Maps of Music

The Joshua Tree (1987)

Where the lyrics of The Joshua Tree take you, and where it was really made.

The tree on the sleeve fell around 2000, yet the spot is still a popular pilgrimage site for fans.

Key places

Danesmoate House, Rathfarnham (1987)

Recording site Danesmoate House — The band set up a studio in January 1986 at Danesmoate House, a Georgian house in Rathfarnham. Lanois later called the Danesmoate sessions the backbone of the record's tonality. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin (1987)

Recording site Windmill Lane Studios — Writing and recording alternated between the two houses and this Dublin studio. In the final weeks, Steve Lillywhite mixed four songs here on an SSL desk. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Zabriskie Point, front cover (1987)

Album cover Zabriskie Point — The front cover photo of the band was taken at Zabriskie Point during the December 1986 shoot across California desert sites. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• The Joshua Tree: fifth studio album by Irish rock band U2
• Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno
• Released 9 March 1987 by Island Records
• Aimed for a harder-hitting sound within conventional song structures
• Contrasts with the ambient experimentation of the 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire
• Influenced by American and Irish roots music
• Lyrics mix sociopolitical concerns with spiritual imagery
• Juxtaposes the band's antipathy for the "real America" with fascination for the "mythical America"
• Theme inspired by the band's US experiences, American literature and politics

Background

• Follows The Unforgettable Fire, its tour, and U2's participation in Live Aid in 1985
• U2 began writing new material in mid-1985 after the Unforgettable Fire Tour
• Manager Paul McGuinness linked the album to the band's "great romance" with the United States
• Band toured the US for up to five months per year in the first half of the 1980s
• Bono read American writers including Norman Mailer, Flannery O'Connor and Raymond Carver before the sessions
• Bono's humanitarian visit to Egypt and Ethiopia in September–October 1985 shaped the desert theme
• Bono recorded vocals for Sun City in August 1985, then wrote "Silver and Gold" after time with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger in New York
• Bono's interest in roots music grew from there
• Greg Carroll, roadie and Bono's personal assistant, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Dublin on 3 July 1986
• Carroll's traditional Māori funeral in New Zealand inspired "One Tree Hill"
• U2 performed at Self Aid in Dublin on 17 May 1986, which drew media criticism
• June 1986: six-show Conspiracy of Hope tour for Amnesty International, pausing sessions for about two months

Recording

• Recording began in January 1986 in Ireland
• Sessions mainly took place in two houses to create a relaxed atmosphere
• Danesmoate House in Rathfarnham was the first base, from January 1986
• Melbeach, the Edge's house in Monkstown, became the main base from August 1986
• Writing and recording also alternated with Windmill Lane Studios
• Mark "Flood" Ellis was the engineer, his first work with U2
• Lanois required songs to be worked out in advance and captured as live band takes, with overdubbing as a fallback
• "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "Mothers of the Disappeared" were built with overdubs around drum tracks
• "Where the Streets Have No Name" needed extensive rework, with Eno estimating about 40% of the album's time spent on it
• Bono's lyrics were rewritten after the other members were dissatisfied with them
• Recording largely wrapped in November 1986, with about 22 tracks recorded
• Steve Lillywhite was hired in late December 1986 to help finish mixing
• Final mixes were completed the night before the 15 January 1987 Island deadline
• Kirsty MacColl set the album's running order

Cover

• Sleeve designed by Steve Averill, with photographs by Anton Corbijn
• Band asked for imagery of the desert and a cinematic location in the US
• Photo shoot took place over several days in December 1986 in California and Nevada desert sites
• Joshua trees were suggested by Corbijn after the first day's shooting
• Bono proposed the title The Joshua Tree the day after
• Provisional titles were The Desert Songs and The Two Americas

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• U2 are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1976 by teenage pupils of Mount Temple Comprehensive School.
• Members: Bono (lead vocals), the Edge (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Adam Clayton (bass), Larry Mullen Jr. (drums).
• The band was first named Feedback, then The Hype, and in March 1978 took the name U2.
• They won the Pop Group '78 talent contest in Limerick and signed with Island Records in 1980.

Career

• Debut album Boy (1980); War (1983) was their first UK number-one album.
• The Joshua Tree (1987) made them international stars and was their greatest critical and commercial success, selling about 25 million copies.
• The band reinvented their sound in the 1990s with Achtung Baby (1991) and the Zoo TV Tour.
• Their 2009–2011 360° Tour held records for the highest-grossing concert tour until 2019.
• In 2023 they released Songs of Surrender and began the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live residency at Sphere in Las Vegas.
• Estimated record sales: about 170 million worldwide; 22 Grammy Awards; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees (2005).

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Rolling Stone's Steve Pond wrote that the album "could be the big one" for a band determined to be Important
• Rolling Stone said the sound weds the textures of The Unforgettable Fire to fully formed songs
• The Boston Globe's Steve Morse called it "their most challenging work to date"
• NME's John McCready praised it as a better and braver record than anything likely to appear in 1987
• The Orlando Sentinel's Thom Duffy praised the "exultant power" of the songs
• Q's Paul Du Noyer said the album's potency lies in spiritual frustration
• Los Angeles Times' Robert Hilburn said the band was the greatest rock and roll band in the world
• Houston Chronicle's Marty Racine found the group took itself too seriously

Reappraisal

• Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote in a retrospective that the focus has never been clearer
• Entertainment Weekly's Bill Wyman said the album combined easy-to-grasp themes with a focused musical attack
• A 2008 Q retrospective said the reinvention of stadium rock sounds as impassioned as ever
• Rolling Stone's 2012 list ranked the album 27th among the 500 greatest albums

Records

• UK Albums Chart debut at number one with 235,000 copies in its opening week
• Number one in over 20 countries
• US Billboard Top Pop Albums number one for nine consecutive weeks
• Band's first album to top the US charts
• Winner of Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocal at the 1988 Grammys
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the US National Recording Registry in 2014
• Sales of more than 25 million copies worldwide, U2's best-selling album

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Eno wanted to stage an accident that would erase the tapes of "Where the Streets Have No Name" to force the group to start anew; engineer Pat McCarthy restrained him.
• Bono wrote "Bullet the Blue Sky" after visiting El Salvador, and asked the Edge to put El Salvador through an amplifier for the guitar part.
• A mirror the band used to check their appearance was left in the centre gatefold by mistake.
• The three first singles all topped the Irish Singles Charts.
• Bono later called Achtung Baby "the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree".

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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