U2 - The Joshua Tree
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Free Music Notes for The Joshua Tree
Free Music Review: Their best
Hit: 5 Stars
I usually liked every U2 song I heard on the radio, but I wasn't a "fan" until I heard "The Johsua Tree". A friend let me borrow it one night, and I listened to the whole thing, then another friend gave it to me for Christmas. It was an experience, listening to it for the first time, because I'd never really heard many songs from it (or didn't know it when I DID hear them), so I was pretty uninfluenced by the wealth of opinions on it, I based mine on listening to it for the first time, and I absolutely loved it. I'm trying not to sound like everyone else who loved it as I describe it, but I'd never heard anything quite like it, and as I grew more knowledgeable about the band and their history, I began to realize what a unique place "The Joshua Tree" really stood in. From the beginning of the album, that atmospheric, warm keyboard drone, there's a kind of passion and sadness that permeates it the whole way through. Every song is powerful. I prefer listening to it all the way through as opposed to one song here and there. I think it's a sonic tapestry best experienced as a whole. Bono once described their previous studio albumk, "The Unforgettable Fire", as out of focus, but WONDERFULLY out of focus, whereas "The Joshua Tree" is more in focus. It's something that I can actually see between the two. "The Joshua Tree" is thematically the most mature and sophisticated album of their career to date. Bono sings with a poignance that is both joyous AND sorrowful, and The Edge's guitar work is his best up to that point. When it came out, it was something of a mold-breaker for pop music. I had once read that "With or Without You" wasn't considered radio-friendly when the released it as a single. I found that very interesting, since it's a staplel of radio airplay today. "Where the Streets Have No Names" is definitely my personal favorite. Edge's guitar and Larry's drumming evoke a feeling of restlessness and anxiety that really hit home. "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Exit" are simply terrifying, one a protest of American military aggression, the other a descent into madness, both grim and disturbing. Probably the most mournful is the last track, "Mothers of the Disappeared". At the time I first listened to the album, the nation was reeling from the disappearances of two children, Polly Klass and Cassidy Senter (correct?), and this song seemed to have and extra resonance and importance in light of those incidents. Over-all quite dark, but at the same time hopeful, "The Joshua Tree" is U2 at their pinnacle, a must have for every fan, and music lover in general.Free Music Review: An Honest Spiritual Quest
Hit: 5 Stars
Most people reach a stage in life when the philosophical questions loom large. Do I serve a purpose? Does life have a significant meaning? Can I make a difference? What am I really looking for? Most of us reach private conclusions, but a talented few can enrich the lives of those around them by sharing their inner journey with a wider audience.It's a difficult and dangerous undertaking. Such baring of the soul must tread an exacting line, or it risks becoming melodramatic, contrived and maudlin. The cynics among us are forever ready to pounce on the least slip-up; ready to gut a whole artistic work on the slightest perception of insincerity.
So, making an album like The Joshua Tree takes courage.
This album is a journal of the boys' inner lives. In previous albums, they established their intellectual, moral, political and musical credentials. In this one, they lay claim to their spiritual credentials.
There's been so much written about the sublime quality of the songs, the three opening numbers, the lesser known but not lesser quality gems throughout, that it makes no sense for me to offer yet another critique of them. But craftsmanship, talent, consistency and ingenuity are found in many albums beside this one. There has been a lot of masterful Rock turned out over the years. Why is this one at the top of so many classic album lists?
It's because this one tackles the toughest questions in a way that we can all identify with and understand. It's more than just a rebellious shout, or a political tract or self-indulgent introspection. And it's far more than just four guys making pretty tunes.
Consider "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". It yearns for a deeper meaning in life while avoiding both facetiousness and self-pity. Or listen to "One Tree Hill". This is about a life that really meant something to the boys and achieves an expression in memoriam that few of us can aspire to in a lifetime. We should all have such epitaphs.
It's hard to pin down what makes this album so special. In the end, I think it's the marriage of the album's heartfelt sincerity coupled to its utter lack of pretension. The boys don't pretend to have the answers. They don't even pretend to deep or significant questions, though I think they do a fine job asking them all the same. What they achieve is an expression of the spiritual yearnings that most of us ask ourselves at some point in our lives. This music comforts us with the knowledge that these are questions common to us all: that even if we don't ever manage to find the answers, it's the capacity to ask the questions that count, and the quest for answers that gives dimension to our lives.
Free Music Review: Holds a permanant spot in my five-disc changer
Hit: 5 Stars
The Joshua Tree- released in a decade of glamour and glitz music- is delightfully stark and realistic, almost gritty at times. Bono said it best in a recent interview: "We were the best band in decade of crap music... even something like With or Without You, which has become somewhat of a staple on the radio, is only that because it was so different from what was being heard, what was getting airplay at the time." And certainly it was. This album opens with the one-element-at-a-time build up (a well used feature on The Joshua Tree) Where The Streets Have No Name, it's a fabulous opener which bursts into the exhilerating guitar and then the opening line "I want to run, I want to hide..." Where The Streets Have No Name is an anthemic song that can only receive full justification when played on the highest possible volume. One only has to see the music video, filmed at an impromptu downtown L.A. concert, which embodies the entire spirit of Streets.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For embodies some of U2's best writing abilities, with stellar lyrics but a weaker melody. The real clincher on the Joshua Tree, which brings it from a well-rounded release to an amazing Grammy-Award winning Album, would be the climactic With or Without You. This song brought U2 an entirely new fan-base, and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who isn't moved by it. It's not just the lyrics, or the slowly-rising guitar beat (which is one of the Edge's best), or the clear emotion exhibited by Bono on the track, it's the whole package. Because of With or Without You's versatility, it can be perceived as almost any type of emotion-inspiring song (most have incorrectly classified it as a love song), in reality it is just a song that is raw and open enough that it suits any mood, and invokes a great number of them.
I recommend every single song on this album, because they all compliment each other so that if one were missing, the album would present an entirely different front. Running to Stand Still and Exit run along the same lines as With or Without You in their lyric ability, and Bullet the Blue Sky provokes strong images with its equally strong and full sound, the second verse being more-or-less spoken by Bono.
Although I was still in Elementary school when this album was released, its got a timeless quality that comes from the fact that it doesn't follow any other musical fad (punk, new wave, grunge, etc.) and that it is, as said above, an amazing album. I would also recommend the VHS Rattle and Hum, which includes a wonderfully up-beat, rock concert version of With or Without You.
Free Music Review: THE Magnum Opus for U2 - The Joshua Tree
Hit: 5 Stars
The Joshua Tree. One of U2's finest albums, and definitly one that will probably never die out. If I ever have grandchildren, I will fully and wholeheartedly tell them about themiracle of songriting that lies within this little round thing (Or little square chunky thing). Music has a certain aesthetic quality to it, a type of thing that is far different from looking at art. Scine art is an attempt to mimic The Creator's world, then music is an attempt to unleash the power of human acheivement. The Joshua Tree has several themes within it, and hre they are:
Desert and sky
Loss
Greg Carroll
Love
Throughout the album, if you turn out the light, you could almost imagine the entire thing taking place in the desert, against cool blue sky. Or, at least, I can. Where The Streets Have No Name early in the morning, Running To Stand Still and Trip Through Your Wires in midday, and Exit and Mothers Of The Disappeared at night. The other theme, of death, and loss, is reminiscent throughout One Tree Hill, Exit, and Mothers Of The Disappeared. This theme resounds throughout the whole movie. It also seems that The Edge does not play the 3rd part of the chords he uses, that give the chord it's minor or Major 'gender', and this gives a sense of emptyness. Mothers of the Disappeared is actually a tribute to The Mothers of The Plaza de Mayo (I think I got it right), who, after protesting, their children were kidnapped, and taken hostageby the South American government. Exit is about a psychotic killer who is obsessed with something he calls 'The Hands Of Love'.As for One Tree Hill, it connects not only with loss, but with another theme: Greg Carroll, Bono's personal assistant who was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident while runing errands for the band, and names his favourite place in his home country, New Zealand : A small hill in the centre of Auckland, with a single tree on top, known as One Tree Hill. "I'll see you again some day when the stars fall from the sky/And the sky turns red over One Tree Hill". The last theme is of love, or, rather, relationships, such as Red Hill Mining Town, Trip Through Your Wires, and With Or Without you. Wow. I'm out of breath. All of this has one message: BUY THIS ALBUM.
Track listing:
1. Where The Streets Have No Name
2. I Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking For
3. With Or Without You
4. Bullet the Blue Sky
5. Running To Stand Still
6. Red Hill Mining Town
7. In God's Country
8. Trip Through Your Wires
9. Exit
10. Mothers Of The Disappeared
Free Music Review: If you could only buy two U2 records, this must be one
Hit: 5 Stars
Most U2 fans would agree that 'The Joshua Tree' (1987) is their finest moment of the 1980s. While again with producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, this record represented a departure from the musical experiment of 'The Unforgettable Fire' (1984) (much of which sounds dated now) and began a foray into traditional American music that culminated in 'Rattle & Hum' (1988). Here's a song-by-song:1. "Where the Streets Have No Name". As one of the ultimate show-openers and perhaps their most popular rock song, if you haven't heard it, you must live under a rock.
2. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". A gospel song (which is more evident on the version included in 'Rattle & Hum' (1988)) and one of their #1 hits, if you haven't heard it, you must live under a rock.
3. "With Or Without You". The first single from the record and arguably one of the best musical and lyrical moments for U2 (the latter being characteristically open to multiple interpretations), if you haven't heard it, . . .
4. "Bullet the Blue Sky". A hard rock song in the musical tradition of Led Zeppelin, U2 delivers one of the two overtly political songs on the record - this one aimed at U.S. With constant changes to the musical theme and lyrical context of this tune over its appearances on every U2 tour since 1987, it is interesting to go back to the minimalistic original.
5. "Running to Stand Still". With the beautiful opening on the slide guitar, this ballad sequel to "Bad" is the first distinct sign that American music was a definite influence.
6. "Red Hill Mining Town". This is just a simple, solid "folk" song that benefits nicely from orchestral additions at the end.
7. "In God's Country". This oft-forgotten fourth single from the record, an ode to America, is certainly catchy and is everything you expect from Bono lyrically.
8. "Trip Through Your Wires". With harmonica stylings, no where is the American influence more evident than on this prequel to the studio cuts to come on 'Rattle & Hum'. That said, if there is a weak song on this record, this is it.
9. "One Tree Hill". A song with a story, it has a distinct energy that builds and is probably the one track that sounds most like the previous record, 'The Unforgettable Fire'.
10. "Exit". A real brooding quiet/loud rocker, this tune has an atmosphere that has never been duplicated. The chirping crickets in my headphones still send shivers up my spine.
11. "Mothers of the Disappeared". Similar in approach to "One Tree Hill", this song is a political ode to mothers who had lost their sons, anonymously, to the Pinocet regime.