Customer Reviews

Youngblood

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The cornerstone track, "Youngblood (Livin' In The Streets)", has been replaced by the edited version for this downloadable album. Originally it clocked in at 10:43 and was the highlight of the album. As such, what you get here is already available on most War compilations. This was also done with "Deliver the Word", where the original extended album version of "Gypsy Man" is replaced for download by the single version commonly available on most of War's best of compilations. I can only imagine that eliminating points of differentiation would hurt sales.

The rest of the album might appeal to samplers who want to grab snippets of dialogue; many of the shorter tracks amount to dialogue supported by either percussion or music. If you're looking to download key tracks, check out "Keep On Doin'".

War step off the dance floor to do the score for the film "Youngblood" starring Ren Woods & Lawrence Hilton-(Boom Boom Washington from Welcome Back Kotter) Jacobs. Suprisingly, this is good considering the dance hall daze assembly line disco they'd been producing. What you have here is War getting back to basics. Even if most of what you're hearing is manufactured blatant improv.

The Youngblood soundtrack plays like the Zapruder film. Solid evidence of what War once were. This is the extension that Nappy Head (the theme from Ghetto Man) always deserved but never saw the light of day. Flying Machine (the chase) is mere confirmation of that. Charles Miller's nostalgic flute flashes back to his brilliance of the early days, making you forget any weak moment on this lp.

Junkyard and Superdude is classic War noodling as is The Kingsmen Sign. And if that weren't enough Keep On Doin comes on like a freight train demanding a repeat performance. War would never again sound this fresh or relevant. The disco infested pop charts were still waiting for War to cash in. Thus rendering Youngblood nothing more than a mini retro opera of their former selves.

olofpalme63

WAR is one the unsung greatest bands of the 70's!
Their unique blend of soul, jazz, funk and latin can only be
paralelled by the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire,
who was a much more sucessful and heralded
contemporary of theirs.
With this soundtrack though, I must say,
they did a great job...though to an empty house!
Too bad the movie "Youngblood" itself was like a B-rate
"Boyz In Da' Hood" about 15 yrs before the fact!
This soundtrack was virtually ignored except by the
most die-hard WAR fans, but I think it was just as
good as say Rose Royce's "Car Wash" soundtrack
or some of Wille Hutch's soundtracks from the 70's!
It's worth checkin' out.