War by U2

War, U2's third album, came out on Island on 28 February 1983, and it's where the earnest Irish kids clenched their fists. Steve Lillywhite produced it at Windmill Lane Studios between September and November 1982, the third time running the band had worked with him in that room, but the sound has changed: harder, colder, with the guitar slashing instead of chiming and the drums marching.

Boy had been about growing up and October about faith; War looks straight at violence and at what it leaves behind in people. The band chose the title because conflict seemed to be everywhere they looked that year, and it became their first openly political record. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" opens on a military snare, "New Year's Day" drifts in on a mournful piano and a heavy bass line, and "Two Hearts Beat As One" drives hard on a pumping rhythm. It ends with "40", a hushed, hymn-like closer that sounds made for a crowd to sing back.

It was a commercial breakthrough, knocking Michael Jackson's Thriller off the top of the UK chart to give U2 their first number-one album there, and in America it climbed to number 12 and became their first gold record. The reviews were mostly warm, though some of the British press took a swing at it. The War Tour carried them through the end of 1983, and a remastered edition followed in 2008.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.