10 Best Number One Rock Albums Of The 1980s
4. The Joshua Tree - U2
In the same way that Slippery When Wet transformed the lives of Bon Jovi, The Joshua Tree made sure that nobody ever saw U2 in the same way ever again.
Bono, The Edge, and the other two with real names had been chart-toppers in their home of Ireland and over the water in the UK, but hadn't even cracked the US top ten prior to 1987. Their decision to write an album of songs about the American experience paid off big time, as The Joshua Tree turned four men from the emerald isles into international superstars.
Where the Streets Have No Name; I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; With or Without You; Red Hill Mining Town; One Tree Hill; you simply cannot argue with a tracklist like that and the American public were ravenous in their consumption of U2's outsider take on their native land.
The Joshua Tree spent nine weeks in a row at the peak of the Billboard rankings and led to a run of back-to-back chart pinnacles for U2 that lasted for the next decade.
Not bad for something they named whilst driving aimlessly through the desert one day.