19. U2, War (1983)

“Boy was seen as a big, successful first album, but October didn’t do as well as everybody hoped,” Steve Lillywhite recalled of the initial studio LPs from U2, both of which he produced. “I thought, ‘Of course they’re going to want somebody else to produce the next record. Why wouldn’t they?’ And even though the second album underperformed, U2 were seen as a very hot band. Who wouldn’t want to produce them?”

There was also reason to suspect that Lillywhite would pass on the gig if it were offered to him. His talents in the studio were in high demand, but he had a policy of never producing the same act twice. He’d already returned for an encore with U2 and made exceptions for some others, but a third go-round was unheard of. After U2 flirted with different approaches for their third album, including some sessions with Sandy Pearlman, whose work with the Clash on Give ‘Em Enough Rope was credential enough. They also toyed with the notion of having a different producer for every track, but it seemed that fell by the wayside quickly. In the end, U2 went back to the only producer they’d really known. Lillywhite agreed, deciding the possibility of getting it right with U2 — really, really getting it right — was too enticing.

It presumably helped that U2 had a set of songs that were more engaged with the outside world than their previous efforts, and that topicality lent added intensity. Although hardly a concept album, the title the band selected, War, reflected their dismayed focus on the conflicts they saw playing out across the world. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is at the forefront of that external interest, if only because it addresses an incident close to home for the Irish band: the Bloody Sunday massacre that took place in Northern Ireland in 1972. With a fierce, militaristic drum part by Larry Mullen Jr, a thumping guitar part by the Edge, and lead singer Bono belting out lyrics of plainspoken anguish (“I can’t believe the news today/ Oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away/ How long, how long must we sing this song?/ How long? How long?”). After getting the blessing of Northern Ireland audiences when they played the song in concert, U2 chose to lead War with the recorded track. It makes for a powerhouse announcement of the band’s new direction. Bono felt it might have been the start of even more.

“People have said that War started the awareness that brought the Band-Aid and Live Aid efforts,” Bono later said. “That might be true. We’re proud of the fact that U2 struck the match that lit that particular candle.”

“New Year’s Day” can also be tracked straight to history books. Written about the then-active Polish Solidarity movement, the cut is one of those that sets the standard for how U2’s music can soar while staying firmly grounded, in this case the ballast largely coming from bassist Adam Clayton’s inventive playing. The shifty, insinuating “Seconds” is about the dangerous folly of the buildup of nuclear weaponry (“Takes a second to say goodbye/ Say goodbye, oh, oh, oh”). Not everything is pulled from the newspaper. The swelling, wondrous “Two Hearts Beat as One” is in its lyrics a pretty simple love song (“Is this love out of fashion/ Or is it the time of year/ Are these words distraction?/ To the words you want to hear”).

“Music should reflect all parts of your life,” Bono said at the time. “It should reflect your hopes, your anger, your frustration, your loves, and all those things.”

If the preceding two albums reflect U2 finding their way, War is where they definitively set their artistic persona. Even the cut “Red Light,” which doesn’t have the fire of the more politicized material, has a chiming, epic quality, like the band is trying to expand the very planet’s atmosphere with the scope of their sound. Album closer “”40″” is a proper bookend, echoing the opener’s question about how long a song must be sung but investing it with hopefulness: “I will sing, sing a new song/ I will sing, sing a new song.” It brings in the spirituality that ran through October, but does so in a way that feels warmer. The track is intimate and vast at once, establishing one of the tricks U2 pulled off repeatedly in the years that followed.

War was exactly what U2 hoped it would be. After strong, promising albums, they delivered one with the solidity of a cinder block. Upon its release, they knew they had a winner.

“We’re over the moon about it,” bassist Adam Clayton said at the time. “We still listen to it quite regularly. We felt a bit like Fleetwood Mac when they were making Rumours; we knew what a great album we were making. If no one else liked it, it wouldn’t matter, because we knew how good it was. We’re getting quite a buzz from it, actually.”

There was music in the music press, too. Although reviews weren’t uniformly laudatory (there were some skeptics among the U.K. press, because of course), there was a general appreciation of the sweep of the work. Some were even inspired to predict great things for the band.

“I’m speaking, of course, in terms of potential popularity, not musical styles,” NME writer Roy Carr told a Los Angeles Times music journalist who surveyed colleagues about the next big thing. “If U2 keeps together, they are going to be massive. There’s a certain magic to the group that few bands ever exhibit.”

Carr’s soothsaying was spot on, of course. U2 was indeed massive just a few years later. And War was impressive in its own right. It was the band’s first album to top the charts in the U.K., and it peaked just outside the Top 10 in the U.S., some ninety places higher than October ever mustered.

“It’s taken time, because we didn’t dress up, and we didn’t make sense to people,” Bono responded when asked about U2’s burgeoning success in the U.S. “We’ve had to play to people face to face to show that we’re not a fashion band, and we’re not just another English band. We’re an Irish band.”

To learn more about this gigantic endeavor, head over to the introduction. Other entries can be found at the CMJ Top 1000 tag. Most of the images in these posts come straight from the invaluable Discogs.