Society always celebrates the records that top the Billboard 200 album chart. Back of The Billboards is a Music Times weekly segment that looks at the opposite end: the new record that finished closest to the back of the Billboard 200 for the previous week. We hope to give a fighting chance to the bands you haven't heard of.
Week of 05/30/2014
WHO: War
WHAT: Evolutionary
SPOT: 123
Despite the complaints of music snobs everywhere, the "greatest hits" compilation business continues to thrive. Long running Los Angeles funk outfit War realizes that most listeners treasure its individual singles ("Low Rider" and "Why Can't We Be Friends?") than its full-length albums. So upon releasing Evolutionary, its first new music in more than 20 years, the band is meeting fans halfway. Buy the album and you get two discs: one of all new material, and one featuring a brief greatest hits collection consisting of ten songs.
War has always danced, literally, between easygoing funk and social commentary, but the former is more present on Evolutionary. Opener "That L.A. Sunshine" is a straightforward homage to the band's hometown, and the group revisits the track later, with Cheech and Chong contributing their trademark marijuana schtick. Songs such as "Mamacita" and "Bounce" keep the party going.
The band understands the relevance of its title however and introduces politics into the mix. It helps that "War / War After War" remixes the band's original hit into the exploration of post-traumatic stress disorder, although the group seems stuck in the Vietnam-mindset, for the war at which the original single was aimed (soldiers don't wear green anymore guys). The extended "It's Our Right/Funky Tonk" is more reminiscent of War's greatest track, "The World Is A Ghetto," and worth a listen accordingly (The World Is A Ghetto is also the band's best album, for those willing to sway away from greatest hits collections).
