U2 "The Joshua Tree"

I want to stay on this topic of albums I first fell in love with. I blogged below about hearing a podcast on "the death of the ALBUM" and in response to that grim news, I am posting a series of blogs about albums that made me love albums (the Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits post below was the first of these blogs).

In highschool, I was riding in a car with a much older guy and he was just tickled about a new tape he had. It was called "Rattle and Hum" by a group called U2. He was driving on a windy country road and his enthusiasm for rewinding the tape to play specific excerpts for me surpassed his interest in safe driving. "Wait, did you hear that line?!" he would ask, "Lemme rewind it. Did you hear what he said? You gotta pay attention to this part!" I remember that in the spoken word part of "Bullet the Blue Sky" he was so excited as he recited along with Bono, that he even had motions that he did and gestured as if dealing invisible playing cards as he let go of the steering wheel completely and mimicked, "Shhhlappin' um down. One hundred! Two hundred!"

I figured that anything that made someone so passionate was probably a decent piece of art. And I asked for it when my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday. They replied that they weren't going to buy me "heavy metal" and referenced a time when I requested "anything by Morrissey" and they got to the record store to find that one of his albums was called "Kill Uncle". What could be worse? Morrissey was probably out to convince me to kill one of their brothers. I purchased a Rattle and Hum cassette on my own dime. It and a subsequently rented VHS documentary by the same name won my parents over with its B.B. King cameos, gospel choirs, and songs about MLK Jr.

I needed more and bought the Joshua Tree at a shopping mall music store. I distinctly remember taking off the cellophane and taking in the album art and knowing that this was something magical. Talking about The Joshua Tree and using words like expansive, cinematic, or soundscape is just preaching to the choir. I hope we all know the Joshua Tree to be these things, but hear them in a way that is much more individual and personal.

A deluxe edition was just released like at Christmas time. It was remastered by The Edge himself and a second disc, incredible packaging, and a cool little booklet were thrown in. You know I bought it. A review I read, which claimed that the bonus disc was an album in and of itself and on par with the Joshua Tree, prompted me. That reviewer was wrong. The bonus disc is full of disappointing B-sides and outtakes, which didn't make it on the album for a reason. The better tracks are ones that incorporate a spooky sort of "world" feel, like "Race Against Time" and "Wave of Sorrow". Its downside is the overuse of spoken word, especially on the final track which is just my least favorite poet ever, Allen Ginsberg, reading a poem.