Rattle And Hum is a sister project to The Joshua Tree. Released just a year later, in 1988, it took its name from The Joshua Tree track “Bullet the Blue Sky,” and furthered the band’s newfound interest with American roots music. In spite of or because of that, it wasn’t exactly a full-fledged follow-up album. Rather, Rattle and Hum was packaged with a movie of the same name that chronicled the band’s travels through America during their tour for The Joshua Tree, and their growing interest in gospel, blues, and old school rock music. Consequently, it became a more or less lumbering mess of covers, live performances, and new songs. It’s their classic rock moment not just in matters of taste and style but in structure: the whole thing has a very ’70s bloat to it, between the movie tie-in, its aimless length, and the fact that it passes itself off as earnest and looking to pay tribute but comes off as pretentious nonetheless.

There is some great stuff on Rattle And Hum, but it’s littered with mis-steps that seem all the more glaring with it being released in the shadow of one of their classic albums. The covers of “Helter Skelter” and “All Along the Watchtower” are more or less pointless, the band not necessarily adding any of their own DNA to them; the inclusion of a live cut of “Pride” is mainly perfunctory. Where they’d seamlessly incorporated roots elements into their already existing trademarks to come up with something brilliant and singular on The Joshua Tree, a lot of it feels like dead weight here. The gospel rendition of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and the total drag of “Love Rescue Me” don’t go anywhere, and the B.B. King collaboration “When Love Comes to Town” is just kind of an anomaly. It wasn’t all bad, though. U2’s take on the classic Bo Diddley rhythm resulted in “Desire,” still one of their most infectious singles. I’ve always had a soft spot for “Heartland,” a leftover from The Unforgettable Fire; it’s far more interesting in both melody and atmosphere than most anything else here. You could almost picture how different it could have been if U2 had released an EP instead featuring these songs, the studio version of “Silver and Gold,” and “All I Want Is You,” the closing track here that’s so good at being an archetypal U2 song it almost single-handedly legitimates the existence of Rattle And Hum.

Maybe there was just too much scrutiny. The nature of Rattle And Hum seemed to beg for a casual one-off, a notebook experience of their tour, but coupled with the movie it felt like an overblown vanity project. It was the first real stumble in their career, and they felt it — a several year gestation would follow before the band returned having retooled their entire look, sound, and ethos in order to embark upon the Zoo TV era. In a way, that’s great. U2 got the whole “botched follow-up to your biggest album yet” thing out of their system with something that was more of a sidestep, but it still gave them enough of a slap on the wrist to inspire an overhaul that produced their most interesting work. What’s less great is the fact that it’s probably the last time (aside from Zooropa or Pop, perhaps) where the band was able to put something out there not necessarily randomly, but certainly with less second-guessing than they do now. Rattle And Hum feels overstuffed and mislead, but not necessarily overly-considered. Ever since, they’re paranoid about falling on their face, and it’s held them back at times. There are some albums ranked ahead of Rattle And Hum here that might be a bit more problematic, but they’re also worth more of a listen. The most important thing about Rattle And Hum remains the fact that it pushed U2 into a situation in which they had to recreate themselves, which makes it important, sure, but also defines it as a failure.