Sunday Bloody Sunday: For all the airplay this song has received over the years, it's still a good song that has something of a timeless quality to it. This is one of U2's signature songs that not only cries for help but also offers hope. Grade: B
Seconds: An apocalyptic piece that features an evocative rhythm section from Mullen and Clayton. Good vocal by Edge. Grade: B+
New Year's Day: Another song that has apocalyptic overtones. Features a screeching guitar, driving bass, a razor-sharp acoustic piano and an in-your-face vocal performance from Bono. Great anthem, great song. Grade: A
Like A Song: Larry Mullen hits the drums with full intensity and Edge's guitar will scorch your speakers on this one. An intense song that features a hard-hitting bass and a passionate vocal performance from Bono. Score: B+
Drowning Man: A haunting yet pensive number that uses an electric violin to convey the mood here. Like many of U2's songs, this one includes a passage from Scripture (in this case, Isaiah) to underscore its message. Grade: A
The Refugee: A political commentary on the plight of a Latin American refugee. Larry Mullen's drum work dominates this piece. Good vocal performance from Bono. Grade: B
Two Hearts (Beat As One): The second single from this album. Nice guitar work from Edge and Bono's scat-like singing make this one of the more distinctive cuts on the album. Grade: B
Red Light: One of my favorite cuts on this disc. The combination of background vocal harmonies, solid guitar work from Edge and the hearty sounds of a trumpet makes this one of U2's most atypical songs. Grade: A
Surrender: Edge dominates this song with his usual guitar prowess. Also features a resounding bass from Adam Clayton and solid drum work from Larry Mullen. Bono's vocals are solid as usual and the background vocals enhance the song's tempo. Note: As I understand it, the Martin Scorsese film, Taxi Driver, was the inspiration for this song. Grade: A+
"40": Psalm 40 was the inspiration for this piece. Although conflict and emptiness are the main themes of this album, U2 ends it on a positive note by asserting that there is always hope. Nice acoustic guitar work complemented by a restrained rhythm section. Grade: A


WAR Scores   October 2, 2004
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

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.



Sneaking in some Christianity!   December 24, 2006
 6 out of 19 found this review helpful

Someone at college had recommmended the rock group U2 in 1984 and I went out and bought the casette. I know that back then I hated the church and religious people so bad that when the song "40" came on the tape, I fast-forwarded over it. Yet, I started also having weird dreams as I listened often to this cassette on my walkman. Some of these dreams I found out to be prophetic-like dropping out of my grad school the first quarter because of too much work my advisor had given me. I was Christian before I got married and started having marital problems.I guess the problems I had with my ex-wife and her family actually killed my Christian faith! Maybe, the music on the casette, which is apocalyptic in nature did start stirring up the Holy Spirit in me and I did not realize it. And on and on until after 2000 when I did my study on the Psalms I came to the 40th Psalm on which "40" is based and I had to say I was also singing a new song myself. I came around full circle religiously, so to speak. Yet they still do hate me in the church!
I could also say that walking to college through the snow and bare trees in the winter through the park near my apartment, the songs like NEW YEARS DAY seemed to match that mood. As well as at grad school at MSU, I remember walking down the hall of the Chem building singing SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY to myself when no one was there!
I think because of its references to nuclear war and the apocalypse that the Federal Pigs really hate this album! I was talking on the phone to a MSU coed in 1985-1986 and she seemed to equate music by U2 with homosexuality. But I think the artists are married men. I was in chemistry and the MSU chem department was getting big bucks from the Energy Departmement who makes the atom bomb! She used to also equate the TV series MAGNUM PI and the DUKES OF HAZZARD with homosexuality. Must be those twisted government pigs. Our minsters in America who area secretly affiliated with the pigs obviously don't want to give a bad name to the atom bomb or make us fear that muclear war might destroy the world. I know that when I had bought a U2 RATTLE AND HUM concert t-shirt from a big man's clothier, I used to get hate from older people when I went to the grocerys tore. My JAMES DEAN t-shirt also evoked hate from older people. I think it is more that just loser Toledo's "Midwest Mentality"!
From my military training concerning nuclear war and later from listening to Radio Moscow, I could see that Reagan was a nuclear maniac. And after leaving grad school, I joined the nuclear freeze movement-at least I was on their mailing list. And our ex-Marine mailman would make remarks as he delivered their newsletter. It looked like the FBI had inflitrated the SANE/FREEZE nuclear protest club as one newsletter had what they called "PEACE WITH JUSTICE DAY" where the featured speakers were two defectors from the Soviet Army talking about what bad people the Soviets supposedly were. I was also earlier a fan of Hal Lindsey and a believer in the End of the World and Nuclear Armageddon. So, in the end, I decided that America gets what it deserves in the end!


Add This To Your Desert Island Disc Collection   September 1, 2001
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

"War" is a sensational album that has already become a classic in the annals of rock music. There's not a bad cut on this album. I highly recommended it!

Song Summary:

Sunday Bloody Sunday: For all the airplay this song has received over the years, it's still a good song that has something of a timeless quality to it. This is one of U2's signature songs that not only cries for help but also offers hope. Grade: B

Seconds: An apocalyptic piece that features an evocative rhythm section from Mullen and Clayton. Good vocal by Edge. Grade: B+

New Year's Day: Another song that has apocalyptic overtones. Features a screeching guitar, driving bass, a razor-sharp acoustic piano and an in-your-face vocal performance from Bono. Great anthem, great song. Grade: A

Like A Song: Larry Mullen hits the drums with full intensity and Edge's guitar will scorch your speakers on this one. An intense song that features a hard-hitting bass and a passionate vocal performance from Bono. Score: B+

Drowning Man: A haunting yet pensive number that uses an electric violin to convey the mood here. Like many of U2's songs, this one includes a passage from Scripture (in this case, Isaiah) to underscore its message. Grade: A

The Refugee: A political commentary on the plight of a Latin American refugee. Larry Mullen's drum work dominates this piece. Good vocal performance from Bono. Grade: B

Two Hearts Beat As One: The second single from this album. Nice guitar work from Edge and Bono's scat-like singing make this one of the more distinctive cuts on the album. Grade: B

Red Light: One of my favorite cuts on this disc. The combination of background vocal harmonies, solid guitar work from Edge and the hearty sounds of a trumpet makes this one of U2's most atypical songs. Grade: A

Surrender: Edge dominates this song with his usual guitar prowess. Also features a resounding bass from Adam Clayton and solid drum work from Larry Mullen. Bono's vocals are solid as usual and the background vocals enhance the song's tempo. Note: As I understand it, the Martin Scorsese film, "Taxi Driver," was the inspiration for this song. Grade: A+

"40": Psalm 40 was the inspiration for this piece. Although conflict and emptiness are the main themes of this album, U2 ends it on a positive note by asserting that there is always hope. Nice acoustic guitar work complemented by a rather restrained bass and percussion. Grade: A