Stephen Thomas Erlewine (All Music Guide)

Using the textured sonics of The Unforgettable Fire as a basis, U2 expanded those innovations by scaling back the songs to a personal setting and adding a grittier attack for its follow-up, The Joshua Tree. It's a move that returns them to the sweeping, anthemic rock of War, but if War was an exploding political bomb, The Joshua Tree is a journey through its aftermath, trying to find sense and hope in the desperation. That means that even the anthems -- the epic opener "Where the Streets Have No Name," the yearning "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- have seeds of doubt within their soaring choruses, and those fears take root throughout the album, whether it's in the mournful sliding acoustic guitars of "Running to Stand Still," the surging "One Tree Hill" or the hypnotic elegy "Mothers of the Disappeared." So it might seem a little ironic that U2 became superstars on the back of such a dark record, but their focus has never been clearer, nor has their music been catchier, than on The Joshua Tree. Unexpectedly, U2 have also tempered their textural post-punk with American influences. Not only are Bono's lyrics obsessed with America, but country and blues influences are heard throughout the record, and instead of using these as roots, they're used as ways to add texture to the music. With the uniformly excellent songs -- only the clumsy, heavy rock and portentous lyrics of "Bullet the Blue Sky" fall flat -- the result is a powerful, uncompromising record that became a hit due to its vision and its melody. Never before have their big messages sounded so direct and personal.

Michael Ruby (Amazon.com)

U2 have made a lot of grand music, but 1987's graceful, powerful Joshua Tree stands as their masterwork. It is by turns moving, inspiring, and exhilarating. Each member contributes his best work, and each song shines. Would that all rock records were made with the same care, the same passion and invention. The ubiquitous opening salvo of "Where the Streets Have No Name," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and the tense "With or Without You" may define this album to many, but its real strengths lie in the brilliant second half: "Red Hill Mining Town," "Trip Through Your Wires," and the surging "One Tree Hill" (the latter being one of rock's--hell, all music's--truly finest moments).

Daniel Durchholz (Amazon.co.uk)

Having nearly exhausted their capacity for pop-song politics on War and The Unforgettable Fire, U2 turned toward themes of personal identity and complex relationships on The Joshua Tree. Not that the group was willing to come down off the barricades entirely: "Mothers of the Disappeared" and "Bullet the Blue Sky" turned a jaundiced eye toward Central America and the United States's role there. But the predominant mood here is one of self-discovery and the hunger for something more on tracks like the pulsating "Where the Streets Have No Name" and the gospel-ish "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". The album's masterstroke, however, is "With or Without You", a nasty love song dressed up as an ode of devotion and care. It ranks with the Police's "Every Breath You Take" as the most misread smash hit of the 1980s.

Lisa Zhito (Barnes & Noble)

Long before Jars of Clay powered oblique Christian references into multi-platinum success, Irish supergroup U2 paved the way with this 10-times platinum 1987 smash. Don't believe it? You're not alone. Even with lyrics as blunt as "You carried the cross and my shame, you know I believe it," many purists debate classifying THE JOSHUA TREE as a Christian album. But as Bono and the boys explore such spiritual concerns as hope, redemption and loving thy neighbor -- and you can't get much more Christian than that -- such critical mutterings become moot. Even at its darkest and most disturbing, on tracks such as "Bullet The Blue Sky" and "Red Hill Mining Town," THE JOSHUA TREE never advocates turning anywhere other than to God for comfort. The fact that a large share of the Christian music industry has snubbed the best-selling Christian rock album of all time seems somehow appropriate: as Jesus said, a prophet is never accepted in his hometown.

(CD Universe)

U2: Bono (vocals, harmonica); The Edge (guitar, keyboards, background vocals); Adam Clayton (bass); Larry Mullen, Jr. (drums).
Additional personnel includes: Daniel Lanois (guitar, keyboards, tambourine, background vocals); Brian Eno (keyboards, programming, background vocals). Engineers include: Flood. Recorded at Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin, Ireland.

THE JOSHUA TREE won the 1987 Grammy award for album of the year.
After their arresting appearance at Live Aid, U2 album sales went berserk across the globe, and the world waited impatiently for their next release. The Joshua Tree arrived, and fans were not disappointed. There are few weaknesses, musical or lyrical, in this album. The pure power of the music and patent honesty of the lyrics steer the band clear of whimsy and self-indulgence. The anguish and questioning is shot through with faith as they chant and stomp and batter their way through instant classics such as 'Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For', 'Where The Streets Have No Name' and 'With Or Without You', leaving the listener bruised but elated.

(CMJ New Music Report, issue 113, March 13, 1987)

According to a recent interview, while working on the Artists United Against Apartheid project, U2's Bono got his first introduction to blues roots when Little Steven loaned him some albums. The experience changed him, and the immediate result was the blistering "Silver And Gold" which closed the Sun City album. That experience infuses The Joshua Tree, U2's fifth and most mature LP, with a seething, exquisitely controlled energy. Bono's vocals burn, channelling his emotional excesses into passion rather than exuberance, and the band matches that performance with an equally precise and powerful one. The Joshua Tree is beautifully produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois (again), who, more comfortable here with the band, seem to deserve much of the credit for the LP's cohesive sound. Steve Lillywhite returns to mix the LPs first three tracks, all of which must be airplay choices, including the luscious single "With Or Without You." But it's the fourth track, "Bullet The Blue Sky," which has the greatest impact. The Edge's guitar stings and Bono's angry growl sings of South American terror. Also try "One Tree Hill," "Still Haven't Found," "God's Country" and the moody, creative "Exit."

Mark Cooper (Q Magazine)

When U2's recent Number 1 single The Fly first came on the radio, it sounded like a confused mess, an irritating jangle of throbbing guitars juxtaposed with falsetto passages seemingly grafted on at random. Rumours of Achtung Baby's Berlin experiments and subsequent mixing problems had been circling for months; The Fly seemed to confirm that in their desperation to move on from the American roots of Rattle And Hum, U2 had simply come unstuck. Three or four plays later, The Fly sounded like the freshest thing on the airwaves and that falsetto transition grew stranger, more sudden and more beautiful. U2 had reinvented themselves once again. U2 have dominated the rock landscape for over a decade now: it's grown harder to recall how original Boy sounded when it appeared in 1980. Punk had grown sour, Joy Division's angst and the Bunnymen's metaphysical speculations were beginning to create a post-punk rock and the boy's innocent face on the sleeve and the first guitar rush of I Will Follow sounded otherworldly, almost alien. U2's sound seemed to have come out of nowhere. As Bono admitted at the time, U2 were a lousy covers band so they'd been obliged to create their own sound. "There's not much music I do like, and I realise that our biggest influences are each other," he admitted. With hindsight, Larry Mullen's crashing drums, some of Edge's more obviously glam riffs and the choruses of songs like Stories For Boys are distant cousins of punk's football terrace cliches. Boy's drive and exuberance belongs to punk but the band's emotional palette seemed wholly fresh. The doubt of Shadows And Tall Trees, the dread of Twilight and the spiritual devotion of Into The Heart displayed a direct spiritual drive as mysterious as it was urgent. Rock had grown up on a bedrock of the blues and teenage sexual yearnings. Here was a music thriving on teenage spiritual awakenings with a musical approach that owed next to nothing to tradition. October (1981) turned the yearnings of Boy into a brutal mixture of spiritual affirmation and looming doubt. Gloria's chiming guitar opening was utterly exhilarating and although the chorus already presaged the pomposity that threatened to be the band's downfall in the mid-'80s, U2 still sounded like they'd found a new way of getting gone. The Edge's guitar now mixed rhythmic drive with some furious riffing and if some of the songs sounded rushed or incomplete (I Threw A Brick Through A Window), there was still room amongst the riffing and the drum attack for the pensive, piano-backed introspection of the title track. By 1983's War, Bono's mouth and the hectic touring schedule had begun to turn U2 into a crusade. The spiritual turmoil remained but now the boy on the cover was older and bloodied and the band looked outward at the mess of the world. New Year's Day gave U2 their first real hit and Sunday Bloody Sunday gave them an anthem and a white flag that they proceeded to wave round the world. No matter that U2 sounded like they were turning their own insights into cliches with Two Hearts Beat As One, Bono was undoubtedly emerging as a singer of emotive power, the rhythm section were turning basic skills into an art form and The Edge was already the most original guitarist of the '80s. U2 Live: Under A Blood Red Sky (1983) marked a kind of apotheosis for the early U2 as Bono turned into a cheerleader and the band seemed to grow drunk on their own power and the delirium of crowds in Boston, Denver and Germany. They had turned into a phenomenon and while their shows dripped drama, there was something increasingly insufferable about Bono's antics. U2's otherworldly soundscapes seemed in danger of thickening into an '80s version of pomp rock and their spiritual questions seemed to be turning into slogans. U2 promptly proved their depth of character by swopping producers (Eno and Daniel Lanois for Steve Lillywhite), dropping much of the bombast and recovering the rapt, personal quality that gives their best work its integrity. The Unforgettable Fire (1984) sounds like the band made it for themselves. The hit Pride (In The Name Of Love) kept the breastbeating element of their audience happy and ensured that the global reputation continued to swell but the album is distinguished by the warm, ambient textures of the production and a hard won lyricism that turn A Sort of Homecoming and the title track into gradually building dramas whose impact is all the richer for not being signposted by one of those trademark swelling choruses. Titles like 4th Of July and Elvis Presley And America were evidence that U2 were finding new subjects during their constant US tours but the album's high spots, Wire and Bad, focused on the plight of friends and Dublin drug addiction. Bono's singing was charismatic throughout and he seemed to have finally controlled his Joan of Arc complex. The Joshua Tree (1987) turned U2 into global superstars as they finally learnt to combine their multi-textured sound with the kind of melodies that fans could sing as well as sway along to. Bono talked about how he and U2 had discovered the song and the single success of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With Or Without You (both American Number 1s) and Where The Streets Have No Name - the American Number 1s - proved him right. U2 still sounded explosive on Trip Through Your Wires or Bullet The Blue Sky but there was a new, meditative maturity, coupled with an ever growing sense of social responsibility that blossomed in Mothers Of The Disappeared. Above all, U2 had rediscovered the vulnerable, questing spirit of their beginnings and allied it to their hardwon maturity. The Amnesty tours and their newly established place in the rock elite ensured that U2 were now spending more and more time with rock legends like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. They had started out as a band that almost boasted of their rootlessness, now they went in search of the past they'd missed. Rattle And Hum (1988) accompanied the film of the same name and combined a towering live version of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (complete with backing from the New Voices Of Freedom Choir) with new material that teamed U2 with Dylan and B.B. King. In their breathless way, U2 announced that they'd fallen in love with rock history and there was more than a hint of Sun Records and Bo Diddley in Desire, the first Number 1 single. A sprawling celebration of the live U2 and their latest obsessions, Rattle And Hum showed they had lost none of their inquisitive drive, even if they occasionally seemed somewhat swamped and starstruck by their dawning awareness of the American past. Four years later, U2 were in Berlin, working on a dark, European record. Still hungry, still unafraid to fall on their arses, still staring at the stars.

Steve Pond (RollingStone, issue 497, 1987)

The stakes are enormous, and U2 knows it. Its last album, The Unforgettable Fire, contained "Pride (In the Name of Love)," its biggest-selling single ever, and last year the band was the musical heart of Amnesty International's Conspiracy of Hope tour. Now, it seems, U2 is poised to rise from the level of mere platinum groups to the more rarefied air above. For a band that's always specialized in inspirational, larger-than-life gestures – a band utterly determined to be Important – The Joshua Tree could be the big one, and that's precisely what it sounds like.
That's not to say that this record is either a flagrantly commercial move or another Born in the U.S.A. The Joshua Tree is U2's most varied, subtle and accessible album, although it doesn't contain any sure-fire smash hits. But in its musical toughness and strong-willed spirituality, the album lives up to its namesake: a hardy, twisted tree that grows in the rocky deserts of the American Southwest. A Mormon legend claims that their early settlers called the Joshua tree "the praying plant" and thought its gnarled branches suggested the Old Testament prophet Joshua pointing the way to the Promised Land. The title befits a record that concerns itself with resilience in the face of utter social and political desolation, a record steeped in religious imagery.
Since U2 emerged from Dublin in 1980 with a bracing brand of hard, emotional, guitar-oriented rock, its albums have followed a pattern. The first and third (Boy and War) were muscular and assertive, full of, respectively, youthful bravado and angry social awareness; the second and fourth studio albums (October and The Unforgettable Fire) were moody and meandering and sometimes longer on ideas than on full-fledged songs.
But The Joshua Tree isn't an outright return to the fire of War. The band ruled that out years ago: Songs like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day" hit with driving force on the 1983 album and subsequent tour. But U2 saw itself in danger of becoming just another sloganeering arena-rock band, so the group closed that chapter with a live record and video. The band swapped longtime producer Steve Lilly-white for Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois and, with The Unforgettable Fire, declared its intention to no longer be as relentlessly heroic.
On the new album, U2 retains Eno and Lanois, brings back Lillywhite to mix four songs and weds the diverse textures of The Unforgettable Fire to fully formed songs, many of them as aggressive as the hits on War. U2's sonic trademarks are here: the monumental angst of Bono's voice, the driving pulse of Adam Clayton's bass and Larry Mullen Jr.'s drums and the careening wail of the Edge's guitar. But for every predictably roaring anthem there's a spare, inventively arranged tune, such as "With or Without You," a rock & roll bolero that builds from a soothing beginning to a resounding climax.
The band still falls into some old traps: Bono's perpetually choked-up voice can sound overwrought and self-important; some of the images (fire and rain, say) start to lose their resonance after a dozen or so uses; and "Exit," a recited psychodrama about a killer, is awkward enough to remind you that not even Patti Smith could regularly pull off this sort of thing.
More than any other U2 album, though, The Joshua Tree has the power and allure to seduce and capture a mass audience on its own terms. Without making a show of its eclecticism, it features assertive rock ("Where the Streets Have No Name"), raw frenzy ("Bullet the Blue Sky"), delicacy ("One Tree Hill"), chugging rhythms ("I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For") and even acoustic bluesiness ("Running to Stand Still") – all of it unmistakably U2.
But if this is a breakthrough, it's a grim, dark-hued one. At first, refreshingly honest, romantic declarations alternate with unsettling religious imagery. Then things get blacker. The raging, melodramatic "Bullet the Blue Sky" ties Biblical fire and brimstone with American violence overseas and at home. In the stomping, harmonicaspiked rocker "Trip Through Your Wires," what looks like salvation could easily be evil seduction; "One Tree Hill" is a soft, haunting benediction on a U2 crew member who died in a motorcycle accident; and "Red Hill Mining Town" echoes Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up" in its unsparing look at personal relationships savaged by economic hardship – here, the aftermath of the largely unsuccessful British miners' strike of 1984.
But for all its gloom, the album is never a heavy-handed diatribe. After the first few times through "Running to Stand Still," for instance, you notice the remarkable music: the wholly unexpected blues slide guitar, the soft, Nebraska-style yelps, the ghostly harmonica. It sounds like a lovely, peaceful reverie – except that this is a junkie's reverie, and when that realization hits home, the gentle acoustic lullaby acquires a corrosive power that recalls "Bad," from the last LP.
The Joshua Tree is an appropriate response to these times, and a picture bleaker than any U2 has ever painted: a vision of blasted hopes, pointless violence and anguish. But this is not a band to surrender to defeatism. Its last album ended with a gorgeous elegy to Martin Luther King Jr.; The Joshua Tree closes with a haunting ode to other victims. "Mothers of the Disappeared" is built around desolate images of loss, but the setting is soothing and restorative – music of great sadness but also of unutterable compassion, acceptance and calm. The Unforgettable Chill, you might call this album, and unforgettable is certainly the right word.

© Frank Steven Groen