The Sly Oyster | culture & entertainment on the sly

So I was watching ESPN’s First Take this morning, fighting off a violent hangover, due in no small part to my computer getting a worm on it (I’m totally going Mac next time around) which led to massive amounts of tequila and red wine being consumed by me.  So there I was on the couch and the sports people are chatting about music and how U2’s Joshua Tree is 20 years old.

Great.  It’s bad enough that the sports people are trying to talk about music.  They begin discussing what’s been the best album of the past 20 years.  Skip Bayless tosses out INXS’s Kick, so now I’m convinced Bayless knows nothing about life.  Some other notable albums suggested were The Chronic from Sage Steele (it takes her back to college and that strikes me as being weird cause she’s hot and young looking and I was in fifth grade when Dre dropped the sticky icky on us) and It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back from Jeffrey Chahida.  Big kudos to them for offering the only decent suggestions.

So now we’re thinking about U2 and Vin Diesel aping Bono on the poster.  Anyway, The Joshua Tree is a fine album and it’s being reissued.  

The single-disc will be housed in a jewel case, but the 2-CD set comes in a hard back case. The 2-CD/1-DVD version has a base and lid to accommodate the discs as well as five portfolio prints. Band members have contributed new liner notes for the package.

The second CD in the 2-disc package sports rare material from the period, including a single edit of “Where the Streets Have No Name” and B-sides such as “Spanish Eyes” and “Sweetest Thing.” The DVD comprises a July 4, 1987, show at the Paris Hippodrome, as well as the documentary “Outside It’s America,” a long-whispered-about but never released video for “Red Hill Mining Town” and an alternate version of the “With or Without You” clip.

Bonus disc track list:

“Luminous Times (Hold On To Love)”
“Walk to the Water”
“Spanish Eyes”
“Silver and Gold”
“Sweetest Thing”
“Deep on the Heart”
“Race Against Time”
“Where the Streets Have No Name” (single edit)
“Silver and Gold (Sun City)”
“Beautiful Ghost”
“Introduction to Songs of Experience”
“Wave of Sorrow (Birdland)”
“Desert of Our Love”
“Rise Up”
“Drunk Chicken”
“America”

If you’re still into buying cds it hits store shelves on Nov. 20.  The album might not have aged as well as the Irish lads, but this is still one of the dopest videos around.