U2 - The Joshua Tree
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CD Details
Artist: U2Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-06-15
Music Label: Island
Soundtracks:
- Where the Streets Have No Name - U2, U Two
- I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2, U Two
- With or Without You - U2, U Two
- Bullet the Blue Sky - U2, Bono
- Running to Stand Still - U2, Clayton, Adam
- Red Hill Mining Town - U2, Clayton, Adam
- In God's Country - U2, Clayton, Adam
- Trip Through Your Wires - U2, Clayton, Adam
- One Tree Hill - U2, U Two
- Exit - U2, Clayton, Adam
- Mothers of the Disappeared - U2, Bono
Music reviews of The Joshua Tree
Music Review: 'the Curse of the Colonies'
Rating: 2 Stars
There are two glaringly obvious affectations to blame for the artistic failure of U2's 'the Joshua Tree'. One is the record company, who MUST for the sake of their shareholders, send young provincial bands to the colonies, and the huge rewards from the eager masses there. The other is the Clash.
'London Calling' sent U2, and any number of other groups from the UK and beyond, scuttling for their cowboy boots and neckerchiefs in the mistaken belief that they-could-take-on-American-influences-and-still-be-interesting....not so.
If you give young people in their 20's, lots of cash and put them on a plane to the heart of consumerism, they're gonna imbibe...and how. Within weeks they're adopting that ridiculous gait all rock groups must adopt when they're 'conquering' America, wearing leather vests, riding the subway, and plundering the not insubstantial culture to arrive at the (paid minions encouraged) conclusion that they are Guthrie, Kerouac and Dylan rolled into one.
This can only result in one thing - the recording of the `American' rock album.
In the case of a group like U2, the American Rock Album is a laughable betrayal. A suspicious dirge of such ropiness and lack of character that it becomes a danger to itself and others. A concept so crass and the results so boring that one must wonder if it's all part of the record companies (I suspect) anti-young agenda anyway. "We hate the young, let's go out of our way to not understand them, and pointedly send them off in the wrong direction."
So, Bono and Co, well stocked up on the clich?'s, and even though they're from leafy avenue Dublin, don't find it at all embarrassing to sing about "red orange glows" and "fighters over mud-huts" (!)
Well it is. Very.
Take 'Bullet the Blue Sky', an AWFUL song in the worst sense. Bono thinks he's being all passionate and powerful, but in reality he's fallen head first into the ditch of tunelessness, the slurry-pit of unforgivably hideous pretention. Lyrics with no substance accompany sour one-note feedback-guitar playing. Worse, he seems to be singing in a funny accent. He's not from Brooklyn (or Nashville for that matter!) he's from Ireland. To hear him drawl "into the arms of Amurca.." and reciting some of the worst poetry you'll hear, "rose on a thorn bush, like the colours of a Royal Flush, and he's peeling off those dollar bills, slappin' 'em down..100...200" and worse: "take the staircase to the first floor, turn the key and slowly unlock the door, a guy breathes into his saxophone, and through the walls you can hear the city groan...outside it's Amurca" it's so bad it can actually pull you up short. Sharp intake of breath and all that. To some-one who adored the likes of 'Boy' and 'October' (ie; Me!) it's quite hard to take.
Apart from the singles (too obvious, obviously) 'Red Hill Mining Town' is passable, but spoiled by more rotten poetry and commonplace rising orchestra, and there is one good song(!)-'One Tree Hill'.
Here,U2 forego all the faux- rockism to a degree, and deliver an almost jaunty, calypso-led number. It's still has some of the (deliberate) dirge-style quality of the rest of the album, but it seems there is genuine soul at work, trying to break free of the creative constraints and narrowness. Up to a point it succeeds, until it's effect is bludgeoned to a pulp by 'Exit', a worthless ballad trying to invoke the spirit of 'Combat Rock's - Death is a Star' but failing miserably.
I had to laugh at 'Running to Stand Still' too, where Bono meaningfully intones "Halal, halal, halal ..today" (That'd be all we need, Bono in the Islam corner!) over a music operating at no level of competence above that of the worst 70's campus commando's, before letting rip with more yodelling and angst. Then, just to ram the whole farcical context home, a Dylan-style harmonica comes in, serving just one purpose only...further attempted authenticity. But by now it's not even consolation.
The rest of 'The Joshua Tree' ploughs a pedestrian and unoriginal rock furrow. Very quickly the listener becomes bored with gospel backing singers (an abomination in rock terms) and long, purposeless passages of egotistical and neurotic verse and sludgy, murky geetar. Gets more and more irritated at Bono's 'soulful' posturing and screaming. Becomes homicidal at yet more "faces frozen against the wind" and "red desert skies". (I didn't know there were deserts in Contae Bhaile Atha Cliath, Paul. You live and learn.)
'The Joshua Tree' isn't a surprise, and that's a major problem with it. It doesn't need a genius to predict that the US would have this kind of influence on U2 and that this was the only album that could result. People spend lifetimes making sense of this massive culture and only scratch the surface, U2 think they can do it after a couple albums and a tour. Dazed and daunted before their time is the inevitable result.
'The Joshua Tree' is the sound of rock eating it's young alive.
Description of The Joshua Tree
Same as USA Version.Having nearly exhausted their capacity for pop-song politics on War and The Unforgettable Fire, U2 turned toward themes of personal identity and complex relationships on The Joshua Tree. Not that the group was willing to come down off the barricades entirely: "Mothers of the Disappeared" and "Bullet the Blue Sky" turned a jaundiced eye toward Central America and the United States' role there. But the predominant mood here is one of self-discovery and the hunger for something more on tracks like the pulsating "Where the Streets Have No Name" and the gospel-ish "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." The album's masterstroke, however, is "With or Without You," a nasty love song dressed up as an ode of devotion and care. It ranks with the Police's "Every Breath You Take" as the most misread smash hit of the '80s. --Daniel Durchholz
U2's most successful album (their first No. 1 album and the 1987 Grammy award-winner for Album of the Year) is also their most dour. From the stark, black and white cover photography, with U2 looking like missionaries (or at least M*A*S*H extras), to the existential angst at the heart of each track, The Joshua Tree is one long, atmospheric wail at the abyss. Producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois turn in an austere production that heightens the drama substantially. --Rob O'Connor
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