U2’s ‘The Joshua Tree’ Turns 30 In Multi-Format Reissue
The Joshua Tree, “the album that launched U2 into the stratosphere”, as Mojo magazine described it, is set for a major 30th anniversary reissue by Island Records on 2 June.
U2’s fifth studio album, The Joshua Tree was first released on 9 March 1987 and went on to sell a remarkable 25 million copies worldwide, topping the charts in the US, UK, Ireland and around the world. It spawned the indelible hit singles ‘With Or Without You,’ ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ and ‘Where The Streets Have No Name.’
The new release will be available in numerous formats, including standard CD and vinyl versions of the remastered album, a 2CD deluxe, 4CD box set and 7LP box set. The box sets and the 2CD versions will contain a live recording of the 1987 concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden on the Joshua Tree Tour.
The box set editions also feature rarities and b-sides from the album’s original recording sessions, and 2017 remixes by Daniel Lanois, St Francis Hotel, Jacknife Lee, Steve Lillywhite and Flood. The super deluxe package also has an 84-page hardback book of unseen personal photography, shot by U2’s The Edge during the original photo session for the album in the Mojave Desert in 1986; and a folio of eight rare 12” Anton Corbijn colour prints.
The 4CD set, which has a two-part box with a “slipcase within a slipcase,” sports a gold hot hot foil tree logo, while the 7LP additionally offers seven pieces of original, live and unreleased recordings on 12” 180gsm vinyl.
The Joshua Tree was recently described by Rolling Stone magazine as the album that “transformed U2 into the biggest band on the planet.” It won a BRIT Award and two Grammy Awards, the first of the 22 received by U2 to date.
The album, and its 30th anniversary, will now inspire the Joshua Tree Tour 2017, which opens in Vancouver on 12 May 2017 at the outset of a set of stadium dates across North America and Europe. They include two sold-out shows at Twickenham Stadium, London on 8 and 9 July, then a hometown show in Croke Park, Dublin on 22 July.
The 30th-anniversary super deluxe reissue of The Joshua Tree will be released on 2 June and can be purchased here.
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