Listened: Monday August 9
Writing an entry on The Joshua Tree intimidates me a bit. What more can I say about this album that hasn’t already been said? Every song is brilliant. I particularly love how When the Streets Have No Name builds up so gradually; it’s like the sun rising in the desert. With or Without You is one of my favorite love songs of all time, and the imagery in In God’s Country is a favorite: “Sad eyes, crooked crosses, in God’s country.” How did an Irish band construct such a great American time capsule?
Recently I read an in-depth narrative of someone visiting the cover photo location (it’s in Death Valley, not Joshua Tree National Park) and describing what’s there now (the tree fell down a couple of years ago, sadly, but its “corpse” is still there). I’d love to visit it someday.
For a long time, no one besides the band and the photographer (Anton Corbijn) knew exactly where it was, but since Google Maps and Google Earth came out, people were able to narrow it down more, given the landscape clues in the photos. I wonder what U2 think of it becoming a place of pilgrimage?
Emily's Albums A to Z 
[…] said, the rest of the songs on this album are as good as anything U2 did on Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby, just with a maturity they couldn’t have brought to the game back […]
[…] Can Play Guitar. Based on those songs, I’m shocked Radiohead didn’t become the next U2, busting out singalong anthems. Well, I guess they kind of did, It was just with dark, introverted, […]
[…] important for U2 to go this direction to develop skills they put to maximum use on later albums (The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby), but like October, I must admit that in a ranking of my favorite U2 albums, this […]