Their decline as songwriters arguably accelerated in earnest with their 11th album, which opens with the karate-kick single Vertigo but quickly sinks into mushy bleatings: City Of Blinding Lights and Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own are so generically U2 you could imagine them being put together by a quartet of androids wearing black stetsons (plus a beanie hat for the Edge-bot).īono rating: A strangled cry in the dark.
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But good intentions could not paper over the fact that this is an LP with lead in its boots.ġ1: How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2004)īy going on the road with The Joshua Tree, U2 have stepped closer to the heritage circuit where old warhorses such as the Rolling Stones are put out to (very profitable) pasture. That’s a shame as Bono was wrestling with some genuinely raw themes: the death of his mother on Iris (Hold Me Close) and, on Raised by Wolves, the lack of closure suffered by the families of those killed in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. And while their devotion to The Ramones and The Clash was clearly heartfelt, the music, bloodless and overproduced, failed to measure up. It didn’t help that the record resembled a karaoke tribute to the musical heroes of their adolescence in Dublin.
In an era when faux outrage is everyone’s favourite pastime how naive of U2 to think they could bung their new album on to 300 million iTunes accounts without ticking off a significant chunk of the record consuming public. The tedium is broken only by the “please, make it stop” dad-pop of Get On Your Boots, a paean to quickly (but safely) donning some mildly risqué footwear and stomping about in a “funky” fashion.īono rating: A pathetic whimper 12: Songs Of Innocence (2014) At once bloated and insubstantial, it bobs and weaves, adrift on endless waves of billionaire rock star ennui. Part-recorded in the Moroccan city of Fez, No Line… sounds as if it passed out in the heat and had to be dragged under a tree to recuperate. That rare U2 album where you reach the end and feel cheated by the lack of patented Bono yodelling. Is this misplaced nostalgia or is the LP truly deserving of such lionising? Hold on to your felt cowboy hats as we rank U2’s studio albums, from worst to last. And this weekend U2 bring the sold-out Joshua Tree tour to Croke Park. In the Age of Trump, politically-engaged rock is once again in vogue. U2 was among the many bands supporting headliners such as The Clash and David Bowie.Through a fair chunk of the 1990s and 2000s, The Joshua Tree was perceived as the embodiment of everything toe-curling about U2: it was earnest, preachy and obsessed with the junkier aspects of American culture.īut lo! – as Bono might sing – the wheel has turned. In 1983, as an up- and- coming band, they played at the US Festival in Devore in San Bernardino County. The closest U2 got to the area was a few years before the album’s release. But the band has yet to join the festival’s lineup. U2 has never performed near Joshua Tree or in any desert near the iconic tree from the album cover.įans have long speculated that they’d be a natural for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio because of its proximity to the park. 1 singles: “With or Without You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” 7 and rocketed to the top three weeks later, where it reigned nine weeks at No. U2 has put out eight albums since “The Joshua Tree,” but it remains the band’s best-selling album with more than 20 million sold, according to U2’s website. Some photos made it into the deluxe edition of the album. Fans have left memorabilia, including a plaque stating “HAVE YOU FOUND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR?”Īnother popular spot for fan pilgrimages is the Harmony Hotel in Twentynine Palms, where U2 stopped to take photos during its roadtrip.
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On that trip, Corbijn spotted the lone Joshua Tree off Route 190 in the Mojave desert, an unusual sight because the trees were usually seen in clusters, Averill recalled in an essay published with the album’s 20th anniversary edition.īut it remains on the ground and has been visited by many fans, according to accounts on the fan website, which has been posting a series on fan visits to the site to mark the album’s 30 years. The band, joined by Corbijn and album art designer Steve Averill, took a roadtrip from Reno to Joshua Tree in December 1986 after finishing the album. It was taken at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park in Inyo County - more than 200 miles from Joshua Tree - according to “U2 by U2,” an official oral history by the group. Despite its title, the album’s cover photo wasn’t shot in Joshua Tree National Park in San Bernardino County.
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