While it’s not exactly St. Patrick’s Day yet, today is surely a great day to get your Irish up because it is the thirtieth anniversary of the blockbuster album by U2 called “The Joshua Tree”. Yep. You fans of a certain age are probably shaking your head at the fact that is was on this day thirty years ago that you had added this one to your LP collection but its indeed true. The album was a hit almost immediately if I am remembering correctly and I remember hitting my local music seller shop to get a copy on CD. I had moved on from vinyl and was preferring this medium. Yes, I was a tried and true bleed for the Metal sort of guy but I really enjoyed the tunes that were playing on so many of the radio stations of the day. Back during this time, it was an album that EVERYONE I knew owned and it was easy to find this being the case since MTV was behind this album with a force that isn’t seen all that often in today’s media world. It came out on Island Records and was produced by both Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno and according to research has sold over 25 million copies since its release. That is some kind of accomplishment for sure.
Before I get any further I should stress how this is a toast and not a line by line overview of the release because that stuff is already well documented on its Wikipedia entry (provided at the close). I’m here to offer up some personal insight about what it meant to me as a fan. So in 1987 I was not only a fan of Metal stuff but I was also regularly playing my areas “circuit” but that didn’t deter my appreciation for this release. I had been a fan of U2 for a few years by then so I had some anticipation for this album and what it was going to bring to the table for their fans. There was no Internet yet so it was all traditional interviews in magazines like Rolling Stone or Billboard and the occasional news item on MTV. I mentioned hearing it everywhere and that extended into the seeing it everywhere since the MTV videos were numerous for this one. I think my favorite clips were “With Or Without You” and “Where The Streets Have No Name”. Below is the full original track listing so let’s review that and then I will line out the songs that were my favorites.
Continue reading U2’s “The Joshua Tree” Still Thriving @ 30 Years (1987-2017)
