U2 - The Joshua TreeSongs:
-Where the Streets Have No Name
-I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
-With or Without You
-Bullet the Blue Sky
-Running to Stand Still
-Red Hill Mining Town
-In God's Country
-Trip Through Your Wires
-One Tree
-Exit
-Mothers of the Disappeared
What an amazing year for music 1987 was. This album is no exception. Prior to the Joshua Tree, I knew U2 as just another one of those "new wave bands" that had a few songs/videos I liked. I was familiar with some of the singles and deep cuts, and had friends who listened. But I didn't
know them. This album changed that. As with most of the albums I will be discussing in this thread, this one was unavoidable because the singles were EVERYWHERE after its release. I played this album nonstop after buying it and love it to this day. I have a hard time doing an "all time" album ranking, so I cannot say where this album would rank for me. But it would be hard to do, say, a top 50 and not include it. Incredible album. I also had an opportunity to see them in a stadium on this tour. And while I generally prefer smaller venues, the atmosphere in that stadium was electric. Some may remember an earlier
controversy a few days before where Bono was publicly chastised for spray painting on a huge sculpture/structure in San Francisco. At the show I attended in Oakland a few days later, Bono invited the artist who had created that sculpture up onstage, and he then "defaced" U2's giant Joshua Tree scrims with a giant paint roller. It was an amazing moment in an amazing show. To this day, U2's performance of Bullet the Blue Sky at that show remains one of my most memorable concert moments.
In another related tidbit, in my pop choir class senior year of HS, we had to sing a solo as our final. I chose Running To Stand Still from this album.