Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Rolling Stone DECEMBER 17-31, 1987 - by David Fricke

U2: THE JOSHUA TREE

'The Money Tree' was more like it. With their fifth studio album, the fighting Irish reaped the harvest of almost a decade's blood, sweat and tours. Yet if The Joshua Tree was for U2 the best of times, it was also in a sense the worst of times, the band's bleakest vision yet of a world at war with itself. The barren landscapes and monochromatic photography on the cover accurately reflected the ravages of the album's themes: economic hardship (Red Hill Mining Town), emotional torment (With Or Without You) and desperate confusion (Where The Streets Have No Name). The haunting Brian Eno-Daniel Lanois production, with its echoey evocation of cold winds blowing through a Western ghost town, didn't chill the band's inner flame, though. Bono's voice and The Edge's clanging guitar rose in outrage throughout the album. With their backs against a wall of despair, the members of U2 cracked the mainstream this year in incomparable style.