The Joshua Tree (30th Anniversary)＜Gold Vinyl/限定盤＞

Rolling Stone (p.85) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he best moments connect on a physical level -- the glistening bass groove of 'With or Without You' and the Hendrix-worship guitar storm of 'Bullet the Blue Sky.'" Rolling Stone (11/89) - Ranked #3 in Rolling Stone's "100 Best Albums Of The 80s" survey. Q (10/01, p.91) - Ranked #12 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime" - "...This collection of downbeat rock made U2 superstars..." Uncut (pp.108-109) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "It still bristles with the bravado of a band shaping up for a shot at the title, daring to believe that they could make their idols their peers." Magnet - "Burnished and tawny by maturity; taut in its accuracy; bourbon-soaked in the influence of American icons from Huey Newton to Tom Wolfe; the airy, silt-ish tones of the original JOSHUA TREE stand as an anthem to its moment and testament to the collective's sense of melody and atmosphere mixed with intimate personal reflections on the big issues." CMJ (1/6/03, p.15) - Included in CMJ's list of "Top 25 College Radio Albums of All Time" CMJ (1/5/04, p.20) - Ranked #1 in CMJ's "Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1987" Billboard - Ranked as the #14 hit album of the 80s. Q (Magazine) (p.115) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "Their reinvention of stadium rock sounds as impassioned as ever....A finely balanced mix of intimacy and power..."

Using the textured sonics of The Unforgettable Fire as a basis, U2 expanded those innovations by scaling back the songs to a personal setting and adding a grittier attack for its follow-up, The Joshua Tree. It's a move that returns them to the sweeping, anthemic rock of War, but if War was an exploding political bomb, The Joshua Tree is a journey through its aftermath, trying to find sense and hope in the desperation. That means that even the anthems -- the epic opener "Where the Streets Have No Name," the yearning "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- have seeds of doubt within their soaring choruses, and those fears take root throughout the album, whether it's in the mournful sliding acoustic guitars of "Running to Stand Still," the surging "One Tree Hill," or the hypnotic elegy "Mothers of the Disappeared." So it might seem a little ironic that U2 became superstars on the back of such a dark record, but their focus has never been clearer, nor has their music been catchier, than on The Joshua Tree. Unexpectedly, U2 have also tempered their textural post-punk with American influences. Not only are Bono's lyrics obsessed with America, but country and blues influences are heard throughout the record, and instead of using these as roots, they're used as ways to add texture to the music. With the uniformly excellent songs -- only the clumsy, heavy rock and portentous lyrics of "Bullet the Blue Sky" fall flat -- the result is a powerful, uncompromising record that became a hit due to its vision and its melody. Never before have U2's big messages sounded so direct and personal. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine