The Joshua Tree by U2

The Joshua Tree, U2's fifth album, arrived on Island on 9 March 1987, and it's the sound of an Irish band falling hard for the idea of America while squinting at the real thing. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois produced it, but after the ambient drift of The Unforgettable Fire the band wanted songs that hit harder and kept to their shape. Recording started in January 1986, mostly in two houses in Ireland, with Windmill Lane Studios also in the credits.

You can hear the desert in it: wide-open guitar space, roots music from both sides of the Atlantic, and Bono wrestling with faith, politics and a country that looked better in myth than up close. The Amnesty International benefit shows, the death of roadie Greg Carroll and Bono's travels in Central America all bled into the sessions, and the band chased a cinematic feel right down to the sleeve photos shot in the American desert.

It went to number one in more than 20 countries, America included for the first time, gave them their only 2 US number-one singles in "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", won Album of the Year at the 1988 Grammys, and sent them into stadiums. More than 25 million copies later, it sits in the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Recording Registry, both since 2014.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.