U2 - The Joshua Tree

I have this peculiar habit of not listening to an entire album if I find tracks on the first half of the album to be particularly engaging. Because the first three tracks on The Joshua Tree are somewhere in the upper echelon of greatest songs ever written, I never felt the need to listen to any of the other songs on this album. I know it's counterintuitive. If the first three songs are awesome, it would follow that there very well might be other great songs on the album. Even so, I owned this album for more than a decade before I ever heard "Running to Stand Still" or "In God's Country."

The Joshua Tree is one of the most anthemic albums ever made. There is nothing on this album that does not reach for grandiosity. Even the more subtle songs on the album are laden with self-importance. Although U2 has been railed over the years for their pretentious nature, The Joshua Tree somehow manages to not feel pretentious at all even though it practically screams, "Listen to me! I'm important!" This album has some of U2's best songs, which still sound significant even after a few decades have washed over them. As far as I am concerned, this is the greatest U2 album there has ever been or ever will be.