0344. U2
War

Okay, so what can you say about an album about war and that starts off with Sunday Bloody Sunday? Well, first we have the facts: it's U2's third album, their first to sell gold, and it's another album that can boast knocking Michael Jackson off the top spot of the charts (also, it's an album about war).

Then we have the verdict: it starts off great, but sadly the album progressively gets more un-great for each song. Right down to the uh-uh's of The Refugee which are just slightly more annoying than the "Ameri-kah" pronunciation in the last verse.

But, before the wind-down there's the aforementioned Sunday... and also New Year's Day (which, in its video I think you can see some of the slopes I've snowboarded some 10-15 years after the shoot), one of U2's top ten songs (along with Sunday...) Interesting thing I didn't know is that the final track, "40" (yes, quotes and all), is a variation on the King James' Bible's Psalm 40 (but before reading up on it I initially figured it was a spin on Sunday Bloody Sunday due to not listening properly (as well as not being a religious Irishman)).

All in all War is an album with a killer beginning and a kind of tepid end, but ah, what the hell, it's good anyway.

[Fun fact: the backup singers on some of the tracks were The Coconuts of comedy-band Kid Creole And The Coconuts]