U2 - War
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Free Music Notes for War
Free Music Review: Great disc
Hit: 5 Stars
If your looking back at U2's old releases because you bought the new one with Vertigo on it, buy this one, it is the inspired version of the band, this CD is excellent. Free Music Review: Angry, aggressive, and intense
Hit: 5 Stars
Before U2 hit world domination with `The Joshua Tree/ in 1987,they released a supercharged album back in 1983 in which I feel is their most direct and powerful album. `War is such an animal and it`s lyrics and melodies do not date 21 years later.
Evenjust by looking at the cover is a foreshadowing of the music to come. The boy on the cover has a look that radiates anger and defiance. And a great deal of the songs have those feelings.
Sunday Bloody Sunday adresses the troubles in Ireland with astrident miltary beat and lyrics.`New Years day depicts the apathy of the cynical by stating no matter how you try to change what`s going on,it stiil stays the same. `Two Hearts beat as One' is an exuberant love song without the soppiness that turns such tunes into messes of pure unadulterated sugary goo. `Drowning Man' is quite introspective. `The Refugee' is a track so tribal and primal,yet melodic, I doubt any band has ever come close to matching it`s melody or intensity. `Red Light' is an underrated highlight for me, complete with a blistering trumpet solo and some nifty work form backup singers.
The album closes beautifully with `40', a hymn calling for peace and a hopeful resolution.
Even if you dont care about the politics, the album is musically acessible. None of the tracks are boring filler. Bono proudly called this album a slap in the face to complacent listeners and he`s right. There is angst for sure,but with clear concise vocals and melodies.
This is U2`s best album in my opinion and while they have gone to make some great music, they have have never have been as aggressive and intense on this release.
Free Music Review: Pure U2 Rock and Roll
Hit: 5 Stars
U2 is one of the few bands that can fall into so many different genres and radio formats. I have heard them on Top 40, Adult Alternative, Classic Rock, Retro, Hard Rock, and College Rock radio stations. These guys know what it takes to stay in the game, and also release rocking good albums. "War" took U2 from a punk college-rock staple and made them rock legends.
A lot more raw and hard than their more recent outputs, "War" is definitely an album packed with political messages. However, the messages are definitely not a weakness. Instead, they strengthen the music that these guys make. And it's some powerful stuff. "New Years Day" is a rocking number with a somber message, while "Sunday Bloody Sunday" sounds like a marching song, a marching song for peace. There are other great songs too like "40" which are worth checking out as well.
While this might not be as polished or in depth as "The Joshua Tree", "War" is a rocking album entangled with strong messages. It gave U2 the boost it needed to attack mainstream radio and establish themselves as one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
Free Music Review: U2 move into the political arena...
Hit: 4 Stars
The 1983 U2 release, "War," features a boy with haunted eyes on the cover, and the song cycle displays an increasing political awareness by the group, with "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Seconds," and "New Year's Day."
What caught my attention back in the day was the video for "New Year's Day" played in high circulation on MTV. The band playing their instruments in that snowy field was cool, but I really liked the powerful bassline and piano melody. The Edge's slashing guitar style was unlike anything I'd heard before, and Bono's vocals are passionate and evocative. This remains one of my favorite U2 songs.
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" invokes images of Irish history, and with its rat-a-tat-tat martial drums and guitars, it's more choppy than "New Year's Day" but more anthemic. This really hit home with the Red Rocks video when Bono was waving that huge flag. It's a powerful song.
"Seconds" benefits from being sandwiched between these two songs, but the cold war lyric and intertwining vocals of Bono and the Edge, along with the largely acoustic tracking, make this an interesting piece.
Another standout is "Two Hearts Beat as One," which does not usually make the best of compilations, but is an underrated nugget with a propulsive guitar line and vocal performance by Bono. "Like a Song" moves with youthful energy and urgency, and the band captures excellent dynamics. "40" is a short closer, but another anthemic rouser that was captured well on the live Red Rocks EP.
While less atmospheric than "Unforgettable Fire," the songs on "War" are full of heart and soul and the band's personal convictions. They're playing like they mean it.
Free Music Review: WAR Scores
Hit: 5 Stars
An indisputable rock classic, WAR was U2's first "big" album. It gave the band a huge international following, and effectively cleared the field of any serious competition for the post-punk throne. With its fervent political commentary, poppish sensibilities, killer hooks and vague nods to world music, it also served in many ways as the band's blueprint for the remainder of the '80s. Henceforth U2 would become a social as well as a musical phenomenon, its overt dedication to various headline-grabbing causes alternately complementing, combatting and at times even eclipsing the quartet's artistic accomplishments. Whether you love or hate U2, chances are WAR has a lot to do with why you feel that way.
With a pseudo-martial drum statement now nearly as familiar as the opening lick of "Satisfaction," "Sunday Bloody Sunday" starts the proceedings off in typically absolute fashion. One may choose to read this angry song as either a celebration or condemnation of the Irish nationalist cause - or neither, which probably makes the most sense - since the lyrics, for all their earnestness, are a good deal more ambiguous than the spare and sharp music behind them. So easily does U2 pull of this transformation into explicit topicality, however, that it's rather surprising to think it took the band until its third album to begin addressing political issues so directly.
"Seconds" expands on this new, socially conscious side of U2, with The Edge sharing vocal duties for a strangely catchy number about atomic bombs, power brokers and the eternal possibility of instant annihilation for others' mistakes. in lesser hands the message would undoubtedly sound rather clumsy - the names of countries and capitals are tossed out like buckshot, with the stark assurance that in all of them "It's the puppets who pull the strings" - but then as now, Bono found ways to make profound truths sound as obvious as they really ought to, while his bandmates drove those truths home with fully realized, no-nonsense arrangements.
"New Year's Day," another classic track, may be the album's strongest song. The haunting piano figure which underpins the melody sounds as distinctive today as it did twenty-one years ago, while the lyrics cleverly alternate the woes of lost love with grander and more threatening sorrows. "Like a Song," on the other hand, shows that Bono's penchant for bombast started early. Having apparently run out of specific gripes, he here takes aim at just about everything and everyone, getting downright silly by the end. "Drowning Man" sounds like earlier U2, a droning number complete with violin, which only brings home how much Steve Lillywhite cleaned up the band's sound for this album. As much as U2 itself, he is responsible for WAR's greatness.
"The Refugee," my personal favorite track here, combines thundering percussion and heavily processed guitar in a portrait at once harrowing and humorous. "Two Hearts Beat As One," another single, is one of the band's stronger early love songs. "Red Light" goes a bit over the top with its blasting trumpets and girl backup singers, but "Surrender" makes extremely effective use of the latter in its huge chorus and extended ending. "40" closes the album on its softest and most profound note, with Biblical lyrics perfectly summing up the catalogue of ups and downs presented over the preceding forty minutes. For all of those ups and downs, WAR is justly famed, and an essential addition to any serious rock music collection.