by Steven Booth

Created on: July 26, 2009

U2's The Joshua Tree was the culmination of the first act of their so far three act career. It was the record where the artistic aspirations of Boy hit full flower. It was also their most downbeat and questioning album of their career. Not coincidentally, it was also their strongest, most consistent collection of songs to date.

U2 were completely obsessed with America at this point in their career. The tense and pulsating Bullet in the Blue Sky is rife with images of Americana good and bad, somewhere between Dylan and the Doors. In God's Country spoke of sad eyes and crooked crosses as sort of indictment of crazed American society. Their love shows in other ways: The record features wide open landscapes like the desert the album is named after, there are slide guitars and harmonicas which add touches to the imagery, and there is even the overt gospel of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. The words are sometimes a searing indictment, but the music tells a different story. A complex love affair, indeed.

The victory of this record was twofold. The first was how they mixed this worldview and musical approach while staying true to their musical roots. Edge's guitar opening to Where The Streets Have No Name is like a beacon in a storm. Bono's impassioned vocals serve as a call to arms on Street, a questioning preacher in I Still Haven't Found, and an out-of-work miner on Red Hill Mining Town. Just like the earlier records, they add a charisma and urgency to the songs and raise them to a higher level. The second victory is in the songs themselves. In earlier records like October and Unforgettable Fire, the band would sometimes let their ideas overtake their songs, and they would lose their way. On Joshua Tree, it works from beginning to end. The best songs like Streets and With or Without You serve as reliable centerpieces which they still continue to be over twenty years later. Even the lesser songs like bluesy Trip Through Your Wires or the foreboding Exit serve as useful parts of the whole record.

U2 had become mature. Joshua didn't have the idealism of Boy or October, or the fire of War, but had a sense of brutal realism without forgetting their spiritual quest. Spiritual doubt is all over the place. Streets is full of fire and brimstone, while I Still Haven't Found What I'm Lookin For says it all in the title. The obsessive love of With or Without You and the death in Running to Stand Still and One Tree Hill tell of a world where there are no easy answers, and that true faith is hard won. Hope springs eternal in Edge's guitar and the uplifting melody of Streets, but on Joshua Tree they realize that getting older often brings more questions than answers, and faith is something to be earned, not something easily bestowed.

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