1. I'm going to through this raw meat out there.....

    War is an under-appreciated record.

    I'd love it if the boys made another record as raw as those early ones. I was listening to one of my playlists this afternoon & "Town Hearts Beat As One" explodes from the speaker. Strip it down!
  2. Originally posted by spfletty:I'm going to through this raw meat out there.....

    War is an under-appreciated record.

    I'd love it if the boys made another record as raw as those early ones. I was listening to one of my playlists this afternoon & "Town Hearts Beat As One" explodes from the speaker. Strip it down!
    I too enjoy the song about Town Hearts.
  3. War is a solid album that has some of the highest peaks the band has ever done (but does suffers slightly with a few rather low troughs.)

    ("When Love Comes To Town Hearts Beat As One")
  4. Before I say why I think War is actually overrated rather than under appreciated I will give drowning man some credit. Always thought it was a good song but grown on me further over the last few months. Because it hasn’t been played live and I’m not a big fan of war as a complete album I can sometimes go a while without listening to it and I still could listen to it more but it’s in my head more nowadays and it feels like a strong song to me. Anyway on to why I don’t rate the album that highly, 20% of it is terrible Red Light and The Refugee, so poor. Like A song is pretty average, and surrender and seconds are only good. New Years Day and 40 are excellent songs and I think SBS and Two Hearts are both very good and I’d add Drowning Man to that category as well but for a 10 song album there’s too many issues to overlook. TUF falls under the same category.
  5. I saw a comment on one of the new YouTube remasters earlier from some fan who said U2 "sold out" and got boring with JT & Achtung after the early stuff...can't please em' all
  6. Under-appreciation is in the eye of the beholder.
  7. Originally posted by deanallison:Before I say why I think War is actually overrated rather than under appreciated I will give drowning man some credit. Always thought it was a good song but grown on me further over the last few months. Because it hasn’t been played live and I’m not a big fan of war as a complete album I can sometimes go a while without listening to it and I still could listen to it more but it’s in my head more nowadays and it feels like a strong song to me. Anyway on to why I don’t rate the album that highly, 20% of it is terrible Red Light and The Refugee, so poor. Like A song is pretty average, and surrender and seconds are only good. New Years Day and 40 are excellent songs and I think SBS and Two Hearts are both very good and I’d add Drowning Man to that category as well but for a 10 song album there’s too many issues to overlook. TUF falls under the same category.
    Your top 5 are mine, as well. Not surprisingly, I agree pretty much with most of your rankings but might rate everything a bit higher.
  8. I think it's properly appreciated and rated... even slightly bordering overrated. As @RUMMY said, it has true highlights, but also quite some LOW lowlights. Red Light and The Refugee are two of the worst songs the band has written (and they are a 20% of the total length of the album!).

    For me War is kinda like TUF, ATYCLB and NLOTH in the sense that the lowlights are very low and the highlights are very high, but as a whole the concept, the album coherence and its meaning and importance within the band's history is good. War was an essential album for the band, their confirmation after the October doubts. It also yielded two of their most recognisable and arguably biggest songs to this day, which is quite an achievement for a band that's had over 20 major worldwide hits.

    So no, I don't think it's under-appreciated or underrated, not by the fans and certainly not by the critics or the casual listeners. People associate War with Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year's Day and also with UABRS, and therefore I think they rate War fairly.
  9. awesome/good songs:
    sunday bloody sunday
    seconds
    new years day
    like a song
    the refugee
    surrender

    average:
    drowning man
    two hearts beat as one
    "40"

    worst:
    red light
  10. i think that it's the most solid album until TJT
  11. I don't know where I'd put it as regards a top 10 list because I always saw those early albums as a natural progression, however it does have some really great songs and I'd rate it the best of the first 3 albums and it's better than any album they've done since No line, I've seen a lot of lists on various music sites and it's always ranked in the top 5 which is hard to disagree with.