Earlier entries of this series can be found here: http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/vi ... ive#p45337
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“Wonder if I'll find happiness/ Never give it up now I guess”
85. War – The World Is a Ghetto
The facts:
Year: 1972.
Genre: Soul.
Country: United States of America.
Album: The World Is a Ghetto.
Acclaimed Music ranking: #4596.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 5th.
Ranks higher than Ridin’ by Chamillionaire, but lower than Ritual Union by Little Dragon.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: Unranked.
The people:
Written by Papa Dee Allen, Harold Brown, B. B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, Charles Miller, Lee Oskar & Howard E. Scott.
Produced by Jerry Goldstein, Lonnie Jordan & Howard E. Scott.
Vocals by Papa Dee Allen, Harold Brown, B. B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, Charles Miller, Lee Oskar & Howard E. Scott.
Guitar by Howard Scott.
Bass by B. B. Dickerson.
Drums by Harold Brown.
Piano by Lonnie Jordan.
Saxophone by Charles Miller.
Harmonica by Lee Oskar.
Bongo by Papa Dee Allen.
Conga by Papa Dee Allen.
The opinion:
Get this: The World Is a Ghetto was the bestselling album of 1973 in the United States. Would you have guessed it? I wouldn’t. Now I wasn’t alive yet in 1973 and if I would have been I might have known how big of a thing this album was around the time. Still, like Marilyn Manson last week War seem oddly distant now. Surely more so than 1973 albums I would more likely have predicted as the biggest sellers of their year: Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Paul McCartney & Wings’ Band on the Run or Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions.
In the case of War though, I have a harder time figuring out why they have faded than I had with Marilyn Manson. Soul and funk have remained influential all the way down the line and seventies outings of the genre have retained steady exposure. War (including The World Is a Ghetto) have been sampled a lot by hip-hop artists. Also important, I’d argue that this particular album is really, really good. I guess that there was too much good music coming out around the time that some works just get pushed to the background.
Perhaps also the fact that this was a rather faceless group played a role. The members weren’t stars as individuals and the group didn’t have a real leader; not even a lead singer. The one who stood out the most was Lee Oskar, but that was because he was the only white guy in an otherwise black group and had the biggest afro. They also like to think of themselves as a group and not as a bunch of individuals thrown together. They tightly collaborated on each track, shared writing credits and made sure each member had something to show off during each individual song. That could have worked out wrong and sometimes it did, but on The World Is a Ghetto all tracks gain a rich sound by it.
War existed quite a long time before they started recording. They formed in 1962. Most members of the group came from the ghetto of Los Angeles and performed together there as a cover act ironically named The Creators. Later they became a backing band for several live acts under the name Nightshift. It was in that form they were discovered by Jerry Goldstein. He was looking for the perfect group to play with Eric Burdon (yes, the guy from The Animals, about who I wrote two weeks ago), who was searching for an interesting new musical direction. In 1970 Eric Burdon renamed the group War and recorded two albums with them. This resulted in the classic song Spill the Wine, the first hit for War and the last for Eric Burdon.
After Burdon abandoned the group they steadily kept recording a slew of recordings in quite a high tempo, getting more acclaim with each record. That was until The World Is a Ghetto, which won more praise than anything before or after (except perhaps the hit song Low Rider).
The album as a whole is a grand mix of soul, funk and jazz, with perhaps a touch of rock here and there. The interest in different genres was actually the reason why the members started the group in the early sixties and the love for mixing it up is present everywhere here. The title track is very representative of that sound. In its album form it lasts 10 minutes and seems to contain most of the musical ingredients of 1973 in a very coherent way. That makes it hard to classify, but nobody can deny it has soul. As said, every member plays a big part and gets a place in the sunshine. Still, saxophone player Charles Miller is the big star here. His huge solo in the middle is the backbone of the piece. At least on the album, the radio cut omits this solo completely, relegating Miller to a bit player.
The title seems like a mayor political statement, especially if you know about the ghetto background of many of the members. In practice, it isn’t a particularly political song. The main character seems to seek for happiness and has a hard time finding it, which leads to his early conclusion that the world as a whole is a ghetto. Later on, after that extended sax solo the lyrics state that there is a paradise on this Earth and it is called love. No awards for mayor insights there. The group sells the message not by words (of which there aren’t particularly many for a ten minute song), but through the singing. There is a lot of feeling in each and every line, making them sound honest instead of just hippie sap that might have already been late to the game in 1972.
Really, despite the menacing group name this band was all about peace, love and kindness. They wanted to promote the idea of living together as one people in harmony. The World Is a Ghetto (the song) was perhaps their biggest statement of that: a lament for lost souls everywhere and a reminder of love for everyone. They brought that in a sweet and honest way and with great musicianship to boot. This a multifaceted and very well played song, that deserves the attention it apparently got in 1973, but might be losing.
8/10
Other versions:
As said, War was sampled a lot by rappers, especially in the nineties. The band seemed to be honoured by this and actually contributed with several famous hip-hop acts on the album Rap Declares War, with among others 2Pac, The Beastie Boys and De La Soul. This isn’t too important for The World Is a Ghetto, though, but this song has been sampled a lot too. In fact, the playlist below contains more examples of sampling than covers.
As this is a long song with a lot of elements to it the rappers have a lot of material they can sample and they do so. The chorus that contains the title and the main rhythm riff are the most popular, though. Of course, even without the soul/ funk angle, this would be a logical song to reference, as there are a lot of rap songs about ghetto life. Pretty much every song here falls in this category and they are harder and more political than War ever were or wanted to be. Highlights are Trillmatic by A$AP Mob and Method Man, Stop Pushin by M.O.P. and The World Is a Ghetto by Geto Boys. Also great is the Spanish language Da World Iz a Geto by La Pozze Latina. It’s worth mentioning that War became particularly popular with Latin-Americans because of The Cisco Kid, a song about a Latin hero.
Lonnie Jordan went solo for a while and kept performing the song live. A great version of that is found in the playlist below. Some people like the George Benson cover a lot, but I found it a little too soft and sticky. The remaining covers are a mix between short soul versions that ignore the instrumental solo’s, or are long music-only workouts for every instrument you can think of. There is also a rather original and well-done dance version by Jephté Guillaume and Sean Schulich and a reggae take by Tarrus Riley. I haven’t been able to listen to every song in detail, but I recommend the instrumental by James Moody.
The playlist: