Band: War
Album: The World Is a Ghetto
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: War's third album sans Eric Burdon is the band's finest. Smart and funky, the album was a revelation in the early 1970s.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: I think I'm too young to see the import of the record. I guess I'm just desensitized to this type of music.
Best song: The title track is great.
Worst song: "So Good to See You" isn't great.
Is it awesome?: It's good, but I don't know if it's great.
I guess it's a testament to the times that a band made of many races of people playing crossover funk/rock stuff is boring to me. "The World is a Ghetto" is basically boring to me. Even the band's hits -- "Why Can't We Be Friends?" and "Low Rider" -- are more quaint than they are great.
At the time, the band was certainly seen as something. The album's lead single, "The Cisco Kid," was a funk song about the main character from a Hispanic TV show. The title track, not surprisingly, is fantastic and socially conscious.
Again, it's a nice record. I'm sure it belongs here in the mid-400s, but I am just not feeling it.
