I've said it before on here but I guess it bears repeating...
The Joshua Tree wasn't and still isn't a top 3 U2 album for me, I'd just never really thought it was as good as its legend.
But in 2009 as I drove from LA to Vegas through Death Valley, it all made sense. The cold mornings, the blazing hot days, the winds ripping through the valley, sky that goes on forever... That album clicked and listening to it in my loungeroom or on the train has never worked since. But there and then... perfect.
Pop always reminds me of Sydney. I listened to it endlessly as I took a bus up there from Melbourne.
I don't really geographically associate any other albums. I mean, it's easy to say Boy you associate with Dublin, but I took the thread to mean which places these albums evoked to the listener, in regard to their own location. Of course Zooropa is a 'european' album, but to me it's a Year 10 maths classroom in suburban melbourne, as I get told off for having my walkman on in class.
All that you Can't leave behind is walking down collins st from a car park to my work office, desperately trying to work out what it is I'm missing, and eventually giving up and barely listening to it ever again.
Atomic Bomb is driving back from hospital after the birth of my daughter, and getting spooked as the first song to play is Original of the Species.
Rattle & Hum is sitting by the Murray River on the border of Victoria and NSW, eating sausages and potato salad and throwing the green bits from the potato salad into the river.
Achtung Baby is the first thing I ever owned on CD. But I don't really associate it with a place.
