Word: bandness
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...voice, the closeness of the memory. The song is immediate and passionate, a cry of conscience on an album full of oblique social speculation and spiritual voyaging. The Joshua Tree is not, it would seem at first, a record for these times. Bono and the rest of the Irish band called U2 seem to be citizens of some alternative time frame spliced from the idealism of the '60s and the musical free-for-all of the late '70s. Their songs have the phantom soul of the Band, the Celtic wonderment of their compatriot Van Morrison and some of the assertiveness...
...with a strong undertow of something not often found this side of Bruce Springsteen: moral passion. U2's songs speak equally to the Selma of two decades ago and the Nicaragua of tomorrow. They are about spiritual search, and conscience and commitment, and it follows that some of the band's most memorable performances -- and, not incidentally, the ones that have helped U2 break through to an even wider audience -- have been in the service of a good cause, at Live Aid or during last summer's tour for Amnesty International. This is not, then, just a band for partying...
...sixth and best album, The Joshua Tree, in stores for little more than a month, hit No. 1 on Billboard's chart this week. The album's first single, With or Without You, has made the band's heaviest mark on Top 40 radio and is already in the Top Ten. Other tunes on The Joshua Tree (the title was inspired by a California desert town where '70s Rocker Gram Parsons died) are likely to keep it company. U2 launched a scheduled 18-month world tour in Arizona just three weeks ago, will play the U.S. through mid-May, perform...
Just a second. The sound you hear is brakes being put on, and it is the band that has the heaviest foot on the pedal. "We don't think we're that good, really," says Bono, 26, who writes the lyrics and fronts the band both as lead singer and resident shaman. "We think we are overrated, and though we're concerned about living up to people's expectations, it scares us even to live up to our own expectations." "The band is at a frontier," says Bass Guitarist Adam Clayton, 27. "You don't get something for nothing. This...
...work only on the songs that interested him. "No '50s rock-'n'-roll pastiche numbers," says Godrich. "He's a jolly old soul, but I thought maybe just for once we could steer him away from those things." After a week of recording, Godrich told McCartney that his regular band had to sit this one out. "In any tense moment, he'd look over at those guys and say, 'What do you think?' It was too easy for him to deflect getting put on the spot. I could only cope with it by isolating...