Thirty-nine years ago today, four guys from Dublin released an album that went platinum in the United Kingdom in 48 hours, and the music world hasn't been the same since.
U2 dropped The Joshua Tree on March 9, 1987, and it immediately became something no one could explain and everyone wanted a piece of. The album hit No. 1 in more than 20 countries, became Britain's fastest-selling record at the time and produced Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.'s only two No. 1 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100: "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Not bad for a fifth album.
Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, the record earned U2 the Grammy for Album of the Year at the 1988 ceremony, and it wasn't close. Critics were unanimous, fans were obsessed and Time magazine put the band on its cover under the headline "Rock's Hottest Ticket." There's a particular irony in all of it: four Irish musicians so fascinated by America they named their masterpiece after a desert tree in the Mojave, and in doing so made something more American-sounding than most American artists ever had.
The Joshua Tree is one of those rare albums with no throwaway tracks.
"Where the Streets Have No Name" remains one of the most recognizable opening guitar lines in rock history. "With or Without You" is still soundtracking breakups and long drives four decades later. "Running to Stand Still" and "One Tree Hill" hit in ways that are genuinely hard to categorize — not quite rock, not quite folk, not quite anything that existed before Lanois and Eno built it.
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The Legacy Is Official — Literally
In 2013, The Joshua Tree was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, reserved for recordings deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." It has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, earned a diamond certification in the US and appears on virtually every serious list of the greatest albums ever made.
Thirty-nine isn't a milestone number; 40 will get the big retrospective treatment next year. But if you haven't listened to The Joshua Tree front-to-back recently, today feels like exactly the right excuse.
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