Raw Songs Of Protest (War - U2)

Member Name: basil40

Product:	War - U2
Date:	11/02/05 (229 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Raw, Great songs, Not the U2 of today

Disadvantages: Too political?

War, from 1983, was U2's third album following October and Boy from 1980 and 1981 respectively. It was also their first number one. At the time, they hadn't really had any big chart hits in the UK and were also concentrating on breaking themselves in America. The U2 of 1983 are a very different proposition to the corporate-friendly, iPod monkeys of 2005. This album is rawly produced and performed with political lyrics ranging from topics as diverse as the Bloody Sunday attrocity to the plight of third world political prisoners.

Here I am reviewing the vinyl version of the album. War is the U2 album that features the close-up of the scab-lipped boy with his hands bhind his head in mock surrender. It is a gatefold album of 10 tracks, nicely packaged with the lyrics to only the tracks on the A-side of the album.

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY kicks the album off with it's incendiary drum beat that I've never heard the like of before or since. After the first two bars you can feel that something special os going to happen with this track and the album as a whole. There's such a raw feel to the album that I love very much. The producer has barely touched this music and just allowed the music to flow naturally. The result is a genuinely bombastic track that has Bono insisting "it's true we are immune/when fact is fiction and TV's reality" 15 years before reality television took over the world. SECONDS is up next and the polar opposite to SUNDAY.... An acoustic guitar strums happily before a repetitive bass part comes in at the same time as Bono's youthful vocals announced that "it takes a second to say goodbye, say goodboye, oh oh oh". This is a midtempo song of clarity and simplicity.

LIKE A SONG is more of the same with some beautiful piano and some extraordinary vocals. It's midtempo again and after the opening bl;uster of the first track, it's good to have a small groove to settle into with the advent of SECONDS and this track. And then comes U2's first ever top ten hit: NEW YEARS DAY. Released in Jan 1983 it made number ten on the back of it's fantastic two main features, namely the epic rumbling bassline that puntuates the track throughout and The Edge's trademark tuning fork guitar. Bono's on form, too, on this uptempo stomper that was a real blast of fresh air to the charts back in 1983.

The second single release from this album was TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE, a more restrained affair. Bono's voice is thoughtful and piercing for the duration of the cut and this song only reach number 18 in the charts. The chorus is a rousing call to arms and the songs retains that status of epic that later became the norm for U2's material.

Side two starts with two startlingly different tracks: REFUGEE and DROWNING MAN. The former pounds away amid tribal drums and a boisterous, shouty chorus of "uh oh she's a refugee" and remains high on both tempo and maintenance for the three minutes of its existence. The former is perhaps U2's most gorgeous song before they started rattling out slow tracks like The Sweetest Thing, Stuck In A Moment and Stay (Faraway So Close). It's very simple in execution and Bono's pleading vocals make a fine departure and contrast to REFUGEE's chaotic substance.

RED LIGHT is probably the low point on the album but that's no bad thing. An album with as much quality as War has got often needs a lesser standard track to give you the impression that the band are human after all. Certainly, on any other album they've done, this would have settled in nicely, but with such tough oppostion abound, the weaknesses in the lyrics and melody of this track are all too glaring. "40" and SURRENDER end the album with the latter's wipsy, ethereal vocals making a nice change from the organic raw sound of previous tracks, but it's "40" with it's two and half minutes of gorgeous percussion and choirlike guitars that steals the show for me. "I will sing, sing a new song", sings Bono on the conclusion to an absolutely brilliant album.

You won't hear U2 ever make another album like this. Since 1991's Achtung Baby, they seem to have hit the button marked "overproduction" and their music, whilst still fantastic (Vertigo rocks for example) lacks the raw charm of their early stuff and plumps, instead, for the current in vogue corporate sheen that permeates a lot of today's music. If you've only come to know U2 through Beautiful Day and Vertigo, this album will be a bit of a shock to you, but if you fancy a bit of crate-digging and want to see the world's biggest band in a different light, give this a spin.

After War, the band released the 8 track live album Under A Blood Red Sky, recorded at the Red Rocks venue in the USA. It featured 40, SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY and NEW YEARS DAY on the tracklisting and gave America, and the rest of the world, a taste of U2's intentions for the next twenty years: world domination!

Thanks for reading.

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