It just hit me, as I was reading up on today’s selection, that this is the third album in a row on my list of greats that was a massive hit. U2’s The Joshua Tree, released in 1987, has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide to date.
How nice to see quality work rewarded on the charts. As I look over the other titles on my list, a pattern emerges: the older albums fared far better, sales-wise, than the more recent ones. Sure, the music industry in general has taken a major hit in the last decade, but it also seems like the mega-sellers these days are not the best records.
Or is it just that I’m better at finding the more obscure artists now than I was as a kid, so the albums I love from my childhood are by definition the ones that reached a larger audience?
At any rate, The Joshua Tree was a monster hit and remains a passionate work of art. U2 has had as successful and varied a career as any band in the business, but this poetic rock album remains their masterpiece.
It is best known for the trifecta of hits that kick things off — ‘Where the Streets Have No Name,’ ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ and ‘With Or Without You’ — but I’ve always found more to love in the later tracks. The apocalyptic beat poetry of ‘Bullet the Blue Sky,’ the elegiac ‘One Tree Hill,’ the ominous and cinematic ‘Mothers of the Disappeared.’ Those songs pin me to the summer before my sophomore year of high school.
‘Running to Stand Still’ is another of those mid-album gems. It’s a song about heroin addiction, not that I knew that when I was 15. I just knew I loved the sound of The Edge’s guitars and Bono’s vocals. The Joshua Tree was the sound of the adult world, possibilities, deep thoughts, freedom.
She woke up from where she was lyin’ still.
Said I, I gotta do something
About where we’re goin’.
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night.
Singing ah, ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day.
Ah la de day
Mm hmmm
Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth.
I see seven towers, but I only see one way out.
You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice.
You know I took the poison, from the poison stream
Then I floated out of here, singing
Ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day.
She walks through the streets
With eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain.
In through a doorway
She brings me white golden pearls
Stolen from the sea.
She is ragin’
She is ragin’
And the storm blows up in her eyes.
She will suffer the needle chill
She’s running to stand still.
Meet Me In Montauk 
I assume you are referring to Edge’s guitar work on other songs, as it doesn’t appear on this track.
Interesting theories as to popular albums of the past vs. the present. And I think all of those theories have some merit. Certainly you discovered a number of albums through your parents and those albums got on their radar screen because of the artists; popularity or at least the popularity of one or more hit singles.
You can’t minimize the effect of plummeting album sales in the past decade or so however. An album that sells 2 million copies today is considered to be a success in the way that an album that sold 10 million was in 1985.
Anyway, as for today’s selection, as has been well documented on this blog, I’m not a big fan of U2. Still, the U2 I like best is where Bono (and Edge) tone down the anthemic rock sound. So I’m fine with this song, but I would not bring any U2 to my island.
Ditto – not a big fan of U2, but I can still enjoy, even admire, some of the songs on this album.
It’s funny that you say that this album brings you back to the summer before your sophomore year, because this album symbolizes for me the first time I remember you going off on your own path musically speaking. I must have been home from college that summer and hearing this album coming from your room, and thinking, “What the hell is he listening to?” 😉
As for the various theories you pose, I believe my Grammy clip I posted the other day supports the notion that there were better albums released then. Of course, I think that’s, in part, due to the way music is released and enjoyed today. Why should an artist or a producer be as concerned with putting out a stellar ALBUM, if what they need is to release at least a couple of songs that will get traction with the iTune purchasing public?
Regardless, this album is surely a classic, and I can understand why it’s on your list.