The Joshua Tree entered the US album charts at No.7 and reached No. 1 three weeks later. It was U2's first album to reach No.1 in the United States. In 1999, The Joshua Tree was awarded the RIAA's highest certification, Diamond, with 10 million units sold. The album also peaked at No.1 on the UK, Canadian, West German, Dutch and Australian charts. In Switzerland, the album reached No.1 on the charts and stayed there for a total of 33 weeks. The album and sleeve cover also placed No. 1 in Rolling Stone magazine's annual Music Awards chosen by readers. Critics at Rolling Stone made it No. 2 album of the year. U2 also won Best Rock Performance By A Group Or Duo at the Grammy Awards for The Joshua Tree.
Production Credits - Produced and Engineered: Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno - Additional Engineering: Dave Meegan with Pat McCarthy - Studio: Windmill Lane, Dublin Ireland - Mixed by: Steve Lillywhite - Recorded by: Flood
The story of the initial idea of making a double-album.
From author: Bill Tiede
http://www.tiede.com/joshuatree/ (obsolete)
Restore The Joshua Tree [album]!
This site is devoted to telling the story of the classic U2 Album called The Joshua Tree.
Introduction
In 1987, U2 released an album that changed their history. I mean by this that until this point, they were considered the biggest underground band of unknowns in the world. They had released albums like Boy and War which were considered classic modern rock, and other less understood works like The Unforgettable Fire, but had not broken through until March of 1987 when the stores opened and sold "The Joshua Tree" .
What needs restoring?
But what do I mean by "Restore The Joshua Tree"? The answer goes back to the recording of this album, a time when Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry were being introduced to new types of music they had ignored before, Blues, R&B, American Music. At the same time, they were experiencing the heartbreaking suffering of Ethiopia, the strife of El Salvador and Guatemala, and the oxymoron's of Reagan's America. And U2 was writing songs like they never had before.
Now most bands write a lot of songs for an album, but hopefully among them are 10 good enough songs to release as an album. The other tracks are forgettable, throwaway or left for another time which almost never comes. However, as the "weeding" process started to take place during the Joshua Tree sessions, they came down to almost 20 tracks considered good enough to be placed on the album.
The Edge and Bono Talk
Not long after the album came out and hit it big, I began to notice an interesting trend in the interviews where the band would talk about the learning process they had gone through, the exposure to so much they had not considered before, and how they had "learned to write songs", a lot of songs. I pored through other interviews and stories, and found one in Hot Press (one of Ireland's premier music magazines) as reprinted in America in Three Chords and the Truth, (a book you may be able to still special order from Harmony Books).
The following excerpt is from from Hot Press, December, 1987, from an article by Bill Graham with an interview with Edge and Bono:
[Edge:] "... For instance, we disagreed vehemently about what songs should go on the album. If Bono had his way, 'The Joshua Tree' would have been more American and bluesy, and I was trying to pull it back."
That compromise led to the later flood of new B-side tracks. Bono will argue that "the album is almost incomplete. 'With or Without You' doesn't really make sense without 'Walk to the Water' or 'Luminous Times'. And 'Trip Through Your Wires' doesn't make that much sense without 'Sweetest Thing.'
[end of excerpt]
Another interview was on Radio One in Dublin, with Dave Fanning, where Bono talks about how they originally thought of releasing a double album, but there were so few good double-album releases (he mentions Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" as being a good one). He also felt that their pared down version of "The Joshua Tree" was almost "too much" for one listen as it was released.
Single album, Extra Songs
Ultimately, with these interviews and others as evidence, there was plans at one point to release The Joshua Tree as a double-album with up to 18 songs. As we all know, this was not to be, but U2 did not leave its fans without options. In most of U2's history, b-sides were either old reworked demos that had been sitting around for years, or live tracks to attempt to capture the concert energy of U2. In the case of the Joshua Tree, however, 7 of the songs left off the album were released as via b-sides of the first three singles. Island Records even marketed three-packs of these singles in many parts of the world as "The Missing Tracks"
Conclusions
Having laid out the facts of the story, let me now get into my opinions on the subject. While I like The Joshua Tree the way it is (and many have emailed me not to argue with success), I tried to piece from interviews and articles what the track listing MIGHT HAVE BEEN if all 18 tracks were issued together. Back in October of 1993, I first posted this story and my suggested restored track listing for other U2 fans on Usenet and the U2 mailing list now known as Wire and sparked controversy on the subject. Overwhelmingly, though, I have received mail from other fans about how they could hear the music in a new way and get something from it they had not previously.
©1987 Mercury Music Group, Island Records, Interscope Records
℗2026 Hipper Than Hell Records
Newly XDR* remastered album.
*Xtended Dynamic Range
01 - Where The Streets Have No Name [00:00:00]
02 - Silver and Gold [00:05:37]
03 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For [00:10:17]
04 - Spanish Eyes [00:14:54]
05 - With Or Without You [00:18:11]
06 - Luminous Times (Hold on to Love) [00:23:06]
07 - Walk to the Water [00:27:44]
08 - Bullet The Blue Sky [00:32:33]
09 - Running To Stand Still [00:37:05]
10 - Red Hill Mining Town [00:41:22]
11 - Race Against Time [00:46:15]
12 - In God's Country [00:50:19]
13 - Trip Through Your Wires [00:53:16]
14 - Sweetest Thing [00:56:48]
15 - One Tree Hill [00:59:53]
16 - Deep In The Heart [01:05:15]
17 - Exit [01:09:46]
18 - Mothers Of The Disappeared [01:13:59]
Turn Me Up!™
To preserve the excitement, emotion and dynamics of the original performances this music video is intentionally quieter than some. For full enjoyment simply Turn Me Up! (www.TurnMeUp.org)
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