U2's 'The Joshua Tree': 10 Things You Didn't Know

How a Georgian mansion, a roadie's death, an "Infinite Guitar" and more played into the band's career-defining 1987 album

 The plot of The Joshua Tree is essentially an immigrant's tale: Four guys from Ireland set off to find America, and what they discovered left them both invigorated and outraged. While the lyrics to U2's 1987 opus give voice to their ever-expanding social conscience, the roots of The Joshua Tree are planted firmly in blues, gospel and folk – with an outsider's edge. Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. were strangers in a strange land, and this sense of otherness is prevalent throughout the album.

"It doesn't really sound like anything else from its time at all," the Edge recalled in a 1999 Classic Albums documentary. "It's not coming from an Eighties mentality. It's coming from somewhere completely different. … When we were making this album we didn't really feel like we were a part of what was going on in the music business at that stage. And we felt very separate."
"It was so out of step with everything around," Bono agreed. "It was mad. It was like an ecstatic music." The spirit caught on – The Joshua Tree went on to top of the charts in more than 20 countries, spawning hit singles with "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "With Or Without You." Technologically innovative, politically charged, spiritually conscious and radio-friendly in the extreme, the album built on U2's reputation as unparalleled live performers and vaulted them to the top of the modern-rock pile.
Decades on, The Joshua Tree remains the band's highest-selling album and a touchstone among legions of fans. In honor of the album's 30th anniversary, and in advance of an upcoming tour celebrating the LP, we look back at 10 little-known facts about its creation.


1. The early sessions were recorded in a Georgian mansion – which Adam Clayton later bought.While the album's title and cover evoked the American Southwest and the lyrics expressed Bono's outrage over human-rights atrocities in Ethiopia, South Africa, Chile and El Salvador, U2's globally minded fifth studio LP was largely recorded in a two-story Georgian mansion located in Rathfarnham, South Dublin – within sight of Adam Clayton's former school. The Edge had viewed the residence while house-hunting with his then-wife Aislinn several months before. "We decided it wasn't for us, but later I had the idea that the owner might rent it to us to record in," he says in the band's autobiography, U2 by U2. "The house was called Danesmoate. So we set up in this big old Georgian house in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, about half a mile from Columba's College where Adam had been infamously expelled."
The plan was not completely without precedent. U2 had recorded much of their previous album, 1984's The Unforgettable Fire, in County Meath's Slane Castle. Believing Danesmoate to be much more inspiring than a sterile professional facility, the group decided to construct a fully functional studio inside the old walls. By January 1986 the dining room had been converted into a control room, complete with tape machines and mixing desk. Massive double doors were removed and replaced with a glass screen looking into the elegant drawing room, which would serve as the live room. With hardwood floors and a double-height ceiling, the space boasted oversized acoustics. "When you hear that big drum sound on The Joshua Tree, it's the sound of that room," says Clayton, who later purchased the house after recording was complete ("Perhaps to get up the noses of the establishment next door, although he would never admit to that," the Edge jokingly speculates).
Though U2 occasionally used more traditional venues like Windmill Lane and STS Studios, many of the background tracks were recorded live at Danesmoate before being completed at the Edge's newly purchased seaside home, Melbeach, in Monkstown, South Dublin. "That's where songs like 'Mothers of the Disappeared' and what ended up as 'Bullet the Blue Sky' were born," co-producer Daniel Lanois told Hot Press in 2007. "Probably the bulk of the record was done at Edge's house. Even though the Danesmoate sessions were the backbone of the tonality of the record – we got a lot of the drums done in there."
2. "One Tree Hill" was inspired by the death of the band's roadie and friend.When U2 arrived in Auckland, New Zealand, as part of their Unforgettable Fire Tour in August 1984, Bono found himself unable to sleep due to the 13-hour time change. To help pass the time, a group of local production staff kindly gave the superstar visitor a late-night tour of their city. Among them was Greg Carroll, a Maori man whose experience working with Auckland-based bands got him hired by U2's production manager, Steve Iredale.
The impromptu sightseeing tour brought them to one of the highest and largest of Auckland's many volcanic peaks. "They took me up to the top of a place called One Tree Hill, where a single tree stands at the top of the mount, like some stark Japanese painting," recalled Bono in U2 by U2. "And we looked around at this city that's made by craters of volcanoes. I remember it so vividly, I think, because it meant something to me about my own freedom." Also known as Maungakiekie, the area holds great spiritual significance to the Maori people.
Carroll made a strong impression on the band, and soon they offered him a job as a gofer and stagehand on the remainder of their 10-month global trek. When the tour wrapped the following July, he was given a permanent role assisting U2 in Dublin, becoming particularly close with Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson.
On July 3rd, 1986, just as the sessions for The Joshua Tree were getting underway, Carroll was riding a motorcycle through the rainy streets of Dublin when a car cut him off. Unable to stop, the 26-year-old slammed into the side of the vehicle. He died on impact. The news sent shockwaves through the band's inner circle. "It was a devastating blow," a haunted Bono told Rolling Stone in 1987. "He was doing me a favor. He was taking my bike home."
Bono, Hewson, Larry Mullen Jr., and other U2 associates accompanied Carroll's body as it was flown to New Zealand for burial. In addition to traditional Maori funeral rites, Bono sang "Let It Be" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for his fallen friend. Following the service, he reflected on the night they met, traveling up the scenic peak that overlooked the city. The grief-stricken singer poured his thoughts into lyrics that would become "One Tree Hill."
Back in the studio, the instrumental track was developed over the course of a jam session supervised by co-producer Brian Eno. When it came time to lay down the vocals, Bono recorded just one take. The raw emotion left him unable to attempt another. "It brought gravitas to the recording of The Joshua Tree," he explained in the band's autobiography. "We had to fill the hole in our heart with something very, very large indeed. We loved him so much." The completed album was dedicated to Carroll's memory.


3. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was originally a completely different song.The DNA of one of U2's most enduring anthems can be found in a demo from an early jam session, alternately titled "The Weather Girls" or "Under the Weather." It was, according to Clayton, "a bit of a one-note groove," while the Edge dismissed it as "a little like 'Eye of the Tiger' played by a reggae band." The song's only saving grace was Mullen's unusual drum part. "It was a very original beat from Larry," Lanois told Hot Press. "We always look for those beats that would qualify as a signature for the song. And that certainly was one of those. It had this tom-tom thing that he does and nobody ever understands."
Keeping the drum track as a base, the band layered new instrumental tracks overtop to fit the rhythm. "It was like building a building. Foundation, next, then you put in furniture in the end. I enjoyed that process," says Lanois in the Classic Albums documentary. As the new melody began to take shape, it bore traces of gospel – a relatively unexplored genre for the band. "I always loved gospel music and I encouraged Bono to take it to that place, which he did," Lanois continues. "It was a very non-U2 thing to do at the time, to go up the street of gospel, but it opened a bit of a door for them."
With the instrumental backing nearly complete, Bono entered the live room to experiment with a vocal melody through largely improvised lyrics. For the Edge, his bandmate's performance evoked a phrase he had conjured up that morning, loosely inspired by the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Idiot Wind" ("You'll find out when you reach the top you're on the bottom").
"As I listened to this incredible song emerging out of the fog, I remembered something I had written in a notebook, a possible song title that I had actually stumbled upon that morning," the Edge says in U2 by U2. "I tried it in my head as Bono sang, and it scanned so perfectly that I wrote it on a piece of paper and handed it to him as he sang. It was like a hand in glove."
The line "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" would provide the song with both its title and emotional focus. "There are only a few moments of full-on electricity-in-the-air creativity that I remember from making that album, but the birth of 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' is one," says the Edge.
4. Recording "Where the Streets Have No Name" was such a hassle that Brian Eno nearly wiped the tapes in frustration.As the band started to assemble material for their new album, the Edge made it his mission to compose "the ultimate U2 live song." Installed in an empty room at the top of his equally empty new home, Melbeach, he worked tirelessly with a 4-track tape machine until he'd completed a hard-driving guitar riff that would become "Where the Streets Have No Name."
"It was a strange feeling when I finished the rough mix, because I thought I had just come up with the most amazing guitar part and song of my life, but I was totally alone in a big house with no one to share it with," he recalls in U2's autobiography. "I remember listening to the complete silence of the house for a few seconds after the music stopped and then doing a dance around the room, punching the air."
The rest of the band, who viewed the tricky riff with trepidation, did not match his enthusiasm. "He figured a guitar part that could switch from the 6/8 time and bring it into 4/4 for when the band comes in," Clayton explained in the Classic Albums documentary. "And I have to say, at the time I didn't appreciate the probably hours of thought that went into the idea. It just seemed like a way of fucking the band up."
In a 2008 interview with Mojo, Daniel Lanois remembers being equally perturbed. "It was a bit of a tongue-twister for the rhythm section, with strange bar lengths that got everybody in a bad mood. I can remember pointing at a blackboard, walking everybody through the changes like a science teacher." Further complicating matters was the fact that the song was far from complete. "[The Edge] had the beginning and the end, but he didn't really have the bit in the middle," says Clayton. "So we would spend interminable hours figuring out chord changes to get the two bits to join up."
Eventually, Brian Eno hit a breaking point ("It drove Brian mad," Clayton confirms) and, according to multiple sources, he had to be physically restrained from wiping the tapes of the song. "Brian thought if he could just erase it from the tapes we could stop working on it," Lanois told Uncut in 2003. "I'm sure they would have just come up with another song. It's interesting, sometimes the songs that receive the most attention are the ones that don't make it. You just hate to lose your investment. I'm not sure if Brian was right, but it did drive me a little bananas as well."
However, Eno sought to clarify the famous tale in the Classic Albums documentary. "That story's been told a lot of times and now I shall tell you the truth about it. That song was recorded so there was a version of it on tape. That version had quite a lot of problems. What we kept doing was spending hours and days and weeks, actually – probably half the time that the whole album took was spent on that song – trying to fix up this version on tape. It was a nightmare of screwdriver work, and my feeling was that it would be much better to start again. I [was] sure we would get there quicker if we started again. So my idea was to stage an accident and erase the tapes so we'd have to start again. But I never did."
5. The Band's Robbie Robertson dropped in on U2 as they recorded.

As sessions continued that August at Danesmoate, U2 received an unexpected visit from Robbie Robertson. The former Band guitarist was in Dublin to complete his first solo album with production help from Daniel Lanois. "I had started a record with Robbie but I had to leave because it was taking so long," Lanois later told Hot Press. "I went to work in Europe, first with Peter Gabriel and then with U2. I felt bad for Robbie that his record wasn't finished, so I said to him one day, 'Why don't you get out of Los Angeles, come out here and just visit for a couple of days?'"
Unfortunately, Robertson's arrival was ill timed. He touched down in Dublin as the city was being pummeled by Hurricane Charlie, resulting in some of the worst flooding in decades. "There were cars floating down the streets," the beleaguered guest recalled in an interview with Hot Press later that year. "It was really frightening. Thank God these guys [U2] were up for some spontaneous combustion!"
Robertson packed just a handful of song fragments, but the storm, the new location and U2 sparked his creativity. He and Bono improvised lyrics while the rest of the band provided backup, leading to a 22-minute take that would be edited down into "Sweet Fire of Love." The track would surface on Robertson's self-titled debut the following year, along with "Testimony," which also featured the band.
6."With or Without You" was saved by a prototype guitar.An early incarnation of "With or Without You" had been around since the band first gathered at Larry Mullen Jr.'s house to discuss new material after the Unforgettable Fire Tour concluded in the summer of 1985. By all accounts this primitive version was unremarkable, with Clayton insisting that the bare bones were "very traditional, because the chords just went round and round and round." Under the guidance of Eno and Lanois, they continued to tinker away with the composition well into the Joshua Tree sessions, developing a myriad of arrangements—all of which were, in the Edge's assessment, "awful."
U2 were nearly ready to abandon the track entirely when the Edge received a gift from Canadian musician Michael Brook, his recent collaborator on the soundtrack to 1985's Captive. Knowing the Edge's penchant for unique sounds, Brook sent him a prototype of an instrument he had developed called the Infinite Guitar. Using a built-in electronic amplification system, it allowed notes to be played with limitless – or "infinite" – sustain. "It's a genius thing," says Lanois, who owns the second of Brook's two prototypes. "You create a feedback loop. Since then, of course, people have started mass-manufacturing them, but back then it was unexplored territory."
While undoubtedly impressive, the instrument came with some health risks. "It arrived during the [Joshua Tree] sessions with elaborate instructions on how to hook it up," recalls the Edge in U2 by U2. "One wrongly placed wire and you could get a nasty belt of electricity. This piece of gear would have failed even the most basic of safety regulations."
After assembling the Infinity Guitar without major injury, the Edge began to test the boundaries of his new toy while the band worked at Danesmoate. "I had just taken it out of the box and was playing around with it in one room while [band associate] Gavin Friday and Bono were in the control room listening to the backing track of 'With or Without You.' We were really at an impasse in the search of the right arrangement, and were just at the point of leaving the song to one side. Then, through an open door, they heard the sound of the Infinite Guitar combining with the bass and drums and just went: 'That's it! But what the fuck is it!?'"
Bono was suitably impressed by what he later described as "a beautiful ghost of a guitar sound," and the thrill injected new creative energy into the troubled song. "I asked Edge just to play a little something with it," Lanois told Hot Press. "He did two takes and those are the ones in the ultimate mix of 'With or Without You.' Beautiful sounds, stratospheric."
7. "Sweetest Thing" was recorded during the Joshua Tree sessions as an apology to Bono's wife, but didn't make the final cut. 

The exhaustive Joshua Tree sessions, coupled with U2's live commitments, put a strain on the band's significant others – and particularly on Bono's wife, Ali Hewson. "I live with a very strong person, and she throws me out occasionally," he admitted to Rolling Stone at the time. "I hardly saw my wife Ali for a year. 1986 was an incredibly bad year for me. It's almost impossible to be married and be in a band on the road."
Bono penned a song for his wife, "Sweetest Thing," as apology for his frequent absences. "It was written during the sessions for The Joshua Tree. It was Ali's birthday and I didn't make it for the birthday," he recalled in 1998. Though the track was recorded for the album, it was never completed to the band's satisfaction. "It was actually the one song we always felt we could have nailed better than we did. In my mind it was always a pop song, and I always felt we could do it better."
It was elbowed from The Joshua Tree, eventually surfacing as the B side to the "Where the Streets Have No Name" single in September 1988. It would be a decade before the song was polished off with the help of producer Steve Lillywhite for inclusion on U2's Best of 1980–1990/The B-Sides compilation. "We knew we hadn't really finished it, and Edge came up with a couple extra chords and it was a really quick thing," Clayton told Entertainment Tonight. "So we went, 'Yeah, stick 'em in.'"
With new vocals and a revamped instrumental arrangement, "Sweetest Thing" was released as a single in its own right, climbing into the Top 20 across the globe. Ali agreed to appear in the music video – on the condition that all proceeds from the song be donated to the Chernobyl Children's Project.

8. The actual Joshua Tree on the sleeve died in 2000 – and a couple died trying to find it."The original concept was where two civilizations meet," graphic artist Steve Averill says of the album's cover art. "The Two Americas was a working title at the time. The idea of desert meets civilization was sort of a theme." With that loose starting point, Averill, photographer Anton Corbijn and the members of U2 boarded a bus in mid-December 1986 and embarked on a short road trip through desolate California locales of Death Valley, Zabriskie Point, the Mojave Desert and the ghost town of Bodie.
"We made a schedule of three days to shoot," says Corbijn in the Classic Albums documentary. "And it was during the night after the first day of shooting that I went out with Bono and said, 'There's a tree that I really love, and it's called the Joshua Tree. It'll be a brilliant idea to have that on the front and then the band will be on the back.' Bono then came down the [next] morning … with a Bible. He had looked up the Joshua Tree in the Bible and he thought that should probably be a title for an album. Then we went out that day to actually look for the tree."
While speeding down Route 190 near Darwin, California, just west of Death Valley, Corbijn found what he was looking for. "Amazingly enough, we found this beautiful tree standing on its own. This [type of] tree usually grows in big groups, so it was incredible to find that tree on its own. I've never seen another tree on its own since." The band pulled over and spent 20 minutes posing with the lone tree before the winter chill drove them back into the bus. "It was freezing and we had to take our coats off so it would at least look like a desert," Bono explained. "That's one of the reasons we look so grim."
While a shot of the band at Zabriskie Point would ultimately grace the album cover, the portrait with the tree in the gatefold sleeve would become iconic. For Bono, a foreboding desert landscape was an accurate portrait of his unsettled mental state after what had been, in his own words, "an incredibly bad year." His tumultuous marriage, intense workload, and the death of Greg Carroll all weighed on his psyche. "That's why the desert attracted me as an image," he told Rolling Stone. "That year was really a desert for us."
Yet for Clayton, the image had a more optimistic meaning. "The desert was immensely inspirational to us as a mental image for this record," he told Hot Press in 1987. "Most people would take the desert on face value and think it's some kind of barren place, which of course is true. But, in the right frame of mind it's also a very positive image, because you can actually do something with a blank canvas, which is effectively what the desert is."
Given the spontaneous nature of the shoot, U2 genuinely had no idea where the famous tree was located – which proved to be a relief after the spot took on a quasi-religious significance to fans. "No, better that people can't find it, or else some guy will arrive with it at a gig: 'Bono, I've got the tree!'" the singer joked to Rolling Stone. He wasn't far off. Hardcore U2 devotees eventually managed to track down the site, transforming the isolated speck of desert into an unlikely tourist destination.
The famous tree died of natural causes in 2000, collapsing on the desert floor at an estimated age of 200 years old. One dedicated fan left a plaque by the decomposing trunk, reading: "Have you found what you're looking for?" In 2015, a less altruistic individual defaced the tree's remains, hacking it into pieces and making off with a limb.
Many fans assumed that the cover was shot in the Joshua Tree National Park, four hours south of its actual location. This misconception may have had fatal consequences in August 2011, when 44-year-old Guus Van Hove and his wife, 38-year-old Helena Nuellet, were found dead in a remote back road of the park. Joshua Tree authorities suspect they died of heatstroke in the 105-degree temperatures. Van Hove had been a manager of the music venue 013 in his native Netherlands, and reportedly told colleagues "with a passion" that he wanted to visit the site of the album cover shoot.

9. Bono got banged up on the Joshua Tree world tour."Cuts and bruises, that's what I remember from the Joshua Tree [tour]," Bono lamented in the band's autobiography. The 111-date jaunt across North America and Europe grossed over $40 million between April and December of 1987, but it took a sizable toll on the lead singer.
The trouble began when Bono took a spill mid-song during rehearsals on April 1st, just one day before the tour was due to kick off in Tempe, Arizona. "I cut open my face falling off a light," he said in U2 by U2. "I've still got the scar on my chin. I was lost in the music and at the start of any tour you're just getting to know the physicality of the stage, the geometry of it, and you're overestimating your own physicality. You think you're made of metal yourself and you're not."
He received stitches at a nearby hospital, but Bono's luck failed to improve when U2 returned to the Arizona State University Activity Center the following night. After a week of intense rehearsals, the singer's voice was reduced to a hoarse croak as they played to the first audience of the tour. "I must have stayed out in the sun too long," he told the sold-out crowd, urging them to join in and pick up the vocal slack. "I'm glad you're singing with me tonight."
A day's vocal rest allowed him to sufficiently recover, but disaster struck once again on September 20th during a concert at Washington, D.C.'s Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. In the Edge's memory, it was clear early on that the performance would not be one of their better ones. "In those days, when a U2 show went badly, it could go very badly indeed. … On this particularly night, in an attempt to try and get something going, Bono ran full pelt out onto one of the side wings. In the rain that was slowly falling, the side wings, which were covered in vinyl, became like an ice rink and his feet went from under him."
More than the rain, Bono blames his own negative energy for the accident. "The song was 'Exit' and it had taken me to some ugly place. … I came down on my left shoulder and severed three ligaments from the clavicle. I was in terrible pain. Of course, they never healed back. My shoulder has come forward now, so I have to train my shoulder to go back. But it was rage that caused it. That was when I realized rage is an expensive thing for your general well being."
10. U2 occasionally opened for themselves under the guise of a fake country group.

In between sets by the BoDeans and Los Lobos during U2's Indianapolis show on November 1st, 1987, fans were treated to the debut performance of an obscure country group known as the Dalton Brothers. The quintet – "Alton," "Luke," "Duke" and "Betty" Dalton – played a short two-song hoedown consisting of an original ballad titled "Lucille," and a cover of Hank Williams' "Lost Highway." Only those in the front few rows saw past the big hats and bigger hair and realized that these Southern Comfort–swilling gents were actually U2.
"We play two kinds of music: Country and Western," claims an elaborate bio on a Dalton Brothers webpage, which cites Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn among their primary influences. The band took their alias from the Dalton Gang, a real-life group of outlaws who robbed banks and trains throughout the 1890s.
The Dalton Brothers rode again twice more: at the Los Angeles show on November 18th, and on December 12th in Hampton, Virginia. "This is just like Farm Aid and we like it that a-way. You people are beautiful people," Bono (a.k.a. Alton) tells the crowd in a convincing rural drawl. "It's great to know that in Los Angeles it's love, not money, that makes the world go 'round."

U2 has always had a degree of insecurity and self-doubt about them mixed in with seemingly boundless ambition. It's manifested itself in different ways. In the studio, they've always seemed to torture themselves trying to get it right - the sessions for UF came down to the wire with 20 hour days at the end to get it done, in the JT sessions they were so stressed about Streets that Brian Eno nearly destroyed the master tape of it, the band's near break-up during the AB sessions is well-documented, and in later years they would scrap an apparently finished version of HTDAAB to make a new one and compromise their artistic vision for NLOTH. In terms of how they presented themselves publicly, their personas, etc, they often seemed awkward in the 80s, as if they didn't quite believe in the bravado they were selling, and in later years, they too often appear to be chasing a relevance they used to have.

But for a brief period of time, maybe from the Zooropa recording sessions up through the early stages of the Pop sessions, they appeared to have a confidence that they never had before or since. They recorded Zooropa in only a couple of months and soon after were performing those songs live, they dove into the experimental Passengers project with Eno, in which they boldly played with everything from trip-hop to opera. They were rarely more creatively ambitious or confident in their ability to follow that ambition to a result than they were in those years. And ambitious they were heading into the Pop sessions, desiring to meld together rock, dance, electronic, and trip-hop elements with high concepts - the nature of consumerism and materialism in the late 20th century, crises of faith, etc - to create a club record that was still distinctly a U2 record. It was perhaps the most ambitious they ever were going into the production of a record.

Ultimately, it appears that they were unable to satisfy that ambition, even if a lot of people love the finished product. The sessions were plagued from the beginning. The band started working with a drum machine while Larry was recovering from surgery, leading to an intensification of the use of technology that the band had been immersed in all decade, from which the band would begin backing off of even before the subsequent tour was over. Combining all of the aforementioned musical elements proved difficult, and they could never really fully commit to making it a techno/dance record or a straight-ahead rock record. As a result, the record straddles between the former(Discotheque, Do You Feel Loved, Mofo, Gone, Miami) and the latter(If God Will Send His Angels, Staring At The Sun, Last Night On Earth, Wake Up Dead Man), with several tracks that take from both(The Playboy Mansion, If You Wear That Velvet Dress, Please). The band struggled so much picking a direction and getting the songs to sound they way they'd envisioned that they used up tour rehearsal time(after having booked the tour ahead of time in their pre-album confidence) to finish, going to literally the last hour before the deadline to give the record to the record label. Because they used up tour rehearsal time to finish the album, they were underrehearsed and were embarrassed in the first few shows, took nearly the entire first leg of the tour to get into the swing of things.

Whatever confident state of mind they might have been in going into Pop, it was gone(no pun intended) by the time the record was released, the tour was underway, and neither was setting the U.S. on fire. They were playing to half-empty stadiums while the record was getting lukewarm reviews. Although the band's live performance was back up to their standards later in the tour(producing some truly great and memorable moments) , and the new material was better received elsewhere in the world, the record remains, and will probably always remain, the most polarizing entry in their catalog.

We can argue forever about why Pop flopped in the U.S., why nobody(relatively speaking) went to the shows, and why the band have behaved as though they are so ashamed of the whole era. We can argue forever about the band dressing up as the Village people, picking the wrong singles, continuing to push irony when people were tired of it, being too derivative of other hot acts at the time(Prodigy, Oasis) etc etc etc.

I frankly, think it might be as simple as they underestimated how much the musical landscape had changed in just a few years. In 1997, the pop revival was blooming - Backstreet Boys and Nsync were already there and Britney and Christina were on the way. Hip-hop was becoming a greater and greater mainstream force. Alternative rock was beginning its great decline; grunge was over and most of the rock music on the radio was of the Third Eye Blind/Matchbox 20/Wallflowers/Barenaked Ladies/etc pop-rock variety. More serious rock acts like Oasis and Radiohead were at their peak in terms of mainstream commercial success(Radiohead are great to this day, but they've never been as big in the mainstream as they were with OKC), same for harder acts like Marilyn Manson. The Nu-Metal scene was exploding, a harbinger of hip-hop taking over completely in the years to come.

Simply put, I think it might be as simple as the mainstream music listening audience in 1997 wasn't hungry for U2's brand of alternative rock anymore, particularly when said brand was artistically reaching away from what had made them huge in the first place.

Whatever the reasons, the album wasn't as successful as the band needed it to be(everything is relative, it did sell six million copies), especially in the U.S., and today there are two views of it. Some see it as a misstep, during which the band got lost in ambition and technology and concept and got swallowed by all of it(and from which they returned to form with ATYCLB and HTDAAB). Some, including many here, see it as a great, exciting, brave, and yes, flawed record. As something to aspire to, because even though its flawed and has its issues, at least they were trying to do something great and interesting and provocative.

Discotheque, however it's regarded in the mainstream, is just a really good rock song, with a monster guitar riff and numerous earworm vocal melodies - from the 'you can this but you can't that' repetitions, to 'you know you're chewing bubble gum...', to 'you get confused but you know it...', to the second part of the chorus('looking for the one/but you're somewhere else instead/I want to be the song/the song that you hear in your head') to the coda('but you take what you can get/'cause it's all that you can find' with Edge's 'you want heaven in your heart' in the background). Also some love for the instrumental breakdown after the first chorus which was never performed live and omitted from the 'new' mix in 2002. And I love the boom-chas.

Do You Feel Loved is arguably the sexiest track they've ever put to record, with a heavy but smooth sound and a huge chorus alongside a borderline x-rated lyric. I always thought should've been a single, and it's a shame they never nailed it live.

Mofo's tremendous bassline - the whole rhythm section really - and Bono's painfully inward-looking lyric that practically screams 'I may be a world famous rock star but I'm still just a child grappling with his mother's death and a man grappling with how to be a good father and husband while doing all of this' make it an intense headphone experience and an explosive live performance. As heavy a track as they've ever done.

If God Will Send His Angels takes the album on a left turn into more straight-ahead pop-rock territory. The closest thing to a ballad on this record other than Velvet Dress, I've always loved the minimalist riff, the vocal melodies, Bono's delivery, the lyric about someone at their wit's end regarding their faith, and the trip-hop coda of the album version.

Bono always though Staring At The Sun should've been a huge hit, and although some people think it's too bland or stale or Oasis-wannabe or whatever, I've always loved it. Immensely catchy, a big, warm guitar riff in the chorus, and a thought-provoking lyric. While I like the acoustic versions, I wish they would've come back to the full-band electric version live.

Last Night On Earth is just a huge rock song. From the first notes, everything is gaining momentum as it leads into that huge, earth-shaking chorus. This is one of the tracks I used to enjoy just turning up loud and rocking out to the most. And the live version. My goodness the riffage at the end. How the band thinks this didn't work live is beyond me.

Gone is just a tremendous song, from the crying sirens Edge gets out his guitar, to the powerful performance of the rhythm section, to Bono's impassioned vocal take, to the dark atmospherics and subtle, aching background vocals, to the great lyric, it's just clearly one of the best tracks here. This one needs to come back to the live set.

Miami is simultaneously a big joke here(U2 wrote Miami) and also greatly appreciated for its live renditions(in which the riffs get ten times bigger). Yes, the lyric is kind of crap, but even on the studio version, I find it be sonically pretty interesting with the riffs and the atmospherics between the riffs. If it had been recorded the way it was played live, I don't think it would be a joke here, bad lyric or not.

The Playboy Mansion frustrates me. Musically, I like it a lot - it's got a mellow vibe, but actually becomes sort of emotionally intense by the end, and there are some beautiful melodies in the middle eight('I don't know if I can hold on') and the 'then will there be no time' sections. But the a lot of the lyrics are just so dated with pop culture references. But then maybe that actually fits, since the song is kind of about the fleeting nature of success in pop culture.

If You Wear That Velvet Dress is an exceedingly atmospheric, captivating, and sexy ballad, delivered in that smokey 90s Bono voice. I just wish that vocal had been turned up a little in the mix because you can barely hear him until halfway through the song. Also have to mention the really nice, mellow guitar interlude in the middle. This track doesn't sound like anything else on the record, or anything else the band have ever done, really, but it's great.

Please. What can be said about Please that hasn't been said? It's one of their greatest songs, imo. Lyrically, it's political most of the way through, being about the troubles in Ireland, but then at the end - it might have still been intended to be political, but it also doubles as one of the most biting break-up lyrics I've ever seen - 'love is big/bigger than us/but love is not/what you're thinking of/it's what lovers deal/it's what lovers steal/you know I found it hard to receive/'cause you my love/I could never believe'. That will always be on my favorite lyrics that Bono ever wrote. Musically, Adam and Larry kind of own the song, with Edge kind playing a supporting role(until the end of the solo and live versions, obviously). The rhythm section is hypnotizing here, verging on jazzy, and I know a lot of people don't care for the single version because a lot of that is missing from it. I love all versions of the track. The album version is really intimate, and you can really feel the smoldering anger underneath it all; it's grittier, and it's also the only version that has that Edge backing vocal at the end that I love. The full-band live version, however, is considered by many as one of the greatest things the band has ever done, and rightly so. It's a fucking tour-de-force, from the band's performance, to Bono's performance to Bono and Edge singing together to Edge's solo to the quiet finish after the explosion. There is a reason Please is my holy grail of songs I've never seen performed in person.

Wake Up Dead Man is one of the darkest songs the band ever wrote. It's heavy, musically and lyrically. Musically, the song combines quiet vocals with heavy, succinct guitar riffs in the chorus until halfway through when the song picks up pace. Lyrically, it is a midnight of the soul, a crisis of faith, a breakdown. There is such anger there, especially in the first verse and chorus, both quiet anger and loud anger(the riff). It's riveting stuff, and one of the band's greatest album closers. IMO, only Love is Blindness definitively tops it, while others come close(The Troubles, Mothers Of The Disappeared, 40).

It is a flawed, and it's not for everyone, but for some, it is a powerful record, and one that stands in stark contrast stylistically, sonically, and spiritually to much of what came after. For some, it was a misstep, but for many others, this record marks the the end of 'old u2', a kind of last stand. In 1989, at one of the last Lovetown shows, Bono famously said 'this is just the end of something for U2'. He could've just as well said the same thing at one of the last Popmart shows. Months after the tour wrapped, the first Best Of was released and their VH1 Legends episode aired, the following year the classic albums documentary about the Joshua Tree was released, and the year after that they released the back-to-basics All That You Can't Leave Behind. The commercial and critical success that they had started to take for granted had been threatened with Pop and it seems like the band reacted to that. In the last fifteen years, after the Elevation tour, they've barely acknowledged the record.

But we can. Happy 20th, Pop.

After Shaw and David crash landed on the planet, David secretly contacted Wayland Yutani to update them on the status of the Prometheus expedition and the discovery of the black goo; he also requested supplies (mainly lab equipment) and a new body. He then killed Shaw or held her captive and experimented on her female anatomy (her infertile female eggs) with the black goo and eventually created the face hugger eggs. David discovers from archived data on the engineer ship that the engineers' black goo was originally designed to mutate life forms into hostile creatures which attack and infect other life forms with black goo; this is what happened to Fifield and the worms in Prometheus.

However, use of the black goo had some unintended consequences; instead of just destroying life, it sometimes created a new powerful highly adaptive species called the "morph" (alien with elongated skull). The morph is created from reproductive cells such as plant spores, human eggs/embryos, etc. that have been mutated by the black goo into a parasite (face hugger, trilobite, etc.) which can impregnate a host with a morph alien embryo. The morph gestates inside its host until mature enough to leave which results in a violent death for the host. Apparently, the engineers have encountered these morphs in the past when they used the black goo to eliminate life on planets. The engineers revered, respected, and feared this powerful alien species, which unlike other life forms created by the black goo, has the power to procreate, hence the reason for the mural depicting what looked like a xenomorph and face hugger in the room where the black goo was stored in at the engineer's installation on LV-223.

The engineers sought to learn how these morphs are created and discovered that face hugger eggs are created when the black goo mutates the eggs of humanoid creatures (such as humans) which the engineers are responsible for creating (see beginning of Prometheus). David discovered this knowledge from archived data stored on the engineer ship that he and Shaw used to escape from LV-223 and then used that information to experiment on Shaw's eggs and create face hugger eggs. After creating the eggs, he then communicated with Weyland Yutani again, requesting additional human subjects (mainly women) to experiment on. So, Weyland Yutani sends the Covenant and its human crew, which consists of male/female couples, to his location. When the Covenant crew arrive at David's location, they immediately come into contact with mutated spores that turn some of them into a neomorph alien which is a morph created from human and plant DNA. Apparently, David had been experimenting on the local ecosystem by contaminating it with the black goo. David eventually reveals himself to the crew and helps them destroy the neomorphs.

After earning the crew's trust, David convinces some of the crew to follow him to the engineer ship where he keeps the face hugger eggs. The captain is attacked by a face hugger which leads to the creation of the protomorph alien which is created from only human DNA; the protomorph is far more formidable than the neomorphs, but not as powerful as the classic xenomorph from the films. While the crew is dealing with the new protomorph alien, David continues to experiment and lures the Covenant's android, Walter to another face hugger egg. A face hugger impregnates Walter with an alien which leads to the creation of the classic biomechanical xenomorph (queen) which is the most powerful form of the species created to date. The xenomorph alien is created from synthetic android DNA and human DNA (from Shaw). The queen alien begins laying new face hugger eggs which delights David, as he is able to create a new life form IN HIS IMAGE capable of procreation. The crew eventually dispatches the protomorph alien and then attempt to flee the planet. However, the engineers return and kill David, the xenomorphs, and all of the remaining Covenant crew. They then destroy the ecosystem David created and take all of the xenomorph eggs with them. However, one of the eggs hatches and attacks the engineer pilot (space jockey) who is eventually killed by a chestburster which causes the ship (derelict) to crash land on LV-426 where Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo eventually discover it. Before dying, the engineers on the ship activate a beacon warning other engineers to stay away, as the powerful xenomorph species on the ship is much too dangerous to come into contact with. It is revealed in the end that not all of David's ecosystem and all of the xenomorph eggs had been destroyed, and that is where Alien 5 will take place, as Weyland Yutani has set up their own bio weapons research facility on the planet in order to "harvest" the xenomorph eggs and experiment on them in order to create even more terrifying creations.

It doesn't really matter what the nature of where I live is. I'm not the one telling other people that their lives would be improved if they were surrounded by Muslims or illegals. It is the Hollywood hypocrites that say that when they themselves would never venture into a Muslim or illegals neighborhood.

This is no different than the folks who live in gated communities and have private armed security telling the rest of us that we don't need guns.

[I]n a democracy the people get the last word—and that’s the way it should be. I opposed Trump while all the time understanding that many of the people who support him are the kind of people I grew up with, and can see myself in to this day. In my head at least the election result demanded I ask myself several questions:

Am I missing something here?

Am I out of touch with American values?

Am I out of touch with the American people?

It’s clear a giant constituency in the country felt ignored or patronized … they are fearful of the future, as are a growing number of Europeans. I understand and respect that, and I want to try and understand those fears better …

I think a little humility might be important for me here. I certainly want to understand better what just happened, but I’m going to do that without crossing what are bright lines for me, things like standing against the [demonizing] of immigrants or refugees.

Vice President Joe Biden warned about the collapse of the "world order" Wednesday during his last time addressing global leaders in his official role.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Biden urged influential leaders in Europe and the U.S. to "lead boldly" and defend democracies against dangers that he said include Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Below is a complete transcript of the event:

Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great honor to once again address this distinguished forum.

But this year, in these early days of 2017, there's a palpable uncertainty about the state of our world.

For the members of the media in the audience, I want to make it clear that I am not referring to the imminent transition of power in my country.

In two days, there will be a new President of the United States, but the challenges we face and the choices we must make as an international community do not hinge exclusively on Washington's leadership.

Whether we reinforce the ties that bind us, or whether we unravel under current pressures- those choices must be made in every nation, and they will determine what kind of world we leave to our children.

 For the past seven decades, the choices we have made- particularly the United States and our Allies in Europe- have steered our world down a clear path.

After World War II, we drew a line under centuries of conflict and took steps to bend the arc of history in a more just direction. Instead of resigning ourselves to ceaseless wars, we built institutions and alliances to advance our shared security.

Instead of punishing former enemies, we invested billions in helping them rebuild.

Instead of sorting the world into winners and losers, we outlined universal values that defined a better future for all our children.

Our careful attention to building and sustaining a liberal international order-with the United States and Europe at its core-was the bedrock of the success the world enjoyed in the second half of the 20th Century.

An era of expanding liberty.

Unprecedented economic growth that lifted millions out of poverty.

A community of democracies that-to this day- serves as the fulcrum for our common security and for our capacity to address the world's most pressing challenges.

Strengthening these values- values that have served our community of nations so well, for so long-is paramount to retaining the position of leadership Western nations enjoy and preserving the progress we have made together.

But in recent years, it has become evident that the consensus upholding this system is facing incredible and increasing pressures- from both within and without.

Today, I'd like to speak to the sources of those pressures, and about why it is imperative that we act urgently to defend the liberal international order. Here in this exclusive Alpine tower, where CEOs of multinational corporations rub elbows with leaders of nations, it is easy to embrace the intellectual benefits of a more open and integrated world.

But it is at our own peril that we ignore or dismiss the legitimate fears and anxieties that exist in communities all across the developed world.

The concern mothers and fathers feel about losing the factory job that has always allowed them to provide for their families.

Parents who don't believe that they can give their children a better life than the one they have.

These are the pressures that are undermining support for the liberal international order from the inside.

Globalization has not been an unalloyed good.

It has deepened the rift between those racing ahead at the top and those struggling to hang on in the middle, or falling to the bottom.

One year ago, I spoke here in Davos about the challenges we face in mastering this fourth industrial revolution- about how we can ensure that the benefits and the burdens of globalization and digitization are shared more equitably.

In my country, there used to be a basic bargain, embraced by both major political parties. It was something everyone agreed on.

If you contributed to the success of the enterprise, you shared in the profits. Today that bargain is fractured.

Advanced technology has divorced productivity from labor-meaning we're making more than ever, but with fewer workers.

There's a shrinking demand for low-skill laborers, while highly- educated workers are getting paid more and more-contributing to rising inequality.

International trade and greater economic integration has lifted millions of people in the developing world out of abject poverty- improving education, extending life expectancies, opening new opportunities.

Standards of living are still well below middle class expectations in the United States and Europe, but the change is real.

Meanwhile, for many communities in the developed world that have long depended on manufacturing, the opposite is true.

Their relative standard of living has declined. They feel shut out of opportunities. And their economic security feels jeopardized.

Taken together, these forces are effectively hollowing out the middle class-the traditional engine of economic growth and social stability in Western nations.

 We cannot undo the changes technology has wrought in our world- nor should we try.

But we can and we must take action to mitigate the economic trends that are stoking unrest in so many advanced economies and undermining people's basic sense of dignity.

Our goal should be a world where everyone's standard of living can rise together.

There's an urgency to taking common sense steps like: increasing cognitive capabilities through access to education and job training. Ensuring basic protections for workers. Expanding access to capital. And implementing a progressive, equitable tax system where everyone pays their fair share.

Compounding these economic worries are people's fears about the very real security risks we face.

If you look at the long sweep of history, or even just the trend lines in wars and other incidents of large-scale violence over the past 50, 60, 70 years- as a practical matter, we are probably safer than ever.

But it doesn't feel that way.

Daily images of violence and unrest from all over the world are shared directly on our televisions and smart phones- images we rarely would have seen in a pre-digital age.

It's fostered a feeling of perpetual chaos- of being overrun by outside forces.

Communication technologies have fostered incredible progress- making information more open and accessible, breaking down the barriers between people and nations, facilitating greater scientific collaboration, empowering ordinary citizens to challenge injustice and hold their governments accountable.

But they have also given hateful individuals a megaphone to spread their virulent, extremist ideologies.

Radical jihadists not only recruit and find haven in the ungoverned desserts of Iraq and Syria- they do the same in the ungoverned spaces of the Internet.

Borders seem less real. Terrorist attacks feel inescapable. Fears about unrelenting migration mount as people continue to flee violence and deprivation in their homelands.

And in the wake of these understandable fears, we have seen a series of alarming responses.

Popular movements on both the left and the right have demonstrated a dangerous willingness to revert to political small- mindedness-to the same nationalist, protectionist, and isolationist agendas that led the world to consume itself in war during in the last century.

As we have seen time and again throughout history, demagogues and autocrats have emerged- seeking to capitalize on people's insecurities.

In this case, using Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, or xenophobic rhetoric to stoke fear, sow division, and advance their own narrow agendas.

This is a politics at odds with our values and with the vision that built-and sustains-the liberal international order.

The impulse to hunker down, shut the gates, build walls, and exit at this moment is precisely the wrong answer.

It offers a false sense of security in an interconnected world.

It will not resolve the root causes of these fears- and it risks eroding from the inside out the foundations of the very system that spawned the West's historically unprecedented success.

We need to tap into the big-heartedness that conceived a Marshall Plan, the foresight that planned a Bretton Woods, the audacity that proposed a United Nations.

We cannot rout fear with retrenchment. Rather, this is the moment to lead boldly and recommit ourselves to our common principles-which remain essential to my nation, and to liberal democracies the world over.

Of course, there are those who do not share this vision for the world.

Those who wish to dissolve the community of democracies and our supporting institutions in favor of a more parochial international order-where power rules and spheres of influence lock in divides among nations.

We hear these voices in the West- but the greatest threats on this front spring from the distinct illiberalism of external actors who equate their success with a fracturing of the liberal international order.

We see this in Asia and the Middle East- where China and Iran would clearly prefer a world in which they hold sway in their regions. But I will not mince words. This movement is principally led by Russia.

 Under President Putin, Russia is working with every tool available to them to whittle away at the edges of the European project, test for fault lines among western nations, and return to a politics defined by spheres of influence.

We see it in their aggression against their neighbors. Sending so-called "little green men" across the border to stir violence and strains of separatism in Ukraine. Using energy as a weapon-cutting off gas supplies mid-winter, raising prices to manipulate nations to act in Russia's interests. Using corruption to empower oligarchs and coerce politicians.

We see it in their worldwide use of propaganda and false information campaigns: Injecting doubt and political agitation into democratic systems. Strengthening illiberal factions, on both the left and the right, that seek to roll back decades of progress from within our systems.

We even saw it in the cyber intrusions against political parties and individuals in the United States- which our intelligence community has determined with high confidence were specifically motivated to influence our elections.

But it's not only the United States that has been targeted. Europe has seen the same kind of attacks in the past.

And with many countries in Europe slated to hold elections this year, we should expect further attempts by Russia to meddle in the democratic process.

Again, their purpose is clear- to collapse the liberal international order. Simply put, Russia has a different vision for the future, which they are pursuing across the board.

They seek a return to a world where the strong impose their will through military might, corruption, or criminality-while weaker neighbors fall in line.

And from the first moments of our Administration- even as we sought a reset with then-President Medvedev- President Obama and I have made it clear that this is no way for nations to behave in the 21st Century.

When I addressed the Munich Security Conference in February of 2009, I said: "We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence. It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances."

That's been our position throughout the past eight years, and it is a position we must all continue championing in the years ahead.

The United States has not always been the perfect guardian of our order.

We have not always lived up to our own values- and some of our past missteps provided fodder for the forces of illiberalism.

But President Obama and I have worked consistently over the past eight years to lead not only by the example of our power-but by the power of our example.

And this is the challenge that will-by necessity- define the foreign policy agendas of all our nations as we move forward. So although I will only be the Vice President of the United States for 48 more hours- I am here today to issue a call to action.

We cannot wait for others to write the future they hope to see.

The United States and Europe must lead the fight to defend those values that have brought us to where we are today.

Fight to create more equitable and more inclusive growth for people at every level.

Fight for democracy wherever it is under threat- be it at home or abroad.

Fight to lift up the forces of inclusivity while opposing intolerance in all its guises.

Fight the urge to embrace isolationism and protectionism.

Fight back against the dangerous proposition that facts no longer matter.

That the truth holds no inherent power in a world where propagandists, demagogues, and extremists carry sway.

To win this fight, we must continue to invest in our democratic alliances.

As it as has been for seven decades, the unity of our transatlantic connection is essential to addressing global challenges.

Defending the liberal international order requires that we resist the forces of European disintegration and maintain our long-standing insistence on a Europe whole, free and at peace.

That means fighting for the European Union-one of the most vibrant and consequential institutions on earth.

 he EU has contributed to the prosperity of millions-fueling reforms that have improved living standards and driving the peaceful resolution of disputes between nations.

That means keeping open the door for membership in European and transatlantic institutions to those states on Europe's eastern edge- where people in places like the Balkans and Ukraine continue to strive to be part of the incredible undertaking that is the European Union.

The EU has been an indispensable partner to the United States-and as the EU and the UK begin to navigate a new relationship, it remains profoundly in America's interest to maintain our close relationships with both parties.

All of our peoples are safer when we work together.

We must continue to stand up for those basic norms of modern nations-the principles of territorial integrity, freedom of navigation, and national sovereignty.

The right of all nations "to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances."

To that end-we must: bolster Europe's energy independence so that nations are not subject to outside manipulations; improve our cyber defenses; and combat misinformation to prevent outsiders from perverting our democratic processes.

And the single greatest bulwark for our transatlantic partnership is the unshakable commitment of the United States to all our NATO Allies.

An attack on one is an attack on all. That can never be called into question. And we must continue to stand with Ukraine as they resist Russia's acts of aggression and pursue their European path.

In two days, the United States will engage in the act that has defined our exceptional democracy for more than 200 years-the peaceful transition of power from one leader, and one political party, to another.

And it is my hope and expectation that the next President and Vice President, and our leaders in Congress, will ensure that the United States continues to fulfill our historic responsibility as the indispensable nation.

But we have never been able to lead alone- not after World War II, not during the depths of the Cold War, and not today.

The United States, our NATO allies, all the nations of Europe-we are in this together. As the oldest and the strongest democracies in the world, we have a responsibility to beat back the challenges at our door.

We must never forget how we got here. Or take for granted that our success will continue.

It is only by championing the liberal international order- by continuing to invest in our security, reaffirming our shared values, and expanding the cause of liberty around the world-that will retain our position of leadership.

Because if we don't fight for our values, no one else will.

The idea of Europe whole, free, and at peace- in my opinion- constitutes one of the most audacious and consequential visions of the past century.

The notion that after centuries of conflict, Europe could reinvent itself as an integrated community- one committed to political solidarity, the free flow of goods and people, and a solemn obligation to collective defense-and succeed in achieving it.

The United States believed in it. Peoples across Europe believed in it-aspired to it. And you did it.

The success of the European enterprise was essential to America's security in the 20th Century- and it remains so today.

The Atlantic Alliance is still the bedrock of addressing so many 21st Century threats-from terrorism to the spread of diseases like Ebola to climate change.

You've heard me make this case for four decades. But I am not alone in this belief. America's commitment to Europe and NATO is thoroughly bipartisan.

Just last month, my good friend and frequent sparring partner, Republican Senator John McCain traveled to Estonia where he said: "The best way to prevent Russian misbehavior [is] by having a credible, strong military and a strong NATO alliance."

On the same trip, another leading Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, assured Ukrainian troops serving on the front line: "Your fight is our fight."

That's the same sentiment I expressed two days ago, when I made my sixth trip to Ukraine as Vice President.

History has proven that the defense of free nations in Europe has always been America's fight- and the foundation of our security.

Throughout more than four decades of incredibly divisive foreign policy debates, there has always been a consensus about the value of the transatlantic relationship.

That will not change.

And as I re-enter private life, I want to assure you today that I will stand with you as you carry this fight forward.

I will continue to use my voice and my power as a citizen-doing whatever I can to keep our transatlantic alliance strong and vibrant- because our common future depends upon it.

Thank you.

5 Reasons High Fructose Corn Syrup Will Kill You

 IF YOU CAN’T CONVINCE THEM, CONFUSE THEM – Harry Truman

 

 

The current media debate about the benefits (or lack of harm) of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in our diet misses the obvious. The average American increased their consumption of HFCS (mostly from sugar sweetened drinks and processed food) from zero to over 60 pounds per person per year.
During that time period, obesity rates have more than tripled and diabetes incidence has increased more than seven fold. Not perhaps the only cause, but a fact that cannot be ignored.
Doubt and confusion are the currency of deception, and they sow the seeds of complacency. These are used skillfully through massive print and television advertising campaigns by the Corn Refiners Association’s attempt to dispel the “myth” that HFCS is harmful and assert through the opinion of “medical and nutrition experts” that it is no different than cane sugar. It is a “natural” product that is a healthy part of our diet when used in moderation.
Except for one problem. When used in moderation it is a major cause of heart disease, obesity, cancer, dementia, liver failure, tooth decay, and more.

Why is the corn industry spending millions on misinformation campaigns to convince consumers and health care professionals of the safety of their product? Could it be that the food industry comprises 17 percent of our economy?

The Lengths the Corn Industry Will Go To
The goal of the corn industry is to call into question any claim of harm from consuming high fructose corn syrup, and to confuse and deflect by calling their product natural “corn sugar”. That’s like calling tobacco in cigarettes natural herbal medicine.
In the ad, the father tells us:
“Like any parent I have questions about the food my daughter eats–-like high fructose corn syrup. So I started looking for answers from medical and nutrition experts, and what I discovered whether it’s corn sugar or cane sugar your body can’t tell the difference. Sugar is sugar. Knowing that makes me feel better about what she eats and that’s one less thing to worry about.”
Physicians are also targeted directly. I received a 12-page color glossy monograph from the Corn Refiners Association reviewing the “science” that HFCS was safe and no different than cane sugar. I assume the other 700,000 physicians in America received the same propaganda at who knows what cost.
In addition to this, I received a special “personal” letter from the Corn Refiner’s Association outlining every mention of the problems with HFCS in our diet–whether in print, blogs, books, radio, or television. They warned me of the errors of my ways and put me on “notice”. For what I am not sure. To think they are tracking this (and me) that closely gives me an Orwellian chill.
New websites like www.sweetsurprise.com and www.cornsugar.com help “set us straight” about HFCS with quotes from professors of nutrition and medicine and thought leaders from Harvard and other stellar institutions.
Why is the corn industry spending millions on misinformation campaigns to convince consumers and health care professionals of the safety of their product? Could it be that the food industry comprises 17 percent of our economy?
But are these twisted sweet lies or a sweet surprise, as the Corn Refiners Association websites claim?


What the Science Says About HFCS
Let’s examine the science and insert some common sense into the conversation. These facts may indeed come as a sweet surprise. The ads suggest getting your nutrition advice from your doctor (who, unfortunately, probably knows less about nutrition than most grandmothers).
Having studied this for over a decade, and having read, interviewed, or personally talked with most of the “medical and nutrition experts” used to bolster the claim that “corn sugar” and cane sugar are essentially the same, quite a different picture emerges and the role of HFCS in promoting obesity, disease, and death across the globe becomes clear.
Last week over lunch with Dr. Bruce Ames, one of the foremost nutritional scientists in the world, and Dr. Jeffrey Bland, a nutritional biochemist, a student of Linus Pauling, and I reviewed the existing science, and Dr. Ames shared shocking new evidence from his research center on how HFCS can trigger body-wide inflammation and obesity.
Here are 5 reasons you should stay way from any product containing high fructose corn syrup and why it may kill you.  

1. Sugar in any form causes obesity and disease when consumed in pharmacologic doses.Cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup are indeed both harmful when consumed in pharmacologic doses of 140 pounds per person per year.When one 20 ounce HFCS sweetened soda, sports drink, or tea has 17 teaspoons of sugar (and the average teenager often consumes two drinks a day) we are conducting a largely uncontrolled experiment on the human species.Our hunter gatherer ancestors consumed the equivalent of 20 teaspoons per year, not per day. In this sense, I would agree with the corn industry that sugar is sugar. Quantity matters. But there are some important differences.
2. HFCS and cane sugar are NOT biochemically identical or processed the same way by the body. High fructose corn syrup is an industrial food product and far from “natural” or a naturally occurring substance. It is extracted from corn stalks through a process so secret that Archer Daniels Midland and Carghill would not allow the investigative journalist Michael Pollan to observe it for his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The sugars are extracted through a chemical enzymatic process resulting in a chemically and biologically novel compound called HFCS. Some basic biochemistry will help you understand this. Regular cane sugar (sucrose) is made of two-sugar molecules bound tightly together– glucose and fructose in equal amounts.The enzymes in your digestive tract must break down the sucrose into glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the body. HFCS also consists of glucose and fructose, not in a 50-50 ratio, but a 55-45 fructose to glucose ratio in an unbound form. Fructose is sweeter than glucose. And HFCS is cheaper than sugar because of the government farm bill corn subsidies. Products with HFCS are sweeter and cheaper than products made with cane sugar. This allowed for the average soda size to balloon from 8 ounces to 20 ounces with little financial costs to manufacturers but great human costs of increased obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease.Now back to biochemistry. Since there is there is no chemical bond between them, no digestion is required so they are more rapidly absorbed into your blood stream. Fructose goes right to the liver and triggers lipogenesis (the production of fats like triglycerides and cholesterol) this is why it is the major cause of liver damage in this country and causes a condition called “fatty liver” which affects 70 million people.The rapidly absorbed glucose triggers big spikes in insulin–our body’s major fat storage hormone. Both these features of HFCS lead to increased metabolic disturbances that drive increases in appetite, weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and more.But there was one more thing I learned during lunch with Dr. Bruce Ames. Research done by his group at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute found that free fructose from HFCS requires more energy to be absorbed by the gut and soaks up two phosphorous molecules from ATP (our body’s energy source). This depletes the energy fuel source, or ATP, in our gut required to maintain the integrity of our intestinal lining. Little “tight junctions” cement each intestinal cell together preventing food and bacteria from “leaking” across the intestinal membrane and triggering an immune reaction and body wide inflammation.
   High doses of free fructose have been proven to literally punch holes in the intestinal lining allowing nasty byproducts of toxic gut bacteria and partially digested food proteins to enter your blood stream and trigger the inflammation that we know is at the root of obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia, and accelerated aging. Naturally occurring fructose in fruit is part of a complex of nutrients and fiber that doesn’t exhibit the same biological effects as the free high fructose doses found in “corn sugar”.
   The takeaway: Cane sugar and the industrially produced, euphemistically named “corn sugar” are not biochemically or physiologically the same.
3. HFCS contains contaminants including mercury that are not regulated or measured by the FDA. An FDA researcher asked corn producers to ship a barrel of high fructose corn syrup in order to test for contaminants. Her repeated requests were refused until she claimed she represented a newly created soft drink company. She was then promptly shipped a big vat of HFCS that was used as part of the study that showed that HFCS often contains toxic levels of mercury because of chlor-alkali products used in its manufacturing.(i) Poisoned sugar is certainly not “natural”.When HFCS is run through a chemical analyzer or a chromatograph, strange chemical peaks show up that are not glucose or fructose. What are they? Who knows? This certainly calls into question the purity of this processed form of super sugar. The exact nature, effects, and toxicity of these funny compounds have not been fully explained, but shouldn’t we be protected from the presence of untested chemical compounds in our food supply, especially when the contaminated food product comprises up to 15-20 percent of the average American’s daily calorie intake?  
4. Independent medical and nutrition experts DO NOT support the use of HFCS in our diet, despite the assertions of the corn industry. The corn industry’s happy looking websites www.cornsugar.com and www.sweetsurprise.com bolster their position that cane sugar and corn sugar are the same by quoting experts, or should we say misquoting … Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has published widely on the dangers of sugar-sweetened drinks and their contribution to the obesity epidemic. In a review of HFCS in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,(ii)he explains the mechanism by which the free fructose may contribute to obesity.He states that: “The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose. Hepatic metabolism of fructose favors de novo lipogenesis (production of fat in the liver). In addition, unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. Because insulin and leptin act as key afferent signals in the regulation of food intake and body weight (to control appetite), this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain. Furthermore, calorically sweetened beverages may enhance caloric over-consumption.”He states that HFCS is absorbed more rapidly than regular sugar and that it doesn’t stimulate insulin or leptin production. This prevents you from triggering the body’s signals for being full and may lead to over-consumption of total calories. He concludes by saying that:“… the increase in consumption of HFCS has a temporal relation to the epidemic of obesity, and the overconsumption of HFCS in calorically sweetened beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity.”The corn industry takes his comments out of context to support their position. “All sugar you eat is the same.” True pharmacologic doses of any kind of sugar are harmful, but the biochemistry of different kinds of sugar and their respective effects on absorption, appetite, and metabolism are different, and Dr. Popkin knows that.
   David S. Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, and a personal friend, has published extensively on the dangers and the obesogenic properties of sugar-sweetened beverages.
   He was quoted as saying that “high fructose corn syrup is one of the most misunderstood products in the food industry.” When I asked him why he supported the corn industry, he told me he didn’t and that his comments were taken totally out of context.
   Misrepresenting science is one thing, misrepresenting scientists who have been at the forefront of the fight against obesity and high fructose sugar sweetened beverages is quite another.
5. HFCS is almost always a marker of poor-quality, nutrient-poor disease-creating industrial food products or “food-like substances”. The last reason to avoid products that contain HFCS is that they are a marker for poor-quality, nutritionally-depleted, processed industrial food full of empty calories and artificial ingredients. If you find “high fructose corn syrup” on the label you can be sure it is not a whole, real, fresh food full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and antioxidants. Stay away if you want to stay healthy. We still must reduce our overall consumption of sugar, but with this one simple dietary change you can radically reduce your health risks and improve your health.While debate may rage about the biochemistry and physiology of cane sugar versus corn sugar, this is in fact beside the point (despite the finer points of my scientific analysis above). The conversation has been diverted to a simple assertion that cane sugar and corn sugar are not different.

The real issues are only two.

• We are consuming HFCS and sugar in pharmacologic quantities never before experienced in human history–140 pounds a year versus 20 teaspoons a year 10,000 years ago.
• High fructose corn syrup is always found in very poor-quality foods that are nutritionally vacuous and filled with all sorts of other disease promoting compounds, fats, salt, chemicals, and even mercury.

These critical ideas should be the heart of the national conversation, not the meaningless confusing ads and statements by the corn industry in the media and online that attempt to assure the public that the biochemistry of real sugar and industrially produced sugar from corn are the same.
Now I’d like to hear from you …
Do you think there is an association between the introduction of HFCS in our diet and the obesity epidemic?
What reason do you think the Corn Refiners Association has for running such ads and publishing websites like those listed in this article?
What do you think of the science presented here and the general effects of HFCS on the American diet?
Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below—but remember, we can’t offer personal medical advice online, so be sure to limit your comments to those about taking back our health!
To your good health,
Mark Hyman, MD
References
(i) Dufault, R., LeBlanc, B., Schnoll, R. et al. 2009. Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: Measured concentrations in food product sugar. Environ Health. 26(8):2.
(ii) Bray, G.A., Nielsen, S.J., and B.M. Popkin. 2004. Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr. 79(4):537-43. Review.