U2 made this record looking outward at America and inward at themselves at the same time. They’d toured the United States enough to fall for it and distrust it in equal measure, the open road and the hard politics, and that tension runs through the whole thing. Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno produced, building wide, unhurried spaces for the songs to move in rather than filling every gap.

It’s the album that ended their long run as the band America admired but didn’t quite buy. After nearly a decade of getting close, The Joshua Tree put them at the very top, and the three singles that open it became the songs most people think of first when they think of U2 at all. The record still sounds like four people reaching for something just past the edge of the frame, and mostly getting there.