The Joshua Tree (1987)

I was pretty much fed up with U2 by 1987, and thus largely missed out on this album beyond the inescapable, which is to say I actively avoided it. It's kind of strange when I put together the pieces. I had been quite enamored with the band just a few years earlier, especially after seeing them live in 1983 (though an arena appearance two years later on basically the same material was much more anemic). Coproducers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois are two I happen to trust on sight by brand, in spite of the many known problems associated with either and both. And I am nutty for the Pet Shop Boys cover of "Where the Streets Have No Name." I have heard it hundreds of times more than the U2 original. Recently I saw someone on the internet claim that The Joshua Tree has the best three-song opening sequence on an album in history—"best three-song opening sequence on an album" could only be an internet exercise but somehow that sent me back finally to attempt some assessment of U2's monster mega album, which ultimately moved some 25 million units. Others can argue for it being their greatest; All That You Can't Leave Behind (also produced by Eno and Lanois btw) is still my perhaps eccentric answer to that question. I will give it up to the original internet poster for the first three songs on The Joshua Tree. Pretty damn good 1-2-3 all right. I always liked "Streets," as I said (and who cares if it takes more than a minute for the first song on the album to properly kick in?). More recently "With or Without You" and especially "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" have started to hit with some force.

Wordy wordy titles! Let me get that out of my system—especially for a band that goes by two conjoined characters. Then let me just admit "Still Haven't Found" works on me in a way somewhat beyond my understanding, let alone my ability to control. Sure, you can read it as moon-spoon-June treacle on a level: "Woe is me I just want a girlfriend / better job / new car / whatever," the mewling singer might be wailing on casual listens (casual listens turning into forced auditions in the spring of 1987 when it became a #1 hit). Like, maybe he needs to get his credit rating up? But if you've ever had the feeling you still haven't found what you're looking for, and have had it for years, then you will know what this song is about. Not sunglasses. It's coming from an emo place comparable to the one that produced R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts," for example (and too many plain phony power ballads). It is just more artful and on-the-nose about it.

The rest of the album is varying degrees of professional and often compelling wankery. It's not hard to let it play to the end, even if only fragments of hooks distinguish themselves here and there. Eno's presence is felt in various small ways, not always good. The loose-wristed guitar playing of The Edge ("The Edge," Nelson laugh: "Ha Ha") often strays toward a More Songs About Buildings and Food feel. "Running to Stand Still" has slide guitar pasted on like the price sticker on the cover of a book. That reminds me of the themes attempted here, which I think it's appropriate to quote Wikipedia on: "through sociopolitically conscious lyrics embellished with spiritual imagery, it contrasts the group's antipathy for the 'real America' with their fascination with the 'mythical America.'" Yeah, OK, no thanks. Already heard all about it from Greil Marcus on the Band. This pompous bombast haunts it all and not easy to see past it—I'm not even sure how much I'm going to listen to The Joshua Tree ever again (beyond "Still Haven't Found," the new semi-intermittent regular). But it's not a bad album. I can't see why anyone would call it a greatest anything ever, except even my own touch points with it can feel strangely more vital than ever now. That's something.

All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)

The other day I was shopping in one of my local hypermarket superstores, filling my basket with the usual weird motley of groceries, linens, hardware, and clothes, when I noticed familiar music playing. Why, my goodness, it was a song from the very album I was preparing to write about—"Beautiful Day," from U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. This led me to look it up and realize that the song had been a #21 hit at the end of 2000, which led me to further marvel over the band's surprisingly substantial entry in my circa 2009 Billboard book: 16 hits to that point, six top 10s, two #1s. I knew they had become crass sellouts to every audience they ever had, except maybe Jann Wenner, but I hadn't realized how far it went. I had been mulling over a defense of All That You Can't Leave Behind because over the years it has shaped up as my answer to the party question, What is your favorite U2 album after all? But now in this citadel of consumerism, fortified later by those refreshed chart statistics of the past, it sounded so disconcertingly apt that it all started to collapse in front of me. Clearly the song belongs more now to the layered shared memories of the Billboard hit parade over the decades, and at 18 years old this year it's just old enough to feel a little instantly stale. In fact, I admit that was my reaction when I played the album for the first time in years a few weeks ago. I kind of flinched at it a little. By the third time through, a few days later, all the elements of warmth reassembled and I found myself looking forward again to hearing it regularly. Is it a case of self-fulfilling prophecy? "Beautiful Day" was not just the only (relatively modest) hit but it also opens the album, a kind of corollary to the Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine" to start side 2 of Revolver. Very sweet, in other words, just this side of saccharine, but an effective mood-setter for a nice batch of anthems. In the case of U2 it is some kind of moral sugar rush—the song titles tell a story too, "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of," "Elevation," "Peace on Earth," "When I Look at the World," finishing on "Grace"—but once it's familiar it gets to be comforting. I did love this album in its time, taking it as the band's welcome (if meditated) retreat from nearly 10 years of incessant "pop" posturing and return to a certain soulfulness they always had that appealed to me (in retrospect, more and more, I have to ask myself what was my problem again with The Joshua Tree? ... for another time). All That You Can't Leave Behind also later became one of the side anthems of 9/11, as the song "New York" was so poignant in the historical moment and brought the album back for me for another fall and winter. And now this fall and winter, at home, in my car if I want to use the CD player, and even in what passes for shopping malls these days. God bless us every one for all that we can't leave behind.