and heartache, and features some my favourite lines in all of music:
“You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice…”
If that’s not the perfect expression of quiet desperation, I don’t know what is. This song is also Bono’s finest vocal performance on a record that features many.
In terms of what holds the album back, the last four songs, from “Trip Through Your Wires” through to “Mothers of the Disappeared” are solid but fail to achieve the greatness of what comes before. On a record that soars with such beauty, this broader fade out near the end lands flat and unresolved. This is likely the intent, of course, and to maintain the level of songs like “With or Without You” and “Running to Stand Still” is functionally impossible. Still, I’m keeping it real and giving “The Joshua Tree” a loving and earnest 4 stars. Sorry-not sorry, enthusiasts.
Best tracks: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, With or Without You, Running to Stand Still, In God’s Country
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