if i had anything, anything at all, i'd give it to you

I now mostly have every single U2 album, bar Songs of Innocence (I don't want it yet) and Songs of Experience (which isn't out till the end of the year).

I spent most of today with a migraine, and working my way through the back catalogue (I nobly resisted the urge to tweet the official twitter account and inform them of this, though. But I did really want to). When I left off earlier, I'd just finished The Joshua Tree. (I went right through, not skipping any songs apart from ones I really dislike*). I only skipped Under a Blood Red Sky and Wide Awake in America because I've listened to the tracks on them recently.

I have nine albums left**.

I'd say UGH, but I can't pretend I'm not enjoying this. Because I am. A LOT. (though I am irritating my mum by singing badly, but c'est la vie).

~

As I said a bit back, The Joshua Tree is thirty this year. So, somewhat as U2/Island/Universal(??) did when it was twenty, it has been republished. On the twentieth anniversary, it was remastered (as were most of the albums when they hit their twentieth. Though I see Pop has gone unnoticed this year, but I think it's been overshadowed by its older brother ;) Mind you, afaik, Zooropa didn't get a remaster but, since it's gone down in the band's opinion***, that doesn't altogether surprise me).

ANYWAY. This time, there are boxsets! With extra discs and a book (with photos by The Edge! Because he's really into photography, and who knew??) and prints of photos by Anton Corbijn! There is a four disc CD version, but even better than this is a seven disc LP version.

And,

I'm getting it bought for me. I am dead, I STG. If you don't hear from me after the second of June (its release date), it's because I died from the awesomeness.

It was - and probably still is - my favourite album for a loooong time. I think it was a case, in some ways, of first instalment wins. When I went looking for albums at the library, they had The Joshua Tree and Zooropa, and I picked the former to listen to first****. I listened to it A LOT aged 14. It was still in heavy rotation for stuff to listen to on my walkman three years later when I was 17. I have fond memories of walking through the park listening to it. It's a good soundtrack for that. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was I think it was more that than anyone telling me it was the most amazing album since the invention of the pop charts.

(Which nobody did, really, because it was 1995, pre-internet, and I had nobody to talk to about it apart from my best mate who didn't give a flying monkey's about any of it).

So yeah, I'm getting A Thing, and it's awesome. There will be pics when it gets here (which will be on twitter, so you can easily avoid them should you not be interested).

~

*There's like, three? across five albums?

**Ten if you count Passengers; I've never listened to it, so there's a first time for everything I guess.

***Unless you're Adam Clayton, in which case you are mostly ambivalent about it (or so I believe).

****Although oh boy going from JT to Zooropa is...a thing. It took me a long time to come round to Zooropa because of that.