Formed during the heyday of punk music, U2 explored an angular, sinewy sound on the band’s 1980 debut, Boy. Things began to change as the decade progressed. The Edge, looking to cover more ground as a guitarist, began using analog pedals like the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, which allowed him to augment his playing with dotted eighth note delays. Producers like Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno bathed the band in reverb, creating sparkling soundscapes that floated above the rhythm section’s foundation like layers of fog. Piercing that haze was the voice of the band’s frontman, Bono, who hit his stride—along with the rest of the band—with U2’s 1987 release, The Joshua Tree.
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The Joshua Tree was supported by a worldwide tour that found U2 playing stadiums for the first time. The band brought along a filmmaker, Phil Joanou, to chronicle the American leg of the tour, which resulted in the release of the film Rattle and Hum one year later. A double album was released along with the documentary film; the project served as a companion piece to The Joshua Tree while at the same time extending the group’s run of late-’80s hits.
From bluesy duets to blockbuster ballads, we’ve collected six highlights from the band’s landmark era below.
[RELATED: What Do the Lyrics to “Where the Streets Have No Name” by U2 Mean?]
6. “When Love Comes to Town”
U2 first crossed paths with B.B. King in early 1987, when the blues icon played a show in Dublin. It was King’s idea to record a song together. When U2 headed to America later that year, they booked a nighttime recording session at Sun Studios in Memphis, where the band recorded three songs—”Angel of Harlem,” “Love Rescue Me,” and “When Love Comes to Town”—in five hours. King’s contributions were added later. Although a collaboration between King and U2 might sound unlikely on paper, “When Loves Comes to Town” is a surprisingly fiery duet that salutes the American roots tradition without aping a 12-bar blues progression. It’s both a genuflection and reinvention. Later, when King joined U2 on the road in 1989, it became a highlight of the Lovetown Tour concerts.
5. “Desire”
A Grammy-winning hit in America and a No. 1 smash in the U.K., “Desire” sourced its throbbing rock ‘n’ roll spirit from The Who’s “Magic Bus,” The Stooges’ “1969,” and Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” On any other U2 record, this blatant borrowing from other bands’ material might’ve been a crime. Rattle and Hum, though, was a tribute to the blues legends and roots-rock artists who inspired U2’s musical evolution throughout the ’80s, and few tracks captured that reverence as vividly as “Desire.” Come for Larry Mullen Jr.’s drums, which pulse like a hyperactive heartbeat; stay for Bono’s harmonica solo.
4. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”
Although Adam Clayton remains unconverted, U2 have never shied away from making music informed by their own spiritual beliefs. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” the second chart-topping single from The Joshua Tree, stands tall as the band’s finest gospel song. While the rhythm section cooks up a thumping groove, Bono takes us all to church, singing about angels, devils, and “the kingdom come” with the reverence of Sunday morning and the raw, tent-revival spirit of Saturday night. Faith and rock ‘n’ roll can be strange bedfellows, but here, they’re allies in the band’s search for a higher power.
3. “Bullet the Blue Sky”
Halfway through The Joshua Tree‘s recording sessions, Bono traveled to Nicaragua and El Salvador, where he witnessed the atrocities of civil war. Returning to Dublin during the summer of 1986, he infamously asked The Edge to “put El Salvador through an amplifier.” The band resurrected a discarded jam they’d recorded at STS Studios, and The Edge added waves of feedback firepower to the instrumental sections. The album’s engineer, Flood, even blasted a recording of Larry Mullen Jr.’s drums through the empty halls of a warehouse that sat beside STS, with a microphone catching the booming playback.
The result is the closest U2 has ever sounded to Led Zeppelin—a crushingly heavy rock song on an album better known for its sunny sparkle. The Edge’s guitar parts during the chorus are deceptively funky, and Bono’s spoken-word section—where he blasts President Reagan for funding crooked military regimes in Central America—is an arresting moment.
2. “With or Without You”
Like the Rattle and Hum track “All I Want Is You,” which could’ve easily found itself on this list, “With or Without You” is a twinkling, ghostly hymn that steers clear of melodrama. Instead, U2 focuses on slow-burning spectacle that builds into something towering by the song’s final stretch. Bono sings the verses in a lower register, turns up the heat during the bridge, and melts hearts after the final chorus, where “With or Without You” reaches the summit of Power Ballad Mountain with its immortal “Oh oh oh” refrain. This is the rarest of love songs: wounded, woozy, and wonderful, with a palpable ache that remains long after the track fades.
1. “Where the Streets Have No Name”
If The Joshua Tree captures U2 at their most cinematic, then “Where the Streets Have No Name” serves as the album’s opening credits. Nearly two minutes elapse before Bono’s voice signals the start of the first verse. The Edge’s chiming guitar swells into existence during that introduction, and the song that follows is a classic U2 anthem that pits big topics—transcendence, geography, religion—against bigger hooks. The drums are rolling thunder, the guitars are ringing church bells, and the lyrics are an invitation to leave behind one’s body and head somewhere a little more mystic.
When Bono sings the line, When I go there, I go there with you during the band’s concerts, it erases the boundaries between artist and audience, turning the song into a rallying cry for community and commonality. “Where the Streets Have No Name” is U2 at their most powerful, where they nimbly tread the line between the earthly and the ethereal.
Photo by Sam Jones, Courtesy of Live Nation
