The Joshua Tree (1987)
The Joshua Tree is a 1987 alternative rock album by U2.
For their fifth album U2 turned toward the wide-open spaces and contradictions of America, trading the misty atmospherics of The Unforgettable Fire for songs built to fill stadiums. Produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, it opens with the shimmering rush of 'Where the Streets Have No Name' before The Edge's chiming guitar and Bono's searching vocals move through gospel, blues, and folk. The lyrics weigh a mythical, promised America against the harsher country the band actually found, threaded with spiritual longing and doubt. Released in 1987, it made U2 one of the biggest bands on the planet.
Quick answers
What is The Joshua Tree about?
For their fifth album U2 turned toward the wide-open spaces and contradictions of America, trading the misty atmospherics of The Unforgettable Fire for songs built to fill stadiums. Produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, it opens with the shimmering rush of 'Where the Streets Have No Name' before The Edge's chiming guitar and Bono's searching vocals move through gospel, blues, and folk. The lyrics weigh a mythical, promised America against the harsher country the band actually found, threaded with spiritual longing and doubt. Released in 1987, it made U2 one of the biggest bands on the planet.
When was The Joshua Tree released?
The Joshua Tree was released in 1987.
Who made The Joshua Tree?
The Joshua Tree is by U2.
Official site
http://www.u2.com/discography/index/album/albumId/4007/tagName/Albums
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A few thoughts on The Joshua Tree
Pair it with Wim Wenders' film Paris, Texas, another outsider's vision of the vast American desert, or the wandering melancholy of the film Into the Wild. The novel Blood Meridian walks the same mythic, unforgiving American landscape the album reaches for, all wide skies and moral weight. Red Dead Redemption 2 lets you ride straight through that mythologized frontier.
Sweeping rock albums built to fill a stadium
The Joshua Tree chases a horizon wide sound, all chiming guitar and gospel tinged longing stretched to arena scale. If that open, anthemic reach is what pulls you in, these records aim for the same big skies, from later U2 reinvention to the polished ache of Coldplay and the warm sprawl of Fleetwood Mac and Genesis.