The Joshua Tree

It’s here: the 30th anniversary of U2’s breakthrough masterpiece! Actually, those words could also apply to "War," but this 1987 album brought U2 to a whole new level—the highest level there is for a rock band. The production, emotions, songwriting, exquisite layers of guitar echo…they all came together in sublime fashion as the boys from Dublin scored #1 U.S. smashes with"With or Without You" and "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" and big hits with "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "In God’s Country." The breathtaking songs and sounds of this album kept it on the charts for a solid two years; now, 30 years later, "The Joshua Tree" returns in remastered form on CD or double vinyl, and in a 2-CD deluxe edition featuring the band’s 1987 Madison Square Garden concert: the aforementioned songs plus "October," "New Year’s Day," "Pride (in the Name of Love)," "I Will Follow," "Bullet the Blue Sky," "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and more. Both super-deluxe editions (CD or vinyl) are worth those price tags, as they add a wealth of extras to the deluxe editions. You get remixes by Daniel Lanois, Flood, Steve Lillywhite and others plus 15 B-sides and outtakes: "Walk to the Water," "Spanish Eyes," "Deep in the Heart," "Silver and Gold," "Sweetest Thing," "Race Against Time," "Rise Up," Brian Eno’s 2017 remix of "One Tree Hill Reprise" and more. Each super-deluxe edition includes 25 previously unreleased tracks plus "The Joshua Tree—Photographs by the Edge," an 84-page hardcover book of never-before-seen photos taken by the Edge during the 1986 Mojave Desert "Joshua Tree" photo shoot. A folio with eight 12" Anton Corbijn color prints and a lavish gold-foil-embossed outer box put the finishing touches on these sumptuous celebrations of one of the great rock albums of the ’80s! Island.