U2 started out as a scrappy band riding the punk wave out of Ireland, but from the beginning they clearly had their sights on America. And indeed, the States ate up U2's bombast, landing both War (1983) and The Unforgettable Fire (1984) in the U.S. top 20. The group fed off that enthusiasm, criss-crossing the country as much as its schedule allowed. The more the band's fan base grew, the harder U2 worked to get even bigger, and in 1987 they enjoyed their breakthrough into superstadom thanks to The Joshua Tree, which went on to sell 10 million copies in the U.S. alone.
Funnily enough, while The Joshua Tree once and for all catapulted U2 to permanent superstardom, the album marks something of a conscious refinement of the group's sound. The album was nowhere near as strident as War or as radically overwrought as The Unforgettable Fire (which was, lest one forget, recorded in a frickin' castle). Reunited with producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, it's as if the band finally took a moment to ponder the wide-open American spaces it had been traveling through for years and applied those musical and cultural observations to its songs. It's an album made for dusty, empty flyover country.
U2 have always flirted with charismatic Christianity, and the Joshua Tree songwriting process finds the band in a particularly reflective mood; "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and" "With or Without You" are steeped in religious imagery, but even their constant radio rotation hasn't robbed these introspective songs of their potency or effectiveness. Smartly, U2 balanced those personal songs with more universal tracks, often with an emphasis on forgotten people and forgotten places around the globe: "Red Hill Mining Town" (about the mid-80s UK miners strike), "Exit" (inspired by Norman Mailer's Gary Gilmore tome The Executioner's Song), "Mothers of the Disappeared" (about Argentina's murdered political dissidents), and "Bullet the Blue Sky" (about U.S. meddling in Central America).
"Bullet" is one of the few Joshua Tree non-singles to remain a live U2 staple-- its bluster hints at the band's current broad aesthetic-- but it's slightly out of place among a record mostly characterized by its grace, subtlety, introspection, and beauty. That holds especially true for its more mysterious (or at least less overplayed) second half, which roughly begins and ends perfectly with the ballad "Running to Stand Still" (about heroin addiction) and gentle outro "Mothers of the Disappeared". In between, "Trip Through Your Wires" is the rare blues track to prominently feature co-producer Eno's favored novelty, the Omnichord, while "One Tree Hill" and the apocalyptic "Exit" showcase wickedly screwed up and uncharacteristic guitar solos from the Edge.
No question, the disc deserves this anniversary treatment, but other U2 albums need the remastering more. As for the 14-tracks disc of B-sides and extras, it's best to keep expectations firmly in check. U2 aren't known for hiding away gems, or for that matter, sharing their studio experiments-- not even the reggae-tinged version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" shows up here. What we get instead is mostly the usual array of previously released tracks and familiar rarities-- best among them are "Spanish Eyes", "Silver and Gold", the original version of "The Sweetest Thing", and "Deep in the Heart"-- plus a handful of tracks new even to hardcore fans. Of those, "Beautiful Ghost/Introduction to Songs of Experience" and "Drunk Chicken/America" are moody spoken word pieces. The Patti Smith-styled "Wave of Sorrow (Birdland)" is similarly a bit out of character for the band, which explains what it's doing here.
While the haters were already on board, it was with its next album, Rattle and Hum, that the group's egos finally overtook their ambitions, and it took a near fatal break and the resounding triumph Achtung Baby to set the band back on track. But to this day U2 's Joshua Tree breakthrough-- and, in particular, Bono's insistence on living up to the messianic role his fans and admires foisted upon him-- still resonates as a lingering source of scorn, suspiciousness, and ridicule. If you don't doubt that, then try to sit through the (videotaped, not filmed) July 4, 1987 concert at an outdoor venue in Paris, the 40-minute Outside It's America documentary, and the music videos stuffed onto the set's DVD.
About the only remarkable thing about the concert is that it starts with "I Will Follow" rather than "Where the Streets Have No Name". As for the doc, it plays like a Rattle and Hum test run that will leave you throwing things at your screen as the band goes shopping, signs autographs, and poses for photos. There is, however, a rare glimpse of U2's sense of humor that teases their future neo-ironic rebirth hidden on the DVD: footage of the fames Dalton Brothers, the band's country alter-egos, who opened a few dates on the Joshua Tree tour (replete with Adam Clayton in drag). But after a couple of minutes of their shtick, you'll want to throw stuff at them, too.
