U2 the joshua tree 30th anniversary boxset

Co-producer Brian Eno's 'One Tree Hill Reprise,' made this year, presents a more impressionistic and altogether Eno-esque take on the album standout, adding swelling string sounds before fading away like a river to the sea. The previously unreleased Steve Lillywhite alternate version of 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' presents the song as more of a straight-ahead rock song with acoustic rhythm guitar and almost funky rhythms. But it's rich enough to resonate in new ways decades later, especially in the some of the LP's attendant deep cuts. The promised land, both brutal and beautiful.' Imbued with their own distinctly Irish viewpoint (captured most notably in 'Red Hill Mining Town,' written a few years after the U.K.'s mining strike, and 'Running to Stand Still,' about a heroin-addicted couple in Dublin), it's a note they never struck quite the same way again. 'This mythical America or 'Amerika' - described for us in the movies of Scorsese, Coppola, Wim Wenders, in the music of the blues, and by the authors we were reading at the time. It's notable that the band chose a recording from New York for this set, as Joshua Tree plays like a bittersweet love letter to the U.S., from the angsty 'Bullet the Blue Sky' to the uneasy 'In God's Country.' 'As the album was being recorded, we consciously tried to evoke the landscapes of America with our music,' the Edge wrote in an essay accompanying his photos. (A concert film of this show, or any other on the original Joshua Tree tour, is the only missing ingredient in the box.) It's a brilliant snapshot of the band, even if it omits the cover of the Beatles' 'Help' and their own 'Bad' and 'Spanish Eyes,' all played that night. Bono yells, 'Fuck it up, Edge' before the solo in 'In God's Country,' and he calls the 'Trip Through Your Wires' 'sort of a love song' that he dedicates to himself. The ominous meditation on a psycho killer, 'Exit,' features a snippet of Them's 'Gloria,' Г la Patti Smith. Bono does his best preacher impression on 'Bullet the Blue Sky,' while the Edge plays soaring, Led Zeppelin-y slide guitar. The band sound energized and even playful on the Madison Square Garden performance (fans may recognize the gospel-tinged 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' with its Bob Marley outro from 1988's Rattle and Hum).

The second retrospective box set (the first appeared in 2007) is a giant, four-CD (or weighty seven-LP) collection that features the pristine-sounding original album, a previously unreleased concert recording from New York, new remixes, B-sides, never-before-released outtakes and a book of photography by the Edge.

chart history when it topped Billboard in 1987, and currently sits at 10 times platinum, an album so huge that the band is playing the record in its entirety on an arena tour 30 years later. The Joshua Tree, released in 1987, is U2 at their biggest: 11 sweeping, aching anthems to self-doubt, humanity, hope and America-focused anxiety - all straightforward and pop-savvy enough to propel them from arenas to stadiums.

Massive retrospective features previously unreleased concert recording, remixes, B-sides, outtakes and a book of photography by the Edge

U2 the joshua tree 30th anniversary boxset