U2’s The Joshua Tree was released 25 years ago today: March 9, 1987. It’s not my favorite U2 album; it’s not the album of my U2 discovery; and it didn’t radically change my life (well, beyond the general profundity U2 has had on my life). But it’s just so perfect—arguably their best album, inarguably a masterpiece. And it knows it. As the opening crescendo of “Where the Streets Have No Name” plays, ushering in Edge’s shimmery guitar, the gates of Heaven open, light shines down, and you know you are about to experience something spectacular. “Streets” is a glorious awakening—not just to the song, or the album, but to a band that would change America, and an America that would change the band. (The album’s working title, The Two Americas, references U2’s simultaneous infatuation and frustration with the United States at the time.) Read More