528. U2 - War (1983)
















Track Listing


1. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. Seconds
3. New Year's Day
4. Like A Song...
5. Drowning Man
6. The Refugee
7. Two Hearts Beat As One
8. Red Light
9. Surrender
10. "40"

Review

I never really got into U2, the more time goes by the less will I have to get into U2, mainly because Bono annoys me. His smug self-rigtheousness is a bit too much, he might have good intentions but he just goes about it the wrong way, taking tea with God and coffee with the Devil. His half-arsed, politically uncommitted approach really puts me off, also the fact that he is the big creator together with Geldof of the "Make the Poor Help the Poorer" type of initiatives.

This should not, of course, reflect on the music, I like Wagner and he was an anti-Semite. But Wagner didn't sing his own tunes, and when I hear Bono doing his "yeah"'s I feel a bit like punching him. I have the same problem to a larger extent with Morrisey, who isn't even well intentioned.

That said, this is probably the best U2 album, there much less reliance on echo effects than would be the case later and you can see them coming from a pretty established post-punk background. Also the music sounds quite surprisingly fresh, maybe because U2 were so influential and have kept quite a consistent style through the years. So, I really don't mind this album, I kind of like it, but I won't be putting it on my Ipod.

Track Highlights

1. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. New Year's Day
3. Seconds
4. "40"

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album opens with "Sunday Bloody Sunday", an ardent protest song and already a departure from the themes of innocence and spirituality displayed on the group's first two albums. In many live shows, such as the performance recorded for their Under a Blood Red Sky video, Bono stated that "this is not a rebel song". In interviews, he's stated that it's a positive protest song about things we can't forget but should. Originally written about the 1972 Bloody Sunday incident in which 14 Irish protesters were shot and killed in Derry, Northern Ireland by the British Parachute Regiment, the song has been applied to other conflicts in the years since, most notably during the performance at a Denver, Colorado show in 1987. This version was eventually included in the film Rattle and Hum. Before the song, Bono referred to the previous day's bombing in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland and directed angry and controversial comments towards Irish-born Americans "talking to me about the resistance; the revolution back home."

Sunday Bloody Sunday: