Please explain, Experts!

[ya1ya2]

The MGMT SC has the following sentences -

By 1945, the US had been at war for several years.

Here we use past perfect, because we have a time reference - 1945. So no need for the simple past. There are however 2 phases
1. by 1945 - replaces simple past
2. the US had been at war for several years - this happened before 1945, so past perfect.. Ok so far so good.

The band U2 was just one of the many new groups on the rock music scene in the early 1980's, but less than ten years later, U2 had fully eclipsed its early rivals in the pantheon of popular music.
Again 2 phases
1. 1980s - simple past, was is used
2. ten years later, 1970s - had eclipsed used for a closer event?

I don't understand this example, should the past perfect not always refer to an earlier event? What am I missing?

_________________

[chitrangada.maitra]

yeah.. even I thought that the second sentence breaks the past perfect rule...

[guptanisheet]

it does..that's what the book also says

'it's a tricky construction'

But I can forget about this as I haven't encountered even a single question which is make or break on this logic!!
& I hope I don't even encounter such in future also!! :-)

[tim]

Yes this is tricky, and yes you're not likely to see it on the GMAT, but here's the real answer:

We have a time marker to anchor ourselves: the 1980s. Then we are given a second time period: "less than 10 years later". It is prior to this second time that U2 had eclipsed the other bands. This did not happen all at once at the 10-year mark; rather, it had happened before that second time marker arrived..