Finally, there’s the vinyl version that includes the original album and the additional material. Then, there’s the “Super Deluxe” edition, which bests the mere “Deluxe” edition by adding a DVD. Second, there’s the “Deluxe” edition, which is not only remastered, but also comes with an album of rarities.
First, there’s simply the remastered version, featuring the same tracks with better sound. And, in typical U2 fashion, they’re reissuing it on a grandiose scale in four different versions. The reach of The Joshua Tree‘s legacy is nearly impossible to assess, so it’s little wonder that U2 is reissuing it. So, by the way, has an entire generation of bands. By then, though, fans had grown weary of the band’s experimentation, and U2 have spent their last two albums trying to recapture the radio-friendly sound of their 1987 opus. When they finally realized there was no escaping their iconic status sealed by The Joshua Tree, U2 mocked it on Pop. Then, inevitably, U2 got tired of living in their own shadow, and both Achtung Baby and Zooropa chipped away at expectations of the band. Rattle and Hum was an extension of the album, further exploring American music forms such as blues, gospel, and soul. U2 were trying to connect with something much larger than themselves, and boy did it work.ĭuring the two decades that have elapsed since then, every move the band has made has been, in some way, a reaction to the legacy of The Joshua Tree. Sun Studio? Black churches? Elvis? The evidence is pretty clear. True, those are universal concerns, but Bono was clearly trying to tap into the American mythos, as the documentary Rattle and Hum would later make clear. Thematically, the album deals with American preoccupations, such as the perennial search for God and trying to understand senseless violence. It wasn’t just the music, though, that struggled with the concept of America. The opening guitar sequence of “Where the Streets Have No Name”, for example, is as epic and panoramic as the wide open spaces of the southwestern desert. Even when the band did something musically innovative, the music still grappled with trying to evoke the Promised Land. Musically, the album saw U2 shifting from their early sound and borrowing heavily from American genres, from the ragged harmonica blues of “Trip Through Your Wires” to the Dust Bowl gospel of “Running to Stand Still” to the enraged psychedelia of “Bullet the Blue Sky”. Much like the landscape depicted on the cover, the album itself would threaten to devour them. Little did U2 know that they’d spend the rest of their career dealing with the enormous success of this musical detour through Americana. Bono has always suffered from a Messiah complex, and it only made sense that his band would one day turn their attention to an entire nation with a similar fixation.
Not just the musical genres of America (though those are all over the album), and not just with the mass of land wedged between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but also with America the Idea. Coming at the end of the band’s first phase, their punk-in-ethos-but-not-in-sound/new-wave phase, The Joshua Tree saw U2 fascinated with America. Whether intentional or not, this image reveals the true essence and legacy of the album. Though the band is still the focal point of the photo, they look small and vulnerable in front of the desert, almost as if its mere being is about to overwhelm them.
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Behind them is America, symbolized by the frightening immensity of its beautiful, indifferent landscape, now in full view. Huddled to the left in the foreground are Larry Mullen, Jr., Adam Clayton, the Edge, and Bono, their images now in clear focus. This time, the same photo, still capturing the band standing in front of the desert, communicates much more. Twenty years later, this seminal work is being reissued, and the cover is slightly different (using the original vinyl LP cover instead of the more recognizable CD art). On the original CD cover of U2’s The Joshua Tree, the band looms large in the frame, their images blurred against the background of the national park the album is named after.