Джошуа Три: История создания и наследие альбома U2

The Joshua Tree is the fifth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 on Island Records. In contrast to the ambient experimentation of their 1984 release, The Unforgettable Fire, the band aimed for a harder hitting sound within the limitation of conventional song structures on The Joshua Tree. The album is influenced by American and Irish roots music, and through sociopolitically conscious lyrics embellished with spiritual imagery, it contrasts the group's antipathy for the "real America" with their fascination with the "mythical America". Inspired by American experiences, literature, and politics, U2 chose America as a theme for the album. Recording began in January 1986 in Ireland, and to foster a relaxed, creative atmosphere, the group primarily recorded in two houses. Several events during the sessions helped shape the conscious tone of the album, including the band's participation in the Conspiracy of Hope benefit concerts for Amnesty International, the death of roadie Greg Carroll, and lead vocalist Bono's travels to Central America. Recording was completed in November 1986; additional production continued into January 1987. Throughout the sessions, U2 sought a "cinematic" quality for the record, one that would evoke a sense of location, in particular, the open spaces of the United States. They represented this in the sleeve photography depicting them in American desert landscapes. The Joshua Tree received critical acclaim, topped the charts in over 20 countries, and became the fastest selling album in British history. According to Rolling Stone, the album increased the band's stature "from heroes to superstars". It produced the hit singles "With or Without You", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", and "Where the Streets Have No Name", the first two of which became the group's only number one singles in the US. The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1988. The group supported the record with the Joshua Tree Tour throughout 1987, during which they began to perform in stadiums for the first time in their career. Frequently listed among the greatest albums of all time, The Joshua Tree is one of the world's best selling albums, with over 25 million copies sold. U2 commemorated the record's 20th anniversary with a remastered re release, and its 30th anniversary with concert tours and a reissue. In 2014, The Joshua Tree was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame, and was selected for preservation in the US National Recording Registry for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress.

Prior to The Joshua Tree, U2 had released four studio albums and were an internationally successful band, particularly as a live act having toured every year in the 1980s. Following a September–October 1985 humanitarian visit to Egypt and Ethiopia with his wife Ali, Bono said: "Spending time in Africa and seeing people in the pits of poverty, I still saw a very strong spirit in the people, a richness of spirit I didn't see when I came home I saw the spoiled child of the Western world. I started thinking, 'They may have a physical desert, but we've got other kinds of deserts.' And that's what attracted me to the desert as a symbol of some sort." This inspired him to write the blues influenced song "Silver and Gold", which he recorded with Richards and Ronnie Wood and convinced Van Zandt to add to Sun City. He explained: "I used to think that writing words was old fashioned, so I sketched. I wrote words on the microphone. For The Joshua Tree, I felt the time had come to write words that meant something, out of my experience." Dylan told Bono about his own debt to Irish music, while Bono further demonstrated his interest in music traditions in his duet with Irish Celtic and folk group Clannad on the track "In a Lifetime". The group referred to this approach as working within the "primary colours" of rock music—guitar, bass, and drums. Guitarist the Edge was more interested in the European atmospherics of The Unforgettable Fire and was initially reluctant to follow Bono's lead to seek a more American sound. The Edge was eventually convinced otherwise after discovering blues and country artists such as Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, and Lefty Frizzell on American public radio stations during the Unforgettable Fire Tour. In November 1985, U2 moved into drummer Larry Mullen Jr.'s newly purchased home to work on material written during the Unforgettable Fire Tour. This included demos that would evolve into "With or Without You", "Red Hill Mining Town", and "Trip Through Your Wires", as well as a song called "Womanfish". The Edge recalled it as a difficult period with a sense of "going nowhere", although Bono was set on America as a theme for the album. Supplementary recording sessions at STS Studios in Dublin with producer Paul Barrett saw the development of "With or Without You" and the genesis of "Bullet the Blue Sky".

Based on their success with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois on The Unforgettable Fire, U2 wanted the duo to produce their new album. Mullen was excited about working with them again, as he felt the pair, Lanois in particular, were the band's first producers who "really [took] an interest in the rhythm section". The Edge had viewed the residence months prior while househunting with his wife and convinced the owner to rent it to the band. This was a change for U2, who previously recorded each instrument separately and then layered them into the mix. They began with their usual songwriting methods of sorting through tapes from soundcheck jams, working through Bono's lyric book, and recording jam sessions. The group were first joined at Danesmoate by Eno, with Flood and fellow engineer Dave Meegan recording their jams. Meegan said of Eno's involvement: "Usually he was in first every morning and he'd start some dodgy sequence on his DX 7 [synthesiser]—it would be just like a cello line with no intentions of ever staying forever, just something to inspire people when they walked into the room." One of the first songs worked on was "Heartland", which originated during The Unforgettable Fire sessions and was later released on the band's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. Lanois had a higher opinion of the house, saying: "It was loud, but it was really good loud, real dense, very musical. In my opinion it was the most rock and roll room of the lot." According to him, "the Danesmoate sessions were the backbone of the tonality of the record—we got a lot of the drums done in there." He thought that the house sounded better than Slane Castle, and he was particularly impressed with the drawing room's "low mid range where the music lives", a property that he believes was a major factor in the success of The Joshua Tree. Intended to help alleviate Ireland's unemployment crisis by raising funds and job pledges, the event was harshly criticised in the media for taking pressure off the Irish government to resist Margaret Thatcher's economic policies. The band in particular were labelled hypocrites for their participation. Their appearance included a cover of Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm", reinterpreted as a criticism of Thatcher. Rather than distract the band, the tour invigourated their new music and provided extra focus on what they wanted to say. For Clayton, the tour validated the "rawness of content" and their attempts to capture the "bleakness and greed of America under Ronald Reagan". Meegan believed that U2's time with the other artists on the tour affected their own sound: "Their musical heroes were bleeding into the music and they weren't embarrassed by it, which gave them a lot of space to work in." After the funeral, Bono and his wife visited Nicaragua and El Salvador, where they saw firsthand the distress of peasants affected by political conflicts and US military intervention, experiences which formed the basis of the lyrics for "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Mothers of the Disappeared". On 1 August 1986, U2 regrouped in Dublin to resume work on the album and begin the recording stage proper. "Mothers of the Disappeared" and "Bullet the Blue Sky" were among the songs that evolved at Melbeach. Lanois said that most of the record was done there, Writing and recording alternated between the two houses and Windmill Lane Studios. During takes, Lanois used a pointer and a chalkboard to help walk the band through the song's changes. Lanois said the production team extensively screened Bono's lyrics and offered suggestions, as many lines did not sound as good when sang against a backing track as they did when written down. The Edge said: "There would have been two records, depending on which songs we decided to finish. There was this one album, the 'blues' album that Bono was talking about, and another, much more 'European', which is kind of the way I was led." His eleventh hour presence and changes caused discontent among the production crew, including Eno and Lanois. Lillywhite mixed four songs with engineer Mark Wallis on an SSL desk at Windmill Lane Studios. As they worked at Melbeach, Around 2am, just seven hours before the album was due to Island for mastering, the Edge tried to convince Lillywhite to allow him to add backing vocals to "Where the Streets Have No Name", but he was denied. In the morning, Meegan and Lillywhite flew with the album's tapes to Island's offices in Hammersmith, London. These tracks, which included "Walk to the Water", "Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)", and "Spanish Eyes", were completed as B sides for the planned singles. They later expressed regret that it had not been completed for The Joshua Tree. The track was re recorded as a single for the group's 1998 compilation The Best of 1980–1990. U2 agreed that one track, "Birdland", was too strong for a B side and they withheld it for a future album release. After completing The Joshua Tree, Bono said that he was "as pleased with the record as I can ever be pleased with a record", calling The Joshua Tree their most complete album since their debut.

The Joshua Tree has been acclaimed by writers and music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. In 1997, The Guardian collated worldwide data from a range of renowned critics, artists, and radio DJs, who placed the record at number 57 on the list of the "100 Best Albums Ever". It was ranked 25th in Colin Larkin's 2000 book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In a poll of VH1 viewers the following year, The Joshua Tree was voted the greatest pop album of all time, based on responses from over 250,000 people. Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 26 on their 2003 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Subsequent updates to the list re ranked the album; the 2012 version ranked it 27th, writing that the album "turn[ed] spiritual quests and political struggles into uplifting stadium singalongs", and the 2020 version of the list ranked it 135th. In 2006, Time named The Joshua Tree one of the magazine's 100 best albums, while Hot Press ranked it 11th on a similar list. Q named it the best record of the 1980s, while Entertainment Weekly included the album on its list of the 100 best records released between 1983 and 2008. In 2010, the album appeared at number 62 on Spins list of the 125 most influential albums in the 25 years since the magazine launched. The publication said, "The band's fifth album spit out hits like crazy, and they were unusually searching hits, each with a pointed political edge." The same year, Consequence of Sound ranked The Joshua Tree 34th on its list of "The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time", calling it "Arguably the biggest album of the 1980s" and "proof that lightning can be captured in a bottle". In 2012, Slant Magazine ranked it 24th on its list of the "Best Albums of the 1980s", saying that The Joshua Trees opening trio of songs helped "the band became lords and emperors of anthemic '80s rock" and that "U2 no longer belonged to Dublin, but the world." In 2018, Pitchfork ranked the record 47th on its list of "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s", writing that the album's "brilliant tension" and continued resonance was the result of Eno and Lanois "steer[ing] U2 toward a moody impressionism where slide guitars and three chord progressions sound cavernous, even ominous". The Buffalo News said the record "made [U2] the first mainstream band since the Beatles to capture the spirit of the age in a manner that was both populist and artistically, politically and socially incisive", while humanities scholar Henry Vyverberg considered it among the minority of attempts at "serious art" during a decade in which the rock genre largely "remained musical junk food". From Josh Tyrangiel's perspective, The Joshua Tree began a "towering period" of U2's history lasting through 1993's Zooropa when they "made stadium size art rock with huge melodies that allowed Bono to throw his arms around the world while bending its ear about social justice". WYMS journalist Mitchell Kreitzman credited it with exposing "alternative music to the masses", and Kevin J. H. Dettmar cited it as the most commercially and critically successful album "yet to emerge from alternative or college rock". In 2014, The Joshua Tree was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for becoming "part of our musical, social, and cultural history". That same year, the album was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the US Library of Congress for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is the only Irish work to be so honoured. The band's penchant for addressing political and social issues, as well as their staid depiction in Corbijn's black and white sleeve photographs, contributed to the group's earnest and serious image as "stone faced pilgrim[s]". This image became a target for derision after the band's critically maligned Rattle and Hum project in 1988. "pompous bores", The group's continued exploration of American music for the project was labelled "pretentious" and "misguided and bombastic". After Bono told fans on the 1989 Lovetown Tour that U2 would "dream it all up again", the band reinvented themselves in the 1990s. They incorporated alternative rock, electronic dance music, and industrial music into their sound, and adopted a more ironic, flippant image by which they embraced the "rock star" identity they struggled with in the 1980s. Bono referred to their 1991 album Achtung Baby as "the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree".

On 20 November 2007, a 20th anniversary edition of The Joshua Tree was released. The album was remastered from the original analogue recordings under the direction of the Edge, with the original vinyl album artwork restored. In an otherwise favourable review of the remastered album, Andrew Mueller of Uncut said that "any casual listener who can perceive a meaningful difference between this and the original has i) ears like a bat and/or ii) needs to get out more". including the B sides "Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)", "Walk to the Water", "Spanish Eyes", "Deep in the Heart", "Silver and Gold", "Sweetest Thing", and "Race Against Time". The edited single version of "Where the Streets Have No Name" appears on the bonus CD. "Beautiful Ghost/Introduction to Songs of Experience" contains lyrics from the introduction of William Blake's Songs of Experience, "Wave of Sorrow (Birdland)", "Desert of Our Love", "Rise Up", and "Drunk Chicken/America" are all previously unreleased recordings from The Joshua Tree sessions. The bonus DVD includes live concert footage, a documentary, and two music videos. The disc includes Live from Paris, an 85 minute concert from 4 July 1987 that was originally broadcast on British television in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Island Records. The documentary, titled Outside It's America, was a 1987 MTV production about The Joshua Tree Tour. The two music videos are an alternate version "With or Without You" and the previously unreleased video for "Red Hill Mining Town". Footage of U2's alter ego country band, the Dalton Brothers, is included on the disc as an Easter egg. It was the first time the group toured in promotion of an album from their back catalogue, rather than a new release. As part of the tour, U2 headlined the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, in June. In rationalising the tour, the Edge cited the 2016 US presidential election and other world events for what he judged to be renewed resonance of The Joshua Trees subject matter: The 2017 tour grossed more than $316 million from over 2.7 million tickets sold, making it the highest grossing tour of the year. Additional tour dates were added for Oceania and Asia in 2019, which included the band's first ever performances in South Korea, Singapore, India, and the Philippines. The 2019 shows grossed $73.8 million and sold 567,000 tickets, bringing the cumulative totals for the group's Joshua Tree anniversary tours to $390.8 million grossed and 3.3 million tickets sold. On 2 June 2017, the album was reissued in several formats in commemoration of its 30th anniversary. Standard editions of the album were released on CD, vinyl record, and via digital download. Deluxe editions, available on CD and digitally, include a concert recording of a 1987 show at Madison Square Garden from the Joshua Tree Tour. In addition to the concert, the super deluxe editions, available on CD, vinyl record, and digitally, include: B sides and rarities; and remixes of the album's songs made in 2017 by Daniel Lanois, St Francis Hotel, Jacknife Lee, Steve Lillywhite, and Flood. The physical copies of the super deluxe edition include eight folio prints and an 84 page book of photography shot by the Edge during the album cover's 1986 photoshoot in the Mojave Desert.

Track 4, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", includes a snippet of "Exodus" by Bob Marley and the Wailers at the end of the song. The snippet is not included on the CD and vinyl track list but is listed on some streaming services.