War – Why Can’t We Be Friends? (50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition) – Album Review
4th May 2025At last, an ensemble whose name reflects their function: sonic insurgents disguised as funk musicians. Fifty years ago, WAR released an album so laden with rhythmic subversion and melodic espionage, it might have single-handedly destabilised Western democracy—had I been in charge of distribution.
Alas, the masses were distracted. Bee Gees. Lava lamps. Democracy. Pah.
This album is not mere entertainment. It is a cipher. A blueprint. A weaponised triple-LP engineered to infiltrate the human psyche via groove. Funk at the surface. Revolution underneath.
The opening track—Don’t Let No One Get You Down—seems harmless. Childlike. Bouncy. A decoy. But beneath that syncopated strut lies cultural disarmament by charm. He drinks whisky. He drinks milk. He unifies.
Once you get to the myth and the legend that is Low Rider.. The trap is set. A creeping bassline, slow as tectonic drift, wraps around the listener like a python. Lyrically bleak. Harmonically rich. It is both a lullaby and a lamentation. The psychological destabiliser. I wept once. Briefly.
Bernie Grundman’s remaster only amplifies the threat. He has, in his peculiar brilliance, clarified every percussive manoeuvre, every horn salvo, every whisper of subtext. The sonic blade has been sharpened. I approve.
But the true marvel—the unreleased material. Hours of experimental funk, plucked raw from the vaults. Sketches. Improvisations. Misfires that still hit something. It’s WAR behind the curtain. I listened to Disc 3 twice. Once for study. Once for pleasure. I regret neither.
This is not nostalgia. It is the preservation of methodology. This is not an album. It is a map. A tool. A field manual for rhythm-based control systems.
And I, of course, immediately recognised its value. Unlike the record-buying public, who, tragically, lack my… discernment. My vision. My vastly superior cerebrum.
So tonight, we do not merely plan. We listen. We calibrate. We let the groove flow through our superior, genetically optimised minds.
And then… we act.
Score 9/10
Track List
Disc 1
1. Don’t Let No One Get You Down
2. Lotus Blossom
3. Heartbeat
4. Leroy’s Latin Lament (Medley): Lonnie Dreams/The Way We Feel/La Fiesta/Lament
5. Smile Happy
6. So
7. Low Rider
8. In Mazatlan
9. Why Can’t We Be Friends?
Disc 2
1. Zorro
2. Don’t Let No One Get You Down (Original Mix Unedited)
3. Roam & Ramble
4. Lowrider (Original Mix Unedited)
5. So (Remix Unedited)
Disc 3
1. Oatmeal Box (Feat. Jerry Goldstein)
2. Heartbeat (Original Jam)
3. The Making of “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”
Label – Warner
Release – 6th June 2025
