4.5 stars. This is a classic and has some great songs. Knopfler is an incredible player. Was nice to revisit this album in full, haven't listened in a few years.
Fantastic, have always loved this album. Haven’t listened to it all the way through in a while and very much enjoyed revisiting it in full. I did not know that the overall themes of loss and mourning that are present throughout this album were inspired by some of the band members approaching/turning 30.
I turn 30 in about three weeks! I am also about to start my residency in otolaryngology next week and recently found out I will be a father soon. Both of which are incredibly exciting for me. Regarding my age, I can’t say I feel the same sense of loss and mourning that permeates this album, but I do feel the inner turmoil that can come from feeling both the trepidation and the nearly irrepressible excitement that seems to accompany one when reaching some of the traditional “major turning points” in life. Thus this album certainly strikes a chord in me.
I remember waiting for the vinyl re-release of this album for its 25th anniversary. Right after a college organic chemistry lecture I went to one of my favorite records stores in Bloomington to buy it. That was nearly eight years ago (now listening again in late June 2025). That moment feels simultaneously like yesterday and a lifetime ago. Time is strange like that.
One of the easiest 5-star reviews to give ever. This is the birth of heavy metal. Everything that could be said about this album has been said already, no reason for me to rehash it.
All the tracks are excellent however one specifically deserves a mention - planet caravan. IMO supremely underrated. Love that track.
Absolutely classic. One of my favorite albums, have spun this hundreds if not thousands of times all the way through. Never gets old for me.
4.5. Epic album, RIP Ozzy. Many hours of my senior year of high school were spent spinning this one. Not quite as good as paranoid but still incredible.
Easy 5/5, classic album with a wide variety of styles and sonic overtures contained within the overall Latin rock theme. Never gets old.
Easy 5 stars. Lots of impactful memories associated with this album. When I was 12 my uncle, a massive fan of U2, walked down the aisle to an infinite loop of the opening of Where The Streets Have No Name, which started my interest in the album. About a year later, I remember first listening to this album while on a summer trip to New Mexico with some good neighborhood friends.
The atmosphere of this album is special. Sonically, across all 11 tracks, the listener gets the feeling that they are in the middle of a sacred, natural open space. While creating this album, the band was inspired by the geography of the US they’d seen while on their previous tours. Accordingly, desert plains, rain, dust, water, and mountains all act as metaphors on this album. And while the lyrics certainly have sociopolitical undertones, there is an abundance of spiritual imagery in them as well, particularly a sense of searching for meaning in the midst of a spiritual drought.
My 13 year old mind was of course unaware of these deeper lyrical meanings at the time I was in New Mexico, but traveling through the deserts of the western US while listening to this album seemed fitting in some perfect way, and the album has been cemented in my mind and my ears ever since.
Six years after that, I visited the same uncle who walked down the aisle to WTSHNN, in California, three weeks before leaving for college. I had just begun waking up to the world, and felt that sense of searching, for identity, for meaning, for who I wanted to become, that I suppose most people around that age start to feel. When I was 13, the album originally drew me in because of its sonic atmosphere; now, once again finding myself in the American west, this time grappling with all the new existential questions of a young man, the lyrics profoundly resonated with me.
The first three tracks are often cited as the greatest three-song opening sequence in music history. It’s hard to argue with that statement. However, I think that leaves the rest of the album somewhat under-appreciated today. There are some true gems on the second half that get overlooked, like Red Hill Mining Town, In God’s Country, One Tree Hill, but isn’t a weak track on the album. They all have their place. After many listens, I think the album would feel like it was missing an important piece without any of the 11 songs.
17 years after that New Mexico trip and 11 years after that California trip, I am still just as captivated by this album, if not more so, now that I can appreciate its finer details. This is an easy 5 stars, and always will be for me, even though I will admit Bono can be a bit annoying. Regardless, The Joshua Tree is truly a timeless album, with an atmosphere no one has ever been able to replicate. Everyone should give it a listen - bonus points if you can do so while driving through the American west. You won’t regret it.
Le Freak is a classic, and I’d never heard Savoir Faire before, which was excellent. But some of these songs go on for a bit too long without variation
5 stars. Modern classic. A sonic kaleidoscope of American heartland rock, folk, and even some shoegaze, with a nice 80’s-music patina. A perfect roadtrip album, and one that I come back to a lot.
I’M TALKIN TO YOU, BROTHA!
Greatest debut album ever? Definitely one of them at least.
