There are many days when The Who are my favorite band of all time. Yes, The Beatles had them beaten in the consistency department (not least because they had three great songwriters to the one for The Who). Yes, The Rolling Stones were at or near the top of their game longer and for more albums than The Who, and their late-period touring had more "respectability" than The Who's had in many ways. And yes, I have an obsession with both Yes and Genesis, and with top-notch prog rock in general that a lot of people would consider disturbing. Yet for all of the little nit-picking I could do (much of it very justifiable, I might add), my love for the band is undeniable, and while some might dismiss this as just me following in the footsteps of others, giving them a ***** is as close to a no-brainer as I could imagine.
The funny thing is, there was a long time where I thought I hated The Who, and I tended to notice that the band didn't get that much respect in general. Sure, Rolling Stone has always regarded them as the third band in the great British triumvirate (the other two, obviously, are The Beatles and The Rolling Stones). And sure, they have always gotten a ton of radio play, especially since Who's Next is probably one of the three most played albums on classic rock stations (the others are Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin IV). Yet, alas, the majority of my generation has seemed to take a more cynical view of them, and part of why I know this is that, until less than a year before I started my website, I was one of those people. Based on all I had read and seen and heard about them, my opinion of them was basically such: they were
that band with the big-nosed guitarist that only knew how to play two or three chords and had written that annoying "Pinball Wizard" song. They played abnormally loud and would jump all over the stage and break their instruments to disguise the fact that they really had very little in the way of talent, and this was the only way they could entertain. Eventually, they had gotten into using synths a lot, which they used to write horrifically overblown pieces before their drummer died, after which they turned to crap, broke up, and kept reuniting to suck more money away from gullible ex-hippies. I think that about covers it.
As I eventually tried to give them more of a serious shot, though, I soon realized that the band had three traits that couldn't help but guarantee them a place as one of my favorite bands of all time:
1. An extremely high level of playing/performing talent at every position. This apparently isn't as blindingly obvious as I once thought, as there are plenty of people who have been willing to argue with me on this point, but to me it's just oh so true. For starters, while it may seem at first listen that he was just rather sloppy, I can't help but still consider Keith Moon as close to the greatest rock drummer ever. His playing was almost pure catharsis, with insanely fast and powerful bashing and crashing all around his 16 drum set, giving The Who a dimension that a normal drummer couldn't have even come close to
providing. Yet he had a clear sense of rhythm as well; I can think of very, very few cases where, in the course of bashing around, he ever undermined the rhythm of the song. The man had a natural knack for implying the rhythm of a song, even when he wasn't explicitly setting it. And he (almost) never played drum solos! Rather, he treated his drums as a lead instrument at all times, a critical helpmate to the riffage and the bass lines.
And how about those bass lines anyway? Intensely melodic, yet powerfully driving notes were the forte of John (The Ox) Entwistle, the greatest rock bassist who ever lived. Yeah, that's right, all you Geddy Lee fans out there, I said the greatest. It is only
a tribute to Entwistle that almost every single studio albums The Who ever released has been called one of the top 5 bass albums by some major music publication or another. And I can't dispute any of them! It is possible to contend that he wasn't the most technically proficient bassist ever (though even that is very dubious; watch footage of him in action if you have doubts), but he chose his notes better than I can really express (and after all, in the end, an instrumentalist is only as good as the notes he plays). But John was not just a terrific instrumentalist; no, he was also one of the finest backing vocalists in the business for almost 15 years. If nothing else, he was amazingly versatile as a support vocalist, whether he was harmonizing, chipping in a falsetto (which he did disturbingly well) or using one of his "funny" voices, and he could always be counted on to keep the audience entertained.
Meanwhile, although this would have seemed totally improbable in 1965, lead singer Roger Daltrey distinguished himself as one of the greatest vocalists of the 70's, putting on amazing performances for short singles and epic grandiose projects alike. He sang loudly, yet clearly; he growled, and yet could, on occasion, show great tenderness when he had to. In other words, basically anything that was asked of him, any interpretation that he or another felt should be made, he could deliver in ways that continue to boggle my mind. And, unlike his contemporary, Robert Plant, his voice got better, not worse, as the years went by (although it somewhat gave out in the 80's and 90's, but that's still far longer than Robbie lasted). He didn't have the most spectacular range of major 70s vocalists, but for POWER, Daltrey is my main bet.
And last, but certainly not least, was guitarist/expert-noisemaker/occasional lead vocalist Pete Townshend. I can honestly say that, if I were given the gift to play guitar like any one person, it would be to play like Pete, who is, on many days, my favorite guitarist of all time. Yes, compared to some of his contemporaries, his soloing abilities weren't spectacular from a technical perspective (though he could occasionally come up with some solos that would put Jimmy Page to shame; ok, that's hyperbolic, but a little hyperbole never hurt anybody). Yet he was one of the greatest rhythm guitarists in the history of rock, and I'd dare say that none, save possibly Keith Richards, were able to pound out clever riffage with the power and ease that Pete was able to. And, when he would choose to stretch out, he had as much talent at interweaving interesting, powerful and emotional guitar lines with his riffage as I could only imagine, and as such he is responsible for many of my favorite guitar parts ever. Plus, let's not forget his historical importance as a guitarist, either: he's often cited as the one who discovered guitar feedback, back in 1963, well before Syd Barrett or Hendrix or The Beatles with I Feel Fine. And, of course, he had a really good voice (very different from Roger's, and a good balance), and he was primarily responsible for the band's second great trait:
2. Fantastic songwriting. Pete Townshend was a songwriting genius, pure and simple. He was remarkably diverse in what he produced, too, both on the song and on the album level; he excelled with songs both short and long, soft and loud, and there's something to be said for the fact that, by the end of the 70's, the band was amongst the forefathers of both punk rock and art rock. He also had a wonderful sense of how to properly use synths, realizing in the early 70's that they could be used just as effectively for texture and for counterpoint (not in the pure technical sense, but as a foil for the other melodies) as they could for wanking around. Although he became tired of the group as the years went on, and his songwriting became more erratic, he still had the ability to pull out a good tune, even if he didn't always give them to the rest of the group (I'm in particular looking at their last two albums) and saved them for himself. But I ramble. For you see, Townshend eventually getting sick of The Who and
probably trying to sabotage their reputation is an example, albeit somewhat negative, of the third trait that makes the band such a favorite of mine:
3. Distinct, interesting, and barely compatible personalities in each member. This group was almost always about 20 minutes from self-destructing, and Daltrey practically made a career out of punching the lights out of his bandmates, producers, and various hangers-on. More often than not, though, this was actually beneficial for the group, as Pete had the ability to channel his frustrations into his songs, which added an even more human dimension to his work. Meanwhile, they were all, at heart, rock-and-rollers, or to be more accurate, punk-rockers (come on, don't EVEN tell me that "I Can't Explain" and "My Generation" aren't at the core of proto-punk) . All the cliches of the punk movement (smashing instruments on stage, trashing every hotel room, living horribly debauched lives) were, if not started by these guys, then taken to ridiculous extremes that made them legends in their own time. Heck, they were banned for life from Holiday Inn in '66 or '67 when, for Moon's 21'st birthday, they managed to get a car (I believe it was a Volkswagen Beatle) into the 5th floor swimming pool. A time before that, Moon got completely drunk and dove into a empty pool head first, and there are a zillion other stories of this type. If you have any, I would love it if you, the reader, would send me some.
But that is not why you have hit this page. You're here for the
albums, and so, without further ado, "Ladies and gentleman, a
nice rock and roll band, from Sheperd's Bush London, The 'Oo."
Barry Allen Schnorr (bas29.cornell.edu)
I have to agree with your general evaluation of the Who. I had a similar
bad first impression from the radio and from the first 2 albums I heard,
which happened to be Face Dances and By Numbers. I'd ask,
"Why such short, dippy songs? Where's the _science_?" and dismiss them
with a remark of "feh" and a swat from the back of my hand. And I liked
Elton John's remake of Pinball Wizard better than the original.
It takes a little while for the appeal of simple but well-done riffing
to catch on (to me, anyway, maybe I'm just slow). In terms of writing,
Townsend was up there with Keith Richards, BUT with a much more talented
rhythm section (and vocalist, for that matter) to back him up. I think
that calling Moon the greatest drummer of all time is a bit of a stretch.
He did not make his drumming stand out--not as if that's strictly a bad
thing, because it gets annoying if drummers crave attention so much that
they insist on stupid drum solos, for instance--but nothing about Moon's
playing really stands out from my point of view. (Maybe he was better
live.) Otherwise, excellent explanation of why the Who was so good.
But...what's this nonsense about suggesting the Beatles may have been
thebest rock band of all time? Have you been brainwashed by the Beatle
troopers? Just because they were popular doesn't mean YOU have to like
them. The Bee Gees were pretty popular too.
Marylin Johnson (MJohn59958.aol.com)
I have enjoyed listening to the Who since high school (Can't Explain).
During my college years, my boyfriend's (now my husband) roommate had the
album Tommy and I loved to listen to it when a guest in their
apartment (
I
bought the album myself quite a few years later). The song Won't Be
Fooled
Again was very timely when it was released in the '70's ( I was doing my
student teaching in an urban high school at a time of social turbulence
and
the song struck me as being both inciteful and satiric). Behind Blue Eyes
impressed me as a beautiful and soulful song. My favorite Who albums are
Tommy and Who's Next.
Button8950.aol.com
I just wanted to say thanks for all the reviews. I'm a new Who fan, and
there are so many good albums I didn't know where to start. These reviews
really helped, just to see what one person has to say. Thanks!
Pierre Robert (probert.lure.u-psud.fr)
Few words.
I recently took a look on your page about the WHO. To the old fan that I
am (I'm 43) it was like a pomade on my heart reading your words.
Definitely yes, the WHO were (and still are to my very own regard) the
greatest rock band all over the world.
Four members, each one so different with the others and so brillant in his
own part, could provide in a grace's state several monuments of rock music
that still make references today (for exemple : Tommy, live at
Leeds,
who's next, meaty beaty big & bouncy, quadrophenia,
^Å).
About these four members there is so much to say that you already know,
let's do shortly.
Roger DALTREY, amazing singer, deep and loud voice but also delicate,
enormous charisma.
John ENTWISTLE, a bass virtuoso, a stone to hang on up to on stage that
garanty the equilibrium of the whole thing.
Keith MOON, a very own caracter himself, the greatest rock drummer I ever
heard.
Pete TOWNSHEND, so intelligent, a pure genius.
I saw them several times on stage. Oh boy I remember each one, it was
amazing performances and surely the best rock shows I ever saw until now.
I'd like to say so much more but my english is not enough good.
Bravo for right comments on the WHO. Long live rock!
Robert Grazer (xeernoflax.jack-the-ripper.com)
For a long time I had a debate with myself on who was the most overrated
band in the history of rock music. Although many 90s bands are pretty
overrated, I firmly believe (and hope) that in thirty years or so that no
one will care or remember about crap like Nirvana or *Nsync. So to find
the most overrated band we must look in the past. U2 is pretty overrated,
but still too recent. So I looked even further back. Look what I found,
The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and The Who. Well, I can immediately
dismiss the Beatles because not liking them is either extremely
close-minded or downright inhuman. So, we are left with The Who and The
Rollong Stones. It ends up being that the Rolling Stones are more
overrated as far as musical qality goes and The Who is more overrated as
far as talent with their instruments goes.
The Who proves that the term "greatest (insert rock instrument here)
ever" no longer means the one who has the most talent with their
instrument. I mean Kieth Moon is a decent drummer, but he can't touch
Jayson Sherlock, John Rutsey or Billy Cobham but the who is more popular
than those other bands there so we'll ignore the simple fact that there
are plenty of drummers better than Kieth Moon and blindly slap the title
of the greatest ever on the drummer for one of our favorite bands.
And John Entwistle as the greatest bassist of all time!? COME ON! I
can name five off of the top of my head who are better: Steve Harris, Greg
Lake, Chris Squire, Rick Laird, and even Geddy Lee. But we like The Who
better than Yes, ELP, Mahavishnu, or Rush, so we'll give the title of best
bassist to Mr. Entwistle. Give me a break!
Pete Townshend is a pretty good guitar player, but I wouldn't dream
of
putting him on the top 10 guitarrists. I mean he doesn't deserve to be up
there
with Keaggy, Becker, Howe, McLaughlin, or about a dozen or so 80s metal
guitarrists I could probably list, but I won't.
Ok, now that I have finished that little speech there, I would like
to say two things. First, I have not heard EVERY song that The Who has
ever done so if any feels the need to, feel free to send me the names of a
few songs where The Who's talent is shown and If I've heard them I'll
reply and if I haven't, I get a copy of the song and then reply. Only if
you want to, I really don't care much. But also get a copy of the song
"One Word" by The Mahavishnu Orchestral; it makes Moon and Entwistle look
bad.
Second is that as far as good songwriting goes, The Who really isn't
too bad. Although I've never cared much for some of their hits like
"Squeeze Box" or "My Generation" and "Magic Bus," they've got some
classics like, of course, "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Christmas." Plus,
Tommy is one of the greatest album I've ever heard.
So The Who isn't the most overrated band of all time, but they're up
there. I don't hate them, but sometimes I grow tired of everyone loving
them so.
(author's note): THIS is not going unanswered. First of all, Robert
is right about one thing - I do NOT define "best ever" as "person with the
most talent." Raw, God-given talent is vastly important, but it is not the
criterium I use. My criteria are essentially as follows (sure, there
are others, but they can all essentially be written as permutations of
the following):
- How much does the performer contribute to the enjoyment of the
listener in the context of any given song? In other words, how
entertaining is it to listen to one of his parts?
- How important is he to the general sound of the group, and would the
nature of the group be altered beyond repair without him?
If we use these as our requirements, then both Moon and Entwistle
slaughter the competition you have brought up. (Well, if you consider
complexity and speed of the parts your sole requirement, maybe they don't,
but I often dig subtlety. I mean, Steve Hackett is one of my favorite
guitarists, and nobody would accuse him of being able to take on Howe in a
shred-fest). Both Squire and Lee are high on my list (but Greg Lake? Come
on!!), but part of the reason is that they are always mixed very high and
as such it is easy to focus on them. John was almost always content to not
be the central figure of any given song, but take him away from almost ANY
Who song, and you will feel the difference. And, as one astute
commentator on the Starostin site pointed out, John was the
force that kept the Who's live act from descending into complete chaos.
Pete and Keith would be doing whatever, and John would always be able
to bridge the gap between them to keep the sound coherent.
And as for Moon, well, could you possibly imagine the rollicking sound of
The Who without Moon? The man's ability to drum around and through the
beat without, again, falling into complete chaos was equalled only by Bill
Bruford (my co-number one).
As for Pete, well, I will admit that it's hard to really get a grasp for
what he's doing on any given studio record, as the band always went for a
more quiet, subtle approach. Only on an acoustic paradise like
Tommy do things really become clear. But that's why we have albums
like Leeds and Wight. In both cases, but especially on
Wight, Pete absolutely annhilates the listener with the
simultaneous crispness and enormous volume of his riffing. And even though
he could never solo like a madman, his solos almost ALWAYS fit into the
songs perfectly and controlled the tension and mood of the song in such a
way as to floor whoever heard it (the best example is his work on the
Wight version of We're Not Gonna Take It.)
So, yeah. Somebody can have all of the talent in the world, but if they
don't entertain me at all, I couldn't care less.
Thought09.aol.com
I sent a couple of emails that kinda disagreed with you on a couple
albums, but I don't want to come of as a total jerk. I absoultely love
your opening paragraphs on the site explaining why the who are
underappriciated in our era. Wonderful writing I loved it. Also, I agree
w/ you completely on your comments to that prog-rock obsessed guy about
the who as musicians....You kick ass...
(author's note): To quote the great Kevin Spacey, "I
rule!"
LONG LIVE THE WHO! Daniel
Robert Grazer (xeernoflax.jack-the-ripper.com)
Ok now, after such a vicious author's note (although I was a little on the
hostile side too), I feel obligated to respond. You gave your criteria for
the title of greatest and that gives me a somewhat better understanding of
where you are coming from. But the title of greatest to me has always been
a statement of a fact. For example, Billy Cobham is a better drummer than
Kieth Moon. But from there the opinion enters the picture. You enjoy Kieth
Moon's drummming more than Billy Cobham's. At times I'd agree with that.
But then (to me at least) the title is no longer who is the greatest, it
is who is your favorite. Another example would be the fact that John
Enwistle is not as good of a bassist as Steve Harris. But then the opinion
is that you like Entwistle's bass playing better than Harris'. Then the
second thing you have brought up is how important are they to the sound of
the group. Again, this is opinion. Entwistle may be a vital part of The
Who's sound, but there are probably those out there who think that he
takes away from the sound and overall quality of the group. (Hey, there's
always one or two who thinks like that.) I again compare him to Steve
Harris. Harris make great contributions to Iron Maiden, his sound is
necessary for the band (not to mention his songwriting) to always feel
like Iron Maiden. But is he as important to Iron Maiden as Entwistle is to
The Who? You'd say no because you are a huge fan of The Who, but I bet
there are some huge Iron Maiden fans who could debate Harris vs. Entwistle
with you for hours. The same goes for Lee and Squire.
A personal example of these points I could make would be my opinions of
David Gilmour. I love the guy's guitar playing and I doubt anyone could
fit the Floyd sound better than he does. He would easily fit on to my top
10 favorite guitarists. However, although he has had a few great solos, he
could never compare to the talent of John McLaughlin. Therefore he does
not deserve a position on the top 10 best guitarists.
As for blending in and not being "the central figure of any given song,"
it never bothered me when Lee and Squire have emphasis put on them. I
mean, what are guitar solos for anyway? To let the guitarist have the
spotlight for a portion of the song. The same goes for drum solos, bass
solos, flute solos (i.e.Thick as a Brick) and violin solos. Hey, I
can even sit for nine and a half minutes enjoying Jason Becker showing off
in "Speed Metal Symphony." The point is that I really don't mind the
focus on a single member of the band unless they are terrible at their
instruments and are playing crap.
I guess I've made a little too much fuss for what I consider to be a poor
choice of words. But I hope that this helps follow up the things I have
said.
NOTE: About Greg Lake, while I am really impressed with his work on "Only
Way," a few more listens to Quadrophenia showed me that I was in
error whe I said he was better than John Entwistle.
didier Dumonteil (dbdumonteil.wanadoo.fr)
I think that you've got a lot of nerves to mention the Who in the same
breath as the Beatles.THe Who's music hasn't that much worn well
,compared to that of the Byrds of the Velvet and even the Stones ..
And to deny the white album and Abbey Road a 10 is unbearable.
(author's note): Boy, you'd think that writing the explanation of the ratings in giant, bold capital letters would have done the trick. Guess not.
Frankly,sport,the Who can't be compared with LMc,Dylan,Wilson,Reed ,
Young .
Outside the Who and Jethro Tull (who cares nowadays anyway) a nice site!
Keith Neely (keith213.webtv.net)
The Who were an embodiment of the true spirit of rock and roll. The
first real punks. One only needs to listen to "My Generation" to hear
the brashness, attitude, ferocity and rebelliousness of their music.
These guys had REAL attitude.
Aside from that, they were fortunate enough to have one of the few
absolute geniuses of rock and roll in Pete Townshend. The sheer amount
of quality music the guy has written is staggering.
When future generations ask "What was Rock and Roll?", they will only
have to watch a tape (or whatever they will be using) of The Who on a
good night.
I could go on and on about the talents of the individual band members,
particular tracks and albums etc., but that would take entirely too
long. I'll just say God Bless The Who, because I've had many a
spiritual experience listening to their music. But you must check out
"Uneasy Street" from Coolwalking-Best of Pete Townshend. Wow!! An
absolutely dynamite and thought-provoking tune.
I just want to briefly touch on this "he's number one or he's not in
the top ten bass/drum/ guitar" bullshit. It's the diversity of the music
and the players that make rock and roll such a beautiful and free form
of expression. And besides, the first three simple, crashing chords in
"Baba O'Riley" mean more than all the notes Malmsteen, Becker, MacAlpine
and all those other shred-meisters ever played put together. That shit
ain't even rock and roll!!!!
Peace be with you all.
Ryan (Ryan.Kasper.colorado.edu)
First and foremost, I would like to thank you for making it known
that The Who are underappreciated. If we were to exist in some parallel
dimension where The Who had never existed, this country would be further
pussified (I use this word compliments of George Carlin) by such bands as
N'Sync, Backside Boys, etc. The problem these days is (and maybe I'm
just getting old... but I'm only twenty) that this country has absolutely
no spirit anymore. Its like when you were in high school. You become
jaded and you just stopped giving a shit. You just settled for the
situation you were in and dealt with it (or, unfortunately you may go
nuts and decide it would be a good idea to shoot some people). My point
here is that this country seems to be settling for Pussified nonsense and
cheap imitations. It thrills me to death that Pearl Jam are performing
Who songs, and Eddie Vedder and Pete Townshend have played together.
Because I like Pearl Jam and I think they have integrity, I will buy and
grow to like anything they come out with.
Enough about that. I enjoy the fact that you base your reviews on
some requirements that may seem quite subjective as far as
interperetation goes. I mean honestly, who wants to hear some ass that
rates everything "objectivley" based on a list of requirements someone
else has made. Bravo! I like your take on this stuff. This is the best
question a critic can ask: Is this stuff meaningful to me? Nice work on
keeping it real in this department. One can review computers
objectivley, but interpretation of music is lost when one attempts such
blasphemy.
Another thing. I am also not a Beatles fan per se. I mean I like
the stuff I've heard, but it never really grabbed anything inside of me
that made me cherish any work in particular. The way Quadrophenia sends
you on an emotional rollercoaster through teenage life is what attracted
me to it when I was 14. And it still applies to me. It always will.
Can you help explain to me why they receive more praise today? Are there
songs I absolutely must listen to? Is there any way in hell they have
the same creative genius and manpower as Pete Townshend alone? Not to
mention the other three members of The Who. Just wanted to get another
point of view on this stuff.
The music of The Who expresses more emotionally, spiritually and
ideologically than anything I've ever heard. Additionally, it is my
belief that The Who are the band that originated rock as we know it today
(and I am referring to real rock, and punk too). Any evidence against
this? I know The Who had influences too, but their impact in my eyes is
astounding. Nice job on the page.
Sincerely,
Ryan Kasper
JohnnyB8.aol.com
Wow! What a great reveiew on this band. The Who, Beatles, and the Hendrix
Experience are my favorite groups of all time, and i have heard every
album
ever made by each group (and what a bore it was to sit through Band Of
Gypsies
, but whatever. BTW, I know that that isn't the Experience). I found no
flaws
in your special paragraph. I would, however like to respond to the
comments
from Mr. Robert Grazer. Mr. Grazer, i do realize that the Who is
overrated,
but you cant overlook their talent because of it. I mean, next to
Lennon/McCartney, Townshend is probably the greatest songwriter of all
time.
Yeah, i know all you Stones fans are going to throw Jagger/Richards at
me,
but they are a couple of feet behind Townshend. Mr. Grazer, why dont you
grab
a copy of Who's Next, Who By Numbers, or Live at Leeds (probably the
greatest
live album ever, although they did cut out all of the Tommy performance
except for Amazing Journey-Sparks) or howabout......oh yes....you all
know
what i'm talking about.......QUADROPHENIA!!! So, thats all that i have to
say
until the next review.
richard (richard.dpbayley.freeserve.co.uk) (11/12/01)
There is not much too add to what has already been said. Certainly never
has so much talent been packed into a band. They never used filler fodder
on their albums. Everything meant something. The best who track ever?
'Won't Get Fooled Again' live at Shepperton Studios from The Kids Are
Alright CD.
Jared Lentz (ddjlentz.hotmail.com) (11/25/01)
Hi! I really enjoyed reading your Who album opinions! I was a lot like you
at first- didn't really get into the Who until I listened to them for a
while. I have always thought Led Zeppelin to be the best band ever, but I
have second doubts now- the Who are just simply amazing. I think the deluxe
edition of Live at Leeds makes the album nothing short of a 10 rating. That
is the absolute best record, ever. Pete can really put out his power chords
and even go off on a nice solo. His notes have so much bite to them. It's
hard, bone-crunching music but its amazing how polished and bright it is at
the same time. It is never grungy or muddy. It's fantastic.
Kevin Saliba (raylomas.euroweb.net.mt) (5/24/02)
Hi John,
I am a great fan of The Who and of The Beatles (among many
others).
I found a comment on The Who unofficial offical site. It states the
following:
"Let's get one thing straight right now: Paul McCartney---the most
innovative bass player EVER. John Lennon---more intellectual and acidic
than Pete Townshend ever could have been. George Harrison---the third
best songwriter in the Beatles and yet wrote better stuff than Townshend
did. Ringo Starr---the best rock drummer ever. He didn't have to show off
to make his point---he served the songs. Four hundred years from now,
people will still be discussing the Beatles and their impact on music,
society, etc. The Who will be a footnote. Think about it, lads---there
wouldn't even BE a Who without the Beatles."
I won't go into details, but I just have to point out that these
statements are among the most stupid comments I ever read. Anyway, what
do you think about this dork? (this might be a good topic for your
'lengthy debate page").
(author's note): I think this is basically overreacting. The Beatles are the greatest group ever, imo, but that doesn't make them the be-all/end-all of greatness. To me, this is the kind of overreacting that causes people to cultivate anti-Beatles biases in the first place.
Jeff Rosenthal (JeffR714.comcast.net) (8/13/02)
BARRY
THE BEATLES ARE CREAM OF THE CROP FOR SURE THERE'S NO DOUBT ABOUT THAT
BUT IF I HAD TO PICK BETWEEN THE ROLLING STONES AND THE WHO I WOULD HAVE
TO GO WITH THE WHO I'M 38 BUT STARTED LISTENING TO THE WHO AT 12 YEARS
OLD (BELIEVE IT OR NOT) AND THAT WAS 1975 JUST AFTER THE WHO BY NUMBERS
WAS RELEASED WHICH BY THE WAY IS HAILED AS A CLASSIC WHO PIECE AS FAR AS
"THE BAND ITSELF IS CONCERNED"
BUT THEN YOU HAD THE CLASSIC QUADROPHENIA! BY THIS TIME I WAS TRADING
ALBUMS WITH THE OLDER GUYS IN THERE MID TO LATE TWENTIES AND I REMEMBER
GOING OVER TO THIS GUY THAT LIVED AROUND THE BLOCK I FORGET WHAT WE WERE
TRADING FOR BUT HE PUT QUADROPHENIA ON AND HAD SAID JEFF THIS IS ONE OF
THE BEST ALBUMS I EVER LISTENED TO OF COURSE BEING SOMEWHAT FAMILIAR WITH
THE WHO I SAID MAKE ME A COPY AND THRU ALL THE YEARS SINCE THE HAVE BEEN
SECOND FAVORITE...I'M LISTENING TO TALES FROM THE WHO WHILE I'M TYPING
ANOTHER CLASSIC THAT WAS RELEASES UNDERGROUND IN RED & BLUE VINYL ALL I
HAVE IS THE SILVER CD....BUT THE WHO
FABULOUS, AMAZING, TIMELESS.....JEFF ROSENTHAL
Peter Wingert (pwingert.wscu.com) (9/24/02)
I had the pleasure of growing up, listening to the "OO since the early
sixties, when they were competing with early Stones and the sound of the day
that was the Beatles.
I fell in love with their singles like Can't Explain, My Generation,
Pictures of Lily. In fact all the songs from Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy are
probably their best material.And so I thought until I heard Live at Leeds.
The bombastic drumming and heavy three chord work of Townsend and steady
rythmic basslines of the Quiet One opened my eyes to the live act. The Who
visited my town in '68 and never again till 1980 when I saw them.I caught
them in Chicago in December 1979, not long after the disaster in Cincinnati.
The show is videotaped on Maximum R &B. If you look closely directly to the
left of the stage, thirty rows back, that's me dressed in a suit. I just
flew into town two hours earlier on a business trip. Five concerts later,
they remain my all time favourites. I love these guys.
PurpIeStain.aol.com (2/26/03)
The Who is the best band to come out of Britain. Yeah the stones are ok,
Zeppelin rocks, and we all know that the Beatles changed rock. But Tommy is
the best album I have ever heard. The members of the Who are musical
geniuses. They are totally overlooked and underplayed on the radio and its
really a shame to deprive everyone of their music.
I love the Who. Wish I could have seen them live.
Thats what I think about them.
PS cool site
john hildebrand (luckyluke.ihug.co.nz) (9/30/03)
Settle down mate you are going a bit to far, sure The Who are a good band
but to start screaming there 'the greatest" this and "the best that" is
a bit over the top. And its no reason to say there better than others,
"The Who" preform great together and that is what makes tham a good band,
you can't shout out things just because thats the way you feel,
compare Roger daltrey to Jim Morrison , Robert Plant , Ozzy , Roger
Walters , Chris Cornell. Can you compare them. . . . . . . . no you cant
because there all completly different singers from different era's. You
say you've been listening to "The Who" for a year now, so how long will
it be before you find youre next craze and start a new web site and
saying how great they are.Look im a who fan as well but i think Pete
Townshend will even tell you they wornt quite the greatest.
And hey I dont mean to hack you down, I see you have some good taste in
music.
Howell (l.howell.ntlworld.com) (11/17/03)
Your site asks, what do we think of The Who?
Quite simply...the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world.
Enough said.
Loved the site, many thanks
Dave Howell
Angelmo645.aol.com (4/29/04)
The Who....hmmm....what can I say what hasn't already been said before?
I freakin' worship these guys. I love their music, I love their
personalitites, I love them despite every one of their flaws as a band
(and believe me, there are plenty!).
Although each band member was important in their own way, I mainly direct
my thanks towards Mr. Pete Townshend. I believe that the word "genius"
is overused these days, so instead I want to thank Pete for what he is: a
complex, complicated, sensitive, arrogant, stubborn, talented, spiritual,
beautifully flawed human being and artist. His music had gotten me
through some of the difficult and lonliest times of my life. Until I
discovered The Who, I don't think there was any kind of music out there
that I could truly relate to. Pete writes about important things like
the lonliness and frustration of adolecence, he writes on a spirtitual
level and although it can come off as pretentious at times, most of the
time I find it beautiful and exhilerating.
Long live Pete and long live THE WHO
"MikeCalla" (mikecalla1975.yahoo.ca) (11/23/04)
You may or not put this up on your site but I had a good time writing it - very cathartic – thank you... Stating the obvious now would be redundant. So I will state what I know. You could pick hundreds - nay thousands of musicians far more capable than any member of The Who. But that is not what music about. If it were, I would never listen to a pianist other that Oscar Peterson. Or listen to a drummer other that Buddy Rich. Or a composer other than Bach. The list could go on, and on. – No, I listen to music to invoke a sense of emotion, whether it is elation or wonderment, or whatever. Of course we can listen to the mechanics of a musician, or song and pick it apart, but we can also listen for those little quirks and mistakes that remind us that some musicians are not THE best - but human. The first time I heard “Live At Leeds” (the original, six song album) I thought – this is what rock and roll is supposed to be. I am 29 now, but I heard that album before I was 10. I didn’t give a damn how good or bad the bands musicianship was. At that time I couldn’t differentiate if Keith Moon was better or worse than Ringo Starr, but I swear I knew Keith made me feel different – in a good way. I liked how that album made me feel. Visceral. Made my hands turn into fists. Made my eyes squint when Pete would hang a chord and it would slowly but surely breath fire as feedback. And you what know what, it invokes that response in me to this day. Sure I get other fantastic – awe inspiring responses from other musicians – i.e.; the beauty of Debussy’s Clair De Lune or a Billie Holiday throaty impersonation of liquid butter. Throw in a Steve Howe lick and I have my “Stranded On An Island Collection”. But that is what music is supposed to do. Kudos to John for a damn good essay on his love for a band, I wish there were more sites like this!!
Now here come my opinions and contradictions. The Who? Best band ever? Yep!! Seeing Pete and John play live was like no other concert experience - and I’ve been to tons!!! – seen them all - new bands – old classic rock bands – jazz bands etc, etc, hell I even saw Oscar Peterson play a private concert in front of a dozen people. Any way…. Now I’ve seen both Pete and John as solo musicians and together as The Who. All I can say is wow. Very, very powerful, even in their golden years. I saw John, in a small club here in Toronto Canada. I stood at his feet. I’m a bassist, so for me this was comparable to a one year long orgasm. My God that man was powerful. That bass was screaming from pain. He was running up and down that neck with such constrained reckless abandon - and then - so delicate at times… I couldn’t play bass for month. Once again visceral! Now for Pete – Now I’m fairly young so my music tastes vary quite a lot – in high school I saw some seriously heavy b ands play live. Punk bands, metal bands and whole lot of others - Then I saw Pete play. I had seen him before; first solo – actually the first date of his first solo tour ever, mostly acoustic(still very powerful). Then I saw him do the Quadrophenia thing – my brother begged me not to go – he said “It’s gonna ruin it for you!” And it did! They had like a dozen and a half musicians on stage. Horns, percussion, a whole lotta of other crap too. Not The Who I wanted to see. Then in Dec 2001, I believe, once again their “last concert ever” here in Toronto. I saw The Who I knew once existed. Granted Keith was not there, but growing up as a kid I realized I would never hear him live, but sadly John had just passed away. Too Bad. But Pete, Pete made up for it. He was possessed. That guitar was bending under his hands. I could see the neck warp under his power chords. That made all those young guitarists with all their rage and attitude seem like kittens- really, cute little kittens. They couldn’t hold a candle to his emotion. I’ve never seen anyone put that much passion in to their guitar. It was total commitment – maybe a glimpse of what it was like to see Moonie live. – Ahh I could write all day about this band – now I wanna go listen to them – maybe Live At Leeds – My Generation I think.
SolomonsOther.aol.com (03/15/05)
Behold... a great band with a ton of great songs. However, much like
Genesis or Pink Floyd, the major problem lies in the question: Do you
dig the early work or the later work? Are you in it for the hilarious
60s jingles or the heart-wrenching 'proggy' experiments a la
Quadrophrenia? I'm ignoring Tommy because I own the Live at Isle of
Wight 1970 DVD, where they play Tommy live. I had never heard the
original studio album and when I bought it, I couldn't stand still
because I missed the energy that was put into the live performances.
But Quadrophrenia strikes me as somewhere on the border between
Genesis's dark psychological parables (The Lamb Lies Down on
Broadway) and Led Zepplin's cock-ballsy meanderings on.... well,
anything that doesn't sound like Stairway to Heaven. I consider it to
be their best 'rock opera,' though the best ALBUM per se would
without a doubt have to be The Who Sell Out. Incomplete albums like
Who's Next get on my nerves. Otherwise... a 5 star band all the way.
SteeleAndDavid.cs.com (04/16/05)
I haven't even read about the albums, but as a long-time Who lover,
well, you pretty much took the words out of my mouth. Townshend's a
lyrical genius, Entwistle is/was an insane vituoso, Moonie is/was
beyond savant gifts and Daltrey has one of the most powerful and
awesome voices in rock and roll. The Who are #1 always and forever!
bob dufton (robert.dufton1.fsnet.co.uk) (09/25/05)
Hi,
My group ' The Templars ' played many a support band to The Who in
the mid 1960's, whenever they played ' Up North '
i.e. Warrington Co-op Hall,Parr Hall, Stamford Hall and lots more.
I decided to buy a marshall amp. on the strength of this, and quickly
had it top boosted, after hearing Pete, and also the Small Faces.
who we also supported many times
My gretch guitar would stay on feed back forever,wow, bloody exciting
in it's day, especially with my ' Sperrin Fuzz Box . !!
More nostalga 2 cum.
Bob.
TIMOTHY MCCULLEN (tmccullen2004.yahoo.com) (10/12/05)
Everybody is comparing Moon and Entwistle to other players in
other bands.You have to remember, these two individuals invented
their crafts, techniques ect. Everyone else just tried to model
themselves around The Who. Even to me I thought The Who could blow
any one off the stage, old and new! Especially Entwistle.
"McGruer, Chris" (cmcgruer.owensound.library.on.ca) (02/11/06)
Well, first and foremost I think we have to ackknmoledge that "The
Who" were one of the BEST and GREATEST live acts to come out of the
rock/pop genre.
Although one may quibble about their studio recordings and wonder
where they rank compared to other bands, after veiwing "Live at the
Isle of Wight" there is no doubt that at the top of their game they
kicked the beatles and the stones ass in the arena. They rank at the
top of thec class for live bands and in my books this ranks them at
the top of the heap in the rock pantheon.
Erik Jørgensen (erik.jorgensen.vip.cybercity.dk) (05/28/06)
Nice site and a well written essay with many good points. Listening
to The Who was simply the defining moment in my life as a lover of
music. Never had I heard such music. The most beautiful noise in the
World.
mark flanagan (mark.pelletizer.com) (09/03/06)
My admiration for the band runs in streaks. Sometimes I love them, yet it's
not something I can sustain.
Most bands I admire, even when I go through a stage of not listening to
them, I always remain a fan.
With The Who I either love them and hear their genius, or I can't stand
them. It's weird.
I have a hard time rating The Who vs Zeppelin. I feel The Who were a better
band, but I'd rather listen
to Zeppelin most of the time. Know what I mean?
Please don't go knocking Plant vs Daltry.
If all you have is daltry "lasted longer" than forget it. Plant just had
something going for him. Despite all the
campy mannerism's he had "IT" in a way Daltry could only dream of.
Pete Townshend, as you pointed out, had an amazing gift for being able to
write songs, transcendental songs, for
another person to sing. That's not easy.
I agree that no single man outside of the Beatles could run with him in the
rock music game.
Entwistle and Moon were as good a rythym section as ever graced a rock
stage. Again the competition seems to come
from Zeppelin. John Paul Jones and John Bonham were also very good but I
give an edge to The Who duo.
james.malmstrom.ubs.com (01/13/07)
Of course The WHO rule - agreed that they are deserving of the title the
BEST ROCK 'N ROLL BAND IN THE WORLD. Your point that The WHO could
reach highs that the Stones could only dream of is correct insofar as
Townshend's songwriting, and their performances, from '67-1973 was and
were absolutely untouchable. As for the greatest bass player debate
please inform Mr. Grazer that evaluating bass players is best done by
their peers. Bass Player magazine has always considered Entwistle the
greatest of all-time. It's really not even that close. Moon?
Brilliant and also untochable in the early years but his play suffered
terribly near then end when he became a bloated, drunken shell of his
former self.
Skye Reding (LuvAndPeace2U.webtv.net) (03/30/07)
Generally I agree with everything you said about The Who. The Beatles
have always held the most special place in my heart. I don't mind at all
mentioning The Who in almost the same sentence. They were 2 different
bands. I always thought it was awesome the way it appeared all these
British groups from the time of the British Invasion- my very favorite
time in history of music personally- all seemed to admire eachother. And
applaud eachother's accomplishments. I remember being 7 years old -
about 11 yrs after the release of My Generation and hearing it on the
radio and instantly understanding that this was considered an edgy song
in it's day! I LOVED it! I could easily understand-even at 7 years old-
that The Who were influential to the punk scene. Which was barely any
kind of a movement in certain parts of America at the time. I remember
hearing Who Are You loving the "who who who who" part of the song. I may
have been a little girl but I knew cool music when I heard it. My cousin
and I loved to listen to I Can See For Miles. Singing the " miles and
miles and miles...." part of the song much longer than we should have
and thinking it was funny. Cut me some slack after that comment. We were
little girls after all. And listening to The Who no less! We loved that
song. Which made us pretty hip for our age when you think about it.
Older more experienced girls still consider The Who too wild for them.
The instrument smashing, hotel trashing, and sheer loudness of their
music made The Who more of a man's band in many ways. Certainly not for
little girls. The Who always seemed to be playing on the radio. Magic
Bus became a song I'd recognise when the first chords of the music
started. And I looked forward to it. I realised even at my young age at
the time these 4 musicians from England were very important to music and
it's history. That people would be talking about them for years and
years to come. I was correct in that observation. And that's not bad for
a little seven year old girl sitting in the kitchen listening to the
radio before school. I consider kids from my generation pretty lucky
even though I would gladly have been a teen in the early 60s or so. Kids
my age still got to hear groups like The Stones, The Beatles, The Who on
the radio and NOT on some classic rock station. Music today pales
miserably by comparison. The musicians were amazing back then and The
Who are proof of that. Keith Moon blows me away! I'm in awe of him. His
facial expressions while he plays and twirls his drum sticks and moves
his arms around like a wind mill. It's mesmerising. Just watch his
performance in The Kids Are Alright on The Rolling Stones Rock-n-Roll
Circus and you'll see what I mean! Pete Townsend's song writing is just
phenomenal! An endless flow of music and lyrics must be going through
his brain at all times and it comes to him with ease! I'm jealous is all
I can say! He is second only to Lennon and McCartney in my book. John
Enwistle. Gotta love the man for his demeanor onstage with the other 3
acting like they could all explode at any time. Despite his cool reserve
onstage John always appeared as entertained by the other 3 showing off
as the audience most likely was. Listen to John's playing on Sparks off
the Tommy album and dig the man. He was a dedicated and talented
musician and it showed! I admire him for that! Roger Daltrey voice is
right next to Robert Plant in my opinion. You could feel the breeze from
his voice blowing your hair back everytime you heard a Who song! It was
that powerful! And the way Roger would swing his microphone around on
stage and catching it in the nick of time with much ease still leaves me
dumbfound and wondering how many times one of his band mates got clocked
in the head when he first decided he was gonna do that little trick.
Well, I could go on and on but I will quit here. The Who are in a class
by themselves. Thanks for reading and letting me express my opinion
about one of my favorite bands....
Kolby Kramer (gkkramer.gmail.com) (05/03/07)
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but contrary to what everyone
thinks, Keith Moon DID play drum solos. And he was awful at them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hngmb0pTcMY&mode=related&search=
Eesh, pots and pans, anyone?
Patrick Dermody (pdermody.twcny.rr.com) (04/29/08)
I just wanted to comment on what Kolby Kramer showed to prove.
I'm no expert on drumming, but that video didn't seem too bad. He's
banging the heck out of his kit and is making it very rhythmic and
enjoyable. Just my opinion.
Scott Harrison (harrison_sw.msn.com) (10/05/08)
John, first off I would like to say I absolutely love your site. I agree
with a lot of your thoughts about Jethro Tull (also love Stand Up), Yes, ELP
and The Who among others; other times, we aren't exactly seeing eye to eye
(I personally love Benefit), but your thoughts are always great to hear. I
would suggest early Allman Brothers, Phish, jam bands and jazz fusion and
would love to hear your thoughts on those bands and genres. Now about The
Who.
Firstly, The Who are my favorite band. I have been seriously listening to
music for a good four years now (I am 17), and The Who has always been among
those groups I absolutely adore. I would also like to mention that I listen
to a wide range of music, everything from rock, jam bands, jazz, prog and
metal (a bit). it is not a matter of me not knowing what else is out there
musically; in fact, i am always trying to find new music. so when I say that
The Who are my favorite group, that is not mere adrenaline or underexposure.
I feel there will never be a time when I am sick of hearing the music of
Pete, Roger, Keith and John.
I wouldn't give anything to see The Who circa 1964-1973; however, there is
no doubt in my mind, that from 1969-1973 there was something The Who had
that no other band had. It seems to me that in these five years there was
absolutely nothing above these four musicians (much like the new york
yankees from 1949-1953). many people will only rememeber joe dimaggio and
yogi berra from those great yankee teams (seasoned baseball fans might
recognize whitey ford). what made the yankees better in those five years?
Chemistry. That is what the The Who had from 1969-1973. Even if they were
not the best at their respected instruments, they were better as a respected
whole than any other group during this period (A period which I would say
amounts to 75% of what I listen to).
George Starostin has defended Keith Moon's drumming on his own site and on
this site as well. His arguments in support of Keith's drumming allign with
my own in many ways. I will not label Keith as the greatest drummer ever
(Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Billy Cobham, Bill Bruford, Carl Palmer, Tony
Williams among countless others I have a strong admiration and respect for
have just as equal a claim to the greatest drummer). Again, is there a
universal ideal for a drummer? This problem has been brought about in the
posts above. If there is, then certainly Keith Moon must fall into that
ideal (along with the aforementioned and countless others). However, if
there is no ideal, then certainly Moon pushed the boundaries of what a
drummer could do, paving the way for a new generation of drummers such a
John Bonham, Neil Peart, Dan Carey and Mike Portnoy.
To me, the fact that no other drummer sounded that way in a Rock band (Buddy
certainly had the flair in a jazz setting) up to that point in time confirms
my attitude that Moon's playing is certainly groundbreaking. As a drummer, I
feel that if one can easily copy another drummer's playing then that
drumming is either not difficult or the student is extremely gifted. Nobody
attempts to copy the styles of Rich, Cobham and Moon. It is virtually
impossible. To me, that defines their drumming as exceptional. If Moon just
copied Rich, Krupa and Roach; he would have sounded just like them. Instead,
he developed his own style and truly transcended the standards of the day.
Moon's pounding on the double bass is just as inventive today as it was in
the 60's. If you listen to any generic metal band with their idiotic
drummers wailing on the double bass, it sounds so foreign and alien. It
lacks an understanding of groove, rythmn and melodicism. Never did Moon
attempt to play in overdrive like these timekeepers- simply put he played
with dexterity and quickness. Moon's double bass work has an understanding
of groove, back beat and syncopation amid his chaotic attack. Some may argue
he is out of control. I would say simply they do not understand what they
are talking about. The mere fact that he can keep time and play in such a
fashion, repeatedly and without exhaustion is a testament to his supreme
control as a drummer. And yes, I will be the first to attempt that he
couldn't play a drum solo to save his life, that video is just pots and
pans.
Another sidenote, I would agree that there is a difference between a
drummer's skill and his notoriety. Take John Bonham and Jon Fishman. Talk to
the normal music fan about Bonzo "Oh John Bonham!Yeah the guy was the
greatest ever." The only reason he is considered the greatest is because he
played for that semi- obscure underground unit known as Led Zeppelin. To my
ears, Jon Fishman (Phish) is a better drummer than John Bonham. His skill
matches Bonzo's and excedes it in every category with the exception of the
volume he reaches. Bonzo pounded the hell out of the drums, Fishman plays
with a skill and finesse- jumping from one style to another- that far
outweighs Bonzo's merits. When you mention drummers, Fishman probably won't
be discussed because most people have only heard of Phish through the
delicious seafood creature or the Ben & Jerry's Flavor. I mean Moon is
popular for the same reasons as Bonham, I am just using an example to show
that there are amazing drummers all over the place and to say one is the
greatest is pure stupidity.
Moving on to John Entwhistle. I enjoy the man's playing. He invented the art
of playing the bass guitar. However, I will admit that there are others that
are just as fluid and dynamic of the bass (Jaco, Stanley Clarke, Wetton,
Squire and Harris- having heard Stanley Clarke in person I have no doubts
about his skill as a bassist). To me the ryhtmn section of Entwhistle and
Moon made The Who, without them it seems like Roger and Pete noodling around
going through the motions.
From 1969-1973, The Who were the best Rock band. The Rolling Stones laid
claim to the title, The Who however, played to the title. Their is an
arrogance and swagger, yet a self-doubt and self reflection in their music.
It has a spiritual context that is universal, which make it music to be
listened to from here until the end. Add that to the fact the Pete Townshend
was the Rock composer. His writing is unmatched in my eyes, from a musical
and vocabulary standpoint (Rough Mix anyone?). The breadth of his work is
remarkable. I have an utmost respect for this band and its leader, but also
question them. I have no desire to see Roger and Pete in concert as The
Who. None whatsoever. However, I would be willing to throw out $50 to see
them playing as Peter Townshend & Roger Daltrey. What else do they have to
prove as The Who? Wasn't 'Who Are You' enough?
SSmith.swtimes.com (12/13/08)
Great writeup about The Who and Pete Townshend, but I have to
peacefully, respectfully disagree. You say the Stones were at the top
or near the top of their game longer than The Who? No way. The
Stones' high point was from 1965 to 1972, ending with "Exile." I have
always felt that the two Mick Taylor records that followed were
subpar, and as much as I love Ron Wood (I'm a bigger Faces fan), the
Wood-era Stones is patchy with some good (Still Life and Steel
Wheels) and overrated (the bulk of Some Girls, Black & Blue and all
of Emotional Rescue). I feel The Who were at the top, from My
Generation in 1965 to the mid-1970s, and they've always been at the
top as a live band, even now. The best show I ever saw was The Who in
2000 (my first Who show) when John Entwistle was still alive. I have
the CD of that show, amazing. Some of my friends think it's a boot of
the 1975/76 tours, I kid you not.
Anway, thanks for the writeup of The Who. I like the Stones too, it's
just that for me, The Who is tops followe by The Beatles and Pink
Floyd.
"caresm6" (caresm6.wfu.edu) (11/13/09)
Your Who page is already clogged with reader comments both adoring and
disparaging, but I’d really like to add my own thoughts to the mix (I
hope you aren’t already exhaling in resignation). I’ll preface all that
follows with the specific disclaimer that I’m only attempting to explore
my own relationship with this band, not to argue with or knock anyone
else for their opinions. Now then…
Like you, I come at the Who from a bit of a different perspective than
many classic rock fans. When I first became seriously interested in
music, my love for the Beatles and the Stones blossomed pretty much
instantaneously and has only deepened over the years. But when it came
to the Who, things weren’t so simple. (Sidenote: I don't believe this is
related to my being female but, then again, Pete himself once pointed
out that the Who are the rare '60s band who never had a fanbase
predominantly made up of teenage girls!) I actually remember turning to
my dad once and saying, “Why do people always list the Who third? I like
so many bands better than them.”
I’m now in my early 20s and it’s only within the last year that I’ve
truly fallen in love with the Who. I’ve had many of their albums since I
was 14 or 15 and I’ve always enjoyed them to some extent, but I just
wasn’t feeling /love/. That’s all changed. I’m now quite proudly
obsessed with them and rank them among my very favorite artists of all
time, right alongside the Beatles and the Stones. Getting to this point
was a strange journey.
Since early high school, I’ve had an insatiable musical appetite. As
soon as I found the Beatles (age 14), that was it. I spent most of high
school burning through all the Big Guys—Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Yes,
Dylan, Clapton, etc. etc. College was a different story. I became
absolutely restless and went off the rails exploring everything from
hardcore punk to alternative electronica. For a few years there, I
didn’t listen to much classic rock at all. I still counted the Beatles
and the Stones as my favorite artists, but I rarely actually /listened/
to them. The thing was, this crazy musical journey of mine wasn’t all
that fulfilling. I was getting a huge knowledge and familiarity with a
lot of different genres and styles of music, but it simply wasn’t as
soul-satisfying as those days when I was 16 and collecting every single
Neil Young album and listening all the way through with lyrics-booklets
spread out before me.
At 21, my insatiable musical appetite has led me right back to where I
started: the iconic British Invasion bands who started it all. With a
few exceptions, they are really the only artists I listen to who remain
as rewarding today as they were the first day I heard them. And, much to
my surprise, the Who suddenly make absolute sense to me. It was as
though I had to grow into them. It’s now crazy for me to listen to their
catalog and remember that I used to feel quite lukewarm about them.
How?! An album like “Live at Leeds” quite simply knocks my socks off
these days. The Who possessed an amazing combination of incredible,
powerful playing (especially live) and beautiful songwriting from Pete
Townshend. Many other bands have had one or the other quality but I’m
not sure any band has ever combined the two so intriguingly and
successfully.
It actually really interests me that so many commentators (on this site
and in the general world of music criticism) gravitate towards
discussing the band in terms of its individual players. Personally, I
think folks can get so caught up in discussing the relative merits of
Keith Moon versus other drummers or John Entwistle as a rhythmic anchor,
that they overlook those things that are even more important:
particularly chemistry. It wouldn’t matter if Moon was the best drummer
in the world or not if the band didn’t have “it,” which they fortunately
did.
To this point: critics love to compare the Who with Zeppelin on a
player-by-player basis (Daltrey vs. Plant, Moon vs. Bonham, etc.).
Through this method, some have come to the conclusion that Zeppelin was
the superior band. For me, this logic is extremely faulty. Setting aside
for the moment that I actually much prefer all Who members, especially
Townshend to the often-sainted Page on guitar, since when was a band’s
greatness determined solely on the technical merits of its individual
members? It isn’t, or at least it shouldn’t be.
The Who most certainly had a supremely talented player at all four
positions, but they also excelled in many of the more intangible but
even more important areas: wit, charisma, showmanship, innovation,
emotional power…and on and on. I recently watched “The Kids Are Alright”
again and the band came off as just spectacular—practically vibrating
with greatness in every single segment, barely holding it together and
still managing to deliver over and over again. They were unique. They
were intelligent and emotional. They were violent and out of their
minds. They were extraordinary.
Finally, this band possesses one quality that I’ve come to appreciate
more and more as the years have gone by and as I’ve grown bored with
some lesser artists: depth. The greats all have catalogs with rich and
deep quality. You fall in love with them for the classic singles but you
stick around for the deep cuts, rarities and album tracks. Pete, God
bless him, made every record a complete statement worth listening to
from start to finish. It’s a quality this band shares with the Stones
(the all-time great deep cuts band, for me). And it’s something that a
band like Zeppelin lacks. It’s also part of the reason I’m getting antsy
at the increasing trend for critics to move the Who down on their lists
of all-time greats and move up everyone from Zeppelin to Nirvana to the
Ramones (inferior bands all).
I guess I just wanted to let you know that your Who reviews were a great
touchstone for me. I read them back in the early ‘’00s when I was first
falling for music and appreciated your enthusiasm but somehow couldn’t
share it. I’ve just re-read them and now I’m right there with you
leading the parade. The Who may not have immediately grabbed me as a 14
year-old scruff, but they’ve been the soundtrack of my college years and
I have no doubt that they will remain in my overall Top Five for the
rest of my days—completely the equal of the Beatles and the Stones. So
much of the music I’ve listened to over the years was easy to like but
just as easy to dismiss. For me, the Who have been the most rewarding
challenge in my entire (huge) catalog.
Pete Townshend, wherever you are, thanks a million for never making it
easy.
And you, John, thanks for seeing the light much more quickly than I did
and so eloquently shining that light on the band for many willing
readers. Your dedication and passion have ensured that I’ve regularly
visited your site for almost a decade. :-)
"Alainna Earl" (lainnakate.yahoo.com) (02/13/11)
I was bored one day, and I was on Youtube and stumbled upon a song
called, 'Here Comes The Sun.' I was just stuck to the chair. I looked
up so many songs by the Beatles. I was, in no time at all, a
Beatlesfreak. The Fifth Beatle. HippieLover. I fell in love with them.
And not just them - there was the British Invasion. The 60s. Rock and
Roll.
I soon was learning everything you could know about John, George,
Ringo and Paul. I know this is not the answer to what I think of the
Who but it's an understanding of where I'm coming from.
See, I was a staunch defender of those Beatles. I thought no one was
greater. They opened up the doors to contemporaries and opposities -
all kinds of people.
But when I really got into the Who? Vh1 classics showed 'You Better
You Bet'. I quickly looked it up and bought it because I loved the
song. That and My Generation.
Why, Keith Moon is why! I consider him to be one of the greatest rock
drummers, because he was no one else. Nobody sounded like Keith Moon.
When you listen to a song, say ' Circles ', it feels complete in your
ears. It sounds right and I just can't help wanting to move hearing A
Who song. Keith Moon's name, I heard before. So when bored again on
Google, his name I typed in. And when I learned he was with The Who!
It was love at second listen. I bought a bunch of songs, most from
their first album, which is probably one of my favorities.
I am a new Who fan, and a new rock n roll fan. I've gotten to met
Pete, whose intelligence and blunt honesty keep me reading the
articles, word for word. Roger, who I admit I liked at first (However
he is quite like Tommy sometimes, quiet and unaware), his voice is
very much like thunder and I can feel it in me, especially on Tommy
which I think was the best vocal period of his. John, is quiet but his
personality offstage is quite the opposite; I respect him for being
constant onstage when there was alot of chaos, (however I still think
Paul McCartney is a damn great bass player; alot of those lines he
played were exciting to me), but otherwise I have no idea the
technical things that go into being a musician. My opinion is based on
what sounds amazing, and if it touches me. The Who have pretty much
taken the Beatles place as greatest but I never will forget that 'they
came first'. However, Keith is better than Ringo and I don't give a
damn if he's so ' sloopy '. Technical is very professional and nice
but it becomes snooty after awhile.
ismaninb.gmail.com (01/13/12)
Anybody who is serious about hardrock/heavy metal sooner or later
comes across The Kinks (but only a handfull of songs) and The Who. So
here are my two SRD, as this seems to be the place where the question
"who were the greatest?" must be answered.
All arguments pro The Who are valid. I'm not even thinking of trying
to refute them. No, my point will be that these arguments are not
enough. And that means that I find myself in the luxurious position of
disagreeing with both John McFerrin and Robert Grazer (Iron Maiden?
Seriously?!).
The argument of Keith Moon adding to the compositions applies to
Bonham, Bruford and Powell too. And they had better skills. It doesn't
apply to that guy from Dream Theater though, even if I sometimes quite
like that band. It doesn't apply to Neil Peart either. But Bonham and
Powell overdid their trick, you say, while Moon didn't? Agreed. Try
Ian Paice then, someone I learn to appreciate more and more as I get
older. Relisten very carefully to the initial organ solo of Child in
Time and be amazed how tasty, subtle, skilled and untrivial Paicey's
rhythmical patterns are. Also we should realize that Paice managed to
lift the slightly more generic songs to a higher level. Examples? Into
the Fire, Maybe I'm a Leo. So I prefer Paice to Moon.
Then there is Entwistle the modest but virtuoso guy. OK, Glover loses
to him, mainly because he never got/grabbed the chance to excel, but
not John Paul Jones. He did the same as Entwistle and did it better.
Check The Lemon Song for this. Also Entwistle loses in the department
of melodicity. I refer to Andy Frasier of The Free (Mr. Big) and Gary
Thain of Uriah Heep (especially the outtake Why). Entwistle never did
anything slightly similar to those.
Daltrey versus Gillan in his prime is simply a non-brainer. Gillan
could sing any Who song and David Byron probably could too. My
Generation? Speed King. Some ballad? When a blind Man cries. Daltrey
singing Child in Time? Space Truckin'? Exactly.
Townshend the guitarest is hard to compare with Blackmore, as the
latter was a pure solist and the first mainly a rhythm guitarist.
There I have a problem, as I find rhythm guitar playing in general not
so interesting. When it comes to accompanying I'd say both Page and
Brian May beat Townshend, exactly because these two didn't limit
themselves to rhythm play. In the riffing department Tony Iommi was
the superior one - heck, his whole band hung on it. Also there are the
classy riffs of Budgie's Tony Bourge. Both the main riffs of
Tyrefitter's Hand (hyper minimalistic) and Breadfan (hyper
complicated) are superior to everything Townshend ever presented -
which is not enough to argue that these two songs are better in their
entirety.
Townshend the synthesizer guy I can't appreciate very much. Sure, the
rather minimalistic approach of We won't get fooled again is great.
Still never the feeling escapes me that that minimalism is the
consequence of lack of skills. In other songs Townshend's synths
mainly serve to create an atmosphere, which for me is synonymous with
gluing a musical wallpaper.
As far as the rhythm combo goes - they never were as tight as Paice
and Glover on Made in Japan. At the other hand that was never
Moon/Entwistle's goal, so that doesn't count that much as an argument.
This all still means that The Who can be regarded as one of the
greatest bands ever, subjective considerations like emotional
resonance aside. Dissecting the individual members is simply not
enough. The Who at its best - and that is how I judge any band - is an
excellent example of the sum being more than its parts. And I'm very
much not sure if I can say that of any counterexample I brought up
here.
Gus Gilbertson (Gus.gilcoscaffolding.com) (01/13/13)
I started to read your material about the Who as my wife and I are about to see the QUADROPHENIA show here in Chicago & I see
you’re a fan of Yes & Genesis also.
Question: Why is it so uncool to like progressive rock like the two major acts of the genre, Yes & Genesis nowdays? It’s is
uncool to like that kind of music but Green Day are considered good? I don’t get it.
Gerard Romero (jromjet.icloud.com) (04/13/13)
Now this is comical.. I'd like to know what riff Townshend EVER played that put Jimmy Page to shame? It certainly wasn't Live at Leeds because Page could probably play those riffs with the guitar over his head. As a lead guitarist Page kicks his ass and Townshend wouldn't even attempt some of Page's solos like in Dazed and Confused or No Quarter..etc. on the other hand Page could step into the shoes of Townshend and Keith Richards live and make their riffs sound better!
Steven Highams (rawdon.lilly.gmail.com) (07/13/13)
Just been reading your Who page (will comment at some point); if you want
any Keith Moon stories, try reading 'Dear Boy', by Tony Fletcher; it's 550
pages long, give or take, and was published in 1998. It should still be
available somewhere and it will be an enjoyable read for you. There’s
even a picture of him proudly displaying a champagne bottle that had
wedged in the wall of his house after he had thrown it at his wife; he’s
framed it! Not that I condone such behaviour, but there you go!
Johnny (jp_bean.yahoo.com) (02/13/14)
I had the same thoughts about the Who as you did growing up. My dad has a couple of their records,and I remember my brother picking
apart the logical impossibility of the song. To me, the riff that plays after the chorus was as dumb as the name(like something
stoned hippies came up with or something) Somewhere around the end of high school though, I gave Who's Next a serious listen and
realized how amazing it was(even something soft like Baba O'Riley which I couldn't appreciate for many years) It wasn't for another
couple of years afte that that I really started to get into them. Unlike the Beatles or even the Stones (my music tastes arent
exactly conventional) I genuinely like most of their songs. Still want to listen to Entwistle's solo records, but I haven't had the
time. Basically, I agree with everything you say. Also, Keith Moon was the most punkrock motherfucker ever, the epitome of one who
has lived fast and died young.
Neil Kellett (knellee68.gmail.com) (08/13/14)
Thanks for the site, so much and diverse angles on The Who and their contribution to popular music. This is my take.... I don't NEED The
Who to be the greatest rock band ever, they had a calico career and in many ways they underachieved when you compare them with their
peers, CONTEMPORARY PEERS (because that is the only comparison). The Beatles and Stones cornered the safe, sophisticated, albeit
brilliant art of their own polished progress, artistry (and I love them for it) but The Who were something else. That they were
underachievers is a misnomer as I know that they dragged popular music by the scruff of its neck to a higher plane. And to I am a total
fan, but of a protracted moment in the history of this art, the evolution of The Who from British singles band to Monterey, Woodstock
and their aftermath. I like them less and less either side of this protracted moment.... but what a glorious moment! Forget ability
(even though they were more than able-remember that timeliness, that configuration of fading stars that still filled the sky over
Woodstock that morning when The Who created something that has been chased ever since. I am forever amazed at them then, just then, at
Townsend's self belief, Moon's otherworldly, staccato genius, of bombs and bullets, Entwistle's stake in the ground, Daltrey's voice and
visual presence. To my mind they never repeated it. Much is owed to the filming and editing of their performance that night but... they
made Bach, Grieg, Led Zeppelin that night. Without The Who there would be no Led Zep, no Punk.... can you imagine that? That Zeppellin
invited Moon (in his later idiocy) to tinker with Bonham's drums at live gigs was a clear act of expunging... Zep had to erase The Who,
their greatest inspiration, their greatest curse. I'm an ordinary guy but I can see through this. (Remember also that Moon was first
choice as drummer for a nascent Zep.... they had to contend with him naming them) I love Zep! I probably listen to them more. But why is
it that The Who at their peak just give more? Zep weren't ugly and The Who were not pretty. The Who remind us all that people love
passion above appearences. See The Who at Woodstock, listen to Live at Leeds and Tommy, listen to everyone else and love where you will.
The Who shape shifted so much, this was all due to Townsend. Townsend is an awkward intellectual, sometimes it works, sometimes no. I
saw a band that grew until the early seventies, marking artistic precedents that we feel today just as we feel The Beatles, and Stones.
The Beatles gave us love, The Stones, sex and The Who, anger. As for debates about ability, listen to the intro to AMAZING JOURNEY on
TOMMY, where Moon stamps in, this is music not musicianship and while it's easily repeated by anyone with an ounce of rhythm it is the
essence of genius, of startling art, of an alignment of stars. The Who welded the hardest and most sensitive in their music.... and I
love them for it! They made Led Zep and Zep made them back by trying so hard to supercede them. But Zep came after! And they knew/know
it. 69 to 71 The Who as a totality were out of sight, after that it went downhill fast, like a lead balloon. But the band, like all
youngsters, were gauche and naive before they came of age. But they believed beyond their ugly ducklings to grow, to do the hard work
needed to get to 1969. Yes MY GENERATION made them and without it we might never have heard of The Who, it was the purest expression of
youthful angst/aggression ever articulated. The Who were pioneers, groundbreakers, all that art demands with it's many failures and
moments of glory. Zeppellin were easy listening. The best are ugly making beauty, fleeting beauty.
david hoza (dav.hoza.me.com) (04/13/15)
Thank you for your review.
To proof the quality of the artist is really unable. The music deliver the emotion. It's her main massage. Not the entire instrumental
technique at all. You have to feel it and like it or dislike it. That's all. Are the Beatles better then the Stones? When yes, are the
the Stones worse up to 20% or just 8? Is Moon better then Watts? No. Each is just the part of the great music machine.
Btw Pete has to me similar riffs as Keith has. The great music has sometimes the same language. And that is good.
I've met the Who for the first time in 1992 on the album my favorite's band Rock n Roll Circus. Great stuff - A quick One. But I have
them really appreciated now (2015!!!!). To listen "We close tonight" and "explain how I feel"? I don't understand the drums at all. Had
he only two hands or what?
Simply great! You don't need the scientific explanation just enjoy the great sound!!!
It reminds me comparing the Land Rover and German competition. Germans are the top notch, sporty, high quality and sensitive. Everybody
wants bmw or Audi. But it is well known, that LR are much more capable on and off road as well, rough and comfy too. Simply beautifully
incomparable.
Best song: My Generation
An incredible debut for all sorts of reasons. First off, look at the track credits - see anything unusual? Like the fact that 10 of the tracks are credited to Townshend and Co.? Today, that might not seem quite extraordinary, but you have to remember that this was 1965, when only a select few groups had broken from the company-mandated "record one hit single and ten covers chosen by the record company" pattern. As a point of contrast, not even the Beatles (8 originals on Please Please Me) or the Stones (a mere 1 original on England's Newest Hitmakers) had been able to break that pattern as early as their first album, and both groups were still performing some covers on their albums even in 1965. And Pete didn't even have to put two of the band's biggest hits ("I Can't Explain," "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere") on the album to pull this off!
More importantly, though, is the stylistic revolution brought with this album. Nothing like the Ramones' buzzsaw-tone can be found here, but if you consider the attitude and approach of this album, it would be difficult to argue that this isn't the very first punk album. But it's even more than that, as The Who brought professional-level chops and catchy, well-written melodies to the table along with the needed pissitude and aggression. It was chaos, but controlled chaos. And so on and so on.
Most important, though, is that the songs are good almost start to finish. Well, ok, with two exceptions - the band wasn't able to totally escape the covers trap, so they threw on a couple of renditions of James Brown songs (at Roger's insistence). And they're awful. At this early stage, Daltrey was a decent enough singer as far as sounding aggressive and pissed off go, but he absolutely could NOT sing traditional R&B. The rest of the band seemed wholely uncomfortable in this idiom as well. Needless to say, these two songs are definite skips, and they reduce the album to only about 30 minutes of good music.
But WHAT 30 minutes of good music. Two of the songs have gone down in history as classics, and rightly so. "My Generation" is the best example of the punkish demeanor of the album, with some of Pete's most infamous anti-old-people-and-society lyrics ("I hope I die before I get old"), as well as with instrument rattling and feedback creation of a level certainly unheard of at such an early date. "The Kids Are Alright" isn't much worse, though, as it combines lovely Beatlish harmonies (and guitar/bass/drums work that makes this a nearly perfect power pop song) with a declaration of the unity that the younger generation felt as they grouped together. It's a subtler way of expressing animosity towards the older generation than saying, "F*CK OFF, OLD MAN," but it certainly has the same point and is just as effective. Another punkish display is found in the instrumental "The Ox," where the band jams over some piano playing from session man Nicky Hopkins. As the name implies, Entwistle is featured the most, but Moon's powerhouse drumming certainly provides its share of power while Pete colors in some lines here and there.
And lo, what would a punk album be without some good ole-fashioned misogyny? Both "A Legal Matter" and the dark "The Good's Gone" certainly qualify, especially the former, which showcases Pete talking about why he's breaking off his engagement. The latter is great as well, as it features a mean-spirited, stinging guitar line throughout. There's also the wonderful "La La La Lies," which spends its time chastising a mean-spirited lady, and the opener "Out In The Street," which sounds like one of the best Stones-songs the Stones never wrote (but with an overpowering feedback section in the middle). And, heck, why does almost nobody every mention "It's Not True"? The lyrics are hilarious, the melody is incredibly catchy, and of course the chorus rules. So why doesn't anybody love this song??
Ok, this isn't a perfect album, but few things are. I didn't even bother to go into detail about another pair of good songs, "Much Too Much" and "Instant Party (Circles)," but that's just because they stand beside the other giants of the album. It loses some points because of the abominable covers, and the fact that the album is kinda short otherwise, but I can't complain more than that. Get this album, but get the original; the remastered, deluxe version messes with a lot of its charm.
David Uskovich (dau.mail.utexas.edu)
Have you seen the cover for the U.K. release of "My Generation?"
It's way cooler than the U.S. cover. It's got the band, in their pop art
outfits (Union Jack coat etc.), photographed from a bird's eye view. They
stare up at the camera all snotty and punk. I found the album on vinyl
about 15 years ago, and I still kick myself for not buying it. I guess
that photo has gotten exceedingly rare, because I can't even find it on
the Internet.
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
I took this one to the used record store. I love My Generation, but
there's little else to recommend the album. I agree that the attitude is
certainly there, and at least SOMEBODY in the mid sixties had something
better to write about than their girlfriend. But the songs just aren't
very good.
Eric Benac (benac.voyager.net) (5/31/03)
you should get the deluxe reissue of this album that was recently
released: it contains the british cover that guy was raving about and it
is quite cool. plus it comes with a shit load of bonus tracks: but hte
best part ist he improved sound. except on my generation, the song: it
seems neutered somehow. nevermind: it's good.
Best song: Boris The Spider
Oops. This album stands as eternal proof of the stupidity of record companies. The group was struggling fiscally, so MCA advanced them some money to record songs for a new album. The only problem here was that, instead of giving the money to the group, MCA advanced each member individually, and as a result all four of them had to write songs. Considering that Pete had thus far established himself as THE songwriter of the group, this was a risky venture at best, and one that did not work well in this case. The Who of Quick One sounds very different from that of the debut, and while I can give credit to the band for branching out into different areas than Maximum R&B, this is still a rough first step in the band's artistic growth. Also, the aggression level shown on the debut is only intermittently displayed here - much of the rest of the time, the band seems to think that the way to popular success is to make themselves sound as sissified as possible, and while sissification isn't bad in and of itself, the process seems very forced and unnatural throughout this album. In other words, there's only so much group falsetto I can take at one time.
On the plus side, this whole endeavour caused John to realize that he had a knack for writing dark comedy numbers, and he chips in with two of the best songs on the album. "Boris the Spider," the sad tale of Boris' encounter with somebody who has the normal human reaction to spiders, would remain a fan favorite for years. After all, besides the actual tune, how can anybody resist the funny Boris voice? But anyway, "Whiskey Man" is a minor classic in its own right, a piece with an effective brass coda and a vocal delivery made most interesting by John's inability to properly enunciate is "r"'s when singing "friend," forcing him to simulate it by singing "flend" on one track and "fwend" on another.
On the negative side, Keith's and Roger's numbers don't give much justification to the record company's decision. Keith's "Cobwebs and Strange" is amusing in a circusesque way, an instrumental with all sorts of percussion and penny whistle and brass and all that jazz, but "I Need You" is mediocre at best, with the percussion mixed excessively high to drown out the low quality of the vocal melody. As for Roger's "See My Way," the less said about that, the better.
Now, what's most distressing is that even Pete's contributions are uneven - he was generating good singles around this time, but the album material is somewhat lacking. "Run, Run, Run" is a good R&B groover, with crunchy rhythm guitar driving things forward, but it really gives the impression of an outtake from the debut sessions. "Don't Look Away," though, is especially disappointing, a countryish ditty that has very little in the way of compactness in the melody presentation and that seems to ramble hopelessly. It's not intolerable, sure, but ehn ...
That said, Pete does manage to come across with one complete classic on the album, the power-pop gem "So Sad About Us." It really does do a good job of consolidating everything The Who could do well at this time - solid pop instincts, a dose of crunch in the rhythm work, pretty harmonies and clever lyrics ("apologies mean nothing when the damage is done/but you can't switch off my loving like you can't switch off the sun" is one of my favorite lines ever) all make an appearance here. Good stuff.
The most important historical aspect of the album, though, comes from one of the other two tracks, and I'm of course not talking about the two-minute cover of "Heatwave." "A Quick One, While He's Away" is the world's first "rock-opera," a 9-minute tale of marital infidelity, and while it would completely come to life on stage, it's not so impressive here. Many parts of it that would knock the listeners socks off live come across as outright dumb and wimpy here (the first case that comes to mind is when they sing "clang clang .." and "cello cello..."), and they definitely hurt the piece as a whole, but it's still a worthy attempt. And let's give Pete some credit, here; his bandmates had (overall) let the band down as far as producing enough material to fill out the LP, so he had to do something to fill that 9-minute space. Good ole Pete, willing to awkwardly break through boundries.
So thus far, it doesn't seem like much has been done to justify a rating as high as a 8, especially when it first got a grade two lower, but that's because I finally realized that the bonus tracks here definitely merit an increase. None of them are "serious," but they are all so much fun that I marvel that I failed to notice them before. My favorite is another John comedy-number called "I've Been Away," where he sings about his brother Bill screwing him over and sings such lines as "never ever ever gonna speak to Bill again." Other than that, it's hard not to enjoy their covers of "Bucket T" and "Barbara Ann," and the other various originals are definitely worth a couple of whirls. Heck, I even enjoy the acoustic version of the single "Happy Jack," and the "My Generation"/"Land of Hope and Glory" medley is nothing short of HILARIOUS. So yeah, they're all worth a point.
Elliot J Huntley (elliot.ejhuntley.f9.co.uk)
No comments as such, I can't write record reviews but I was wondering
could anyone tell me why Daltrey only ended up writing one song for the
album? Indeed could anyone tell me why, to the best of my knowledge he
only received a writing credit on 4 songs in his entire Who career. I
can't believe that he had no ideas to contribute or that he wasn't
allowed - Moon certainly was allowed much more album space.
Thought09.aol.com
Yes, i'd have to agree that this album is subpar, but c'mon, "let's
pretend this one never existed" ? This album has to be one of the top 10
of '66 at least....maybe top 5. Yeah, it was a dumb idea to have all the
members write songs for it, but I don't think the songs are that bad. I
admit that I was a little dissapointed in this album when I first got it,
but in retrospect it's great fun. I would still rate this album higher
than any who album post who by numbers.
(author's note): Well, I might have underrated this album, but top
five of '66??!! The year of Revolver, Blonde on Blonde,
Pet Sounds, Aftermath, Fifth Dimension ... ?
Run Run Run is a kick ass r&b rock song that has an awesome crunch to it.
I mean no one had this kind of punk-rock groove back then. Boris and
Whiskey Man start the tradition of John's rather weird songwriting style;
absolutely classic. Cobwebs and Strange is AWESOME!!!! What other bit of
recorded music can convey what a loon moon was....PSYCHO!! british patent
exploding drummer... So Sad About Us is one of the greatest examples of a
british 60s power pop song ever --- awesome. I personally think they
shoulda used this as their single and not happy jack (even though Jack was
successful).....and what of the title track? Every keeps noting how this
started Pete on his rock opera trend....but c'mon, this is a far cry from
the grandiose concepts of tommy....this is pure who humor and sillyness.
Rock should never take itself too serious (even PT suffered some from
that) and this tune was just a freakin' hoot.
You have to remember that the who of 'a quick one' and the who of
everything post 'sell out' are really two completely different
groups. Pete said himself in the mid 60s that the who didn't have any
talent or substance, it was just pure sensationalism...of course we know
that's bullshit...but you have to realize that even to the members of the
group the feeling, appearance, volume, and radicalism of what they were
doing were more important than the individual songs. I listen to this
album and experience the WHO circa 1966, not writing the
rock-will-save-the-world stuff of lifehouse, but just being a hard
rocking fuckin rock and roll band busting onto the scene.
(author's note): At the same time, though, I would much rather
listen to the group's singles from the same era, as I think they convey
the hard rocking aspect of this era of the Who much better.
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
This one blows.
Trfesok.aol.com (11/06/04)
I tend to enjoy this one a bit more every time I put it on, but not much.
It's clear that they were trying to come up with their own Revolver. It
rivals that album for diversity, to be sure. But not in songwriting, to
be sure of that, too. "Run, Run, Run" and "So Sad About Us" wouldn't be
much without the band's instrumental prowess behind them. "Cobwebs and
Strange" and the title track are interesting, kind of fun experiments,
but they aren't entirely successful, either. I find that John's songs
(including the bonus tracks, especially the hilarious hypochondria of
"Doctor, Doctor") are actually consistently stronger here than anyone
else's. And the cover songs are pretty much filler as well.
I think I would enjoy the songs, though, if the album had been recorded
better by new producer Kit Lambert. On the remaster, Keith's careening
drums and John's loopy bass come through clearly, but the tinny guitar
and high voices sound really weak. You wouldn't know this was the same
band that was coming up with legendarily loud and powerful live shows ("A
Quick One," in particular, is incomparable in live versions).
Unfortunately, they wouldn't resolve the inconsistencies in the studio
for a few years yet, with this album suffering the most.
Nathan Schulz (nschulz4537.gmail.com) (04/25/06)
Hi John, I'm a young man with ambitions of possibly starting my own
review site, so I thought I'd post my "A Quick One" review which I
wrote for my possible site. Here 'tis:
This is one unexpectedly shitty album. Before recording their second
album, The Who were strapped for cash, and what that meant was that
every member would have to contribute original material, they'd have
to record the shittiest sounding cover ever done by anyone, the whole
album would have to sound like it was recorded and mixed in about a
half hour, and there'd be no cello. The results are often
dreadful: Heatwave is so fuckin' out of tune you wouldn't believe
it. "Cobwebs and Strange" sounds like four people walking around a
room bashing toys together, which is essentially what it is. And
have you ever listened to Moon's lyrics and singing to "I Need You"?
"Knowing: Is what people tell you," just despicable stuff,
really. It certainly doesn't take The Who to write material of this
caliber. I'm not sure who you are, but trust me, you could've done
better than that.
However, the non-Moon non-Cover songs are better. Three of the four
songs Townshend wrote aren't particularly exciting, and don't really
sound too different from the lesser material on the debut. The title
track is pretty ambitious though, a nine-minute multi-parted rock
opera that predates any concept album I can think of. My favorite
part of the song is when Ivor the old engine driver has "relations"
with the protagonist. Good song, good song. You know what else is
a good song? See My Way. Yeah, in spite of all its flaws, I can't
help but sing along "Some way, Some day, I'll find a way, To make you
see my way!" Although the tune rhymes "way" with "day," and then
with "way," and then with "way" again, you can't help but love it.
Oh, and also Entwistle's groovy psychedelic surf-rocker "Boris the
Spider" is easily the best thing on here, and "Whiskey Man" isn't
really that bad.
Even though I can't say I enjoy this album, it is a little
admirable. This album is blessed with a newly found sense of
rudimentary experimentation and diversity but plagued by horrid
production and songwriting. It's totally excusable though, as they
badly needed money, and would dramatically improve in quality
hereafter.
Oh, there's also some bonus tracks, but I'm not listening to anything
that was rejected from this album any time soon, so you're on your
own there.
How's that then?
Best song: I Can See For Miles
One of the greatest concept albums ever, both in terms of the concept and of the song material. The album is setup to mimic an archetypical late 60's British pirate radio broadcast, commericials and all, and The Who absolutely nail it here. They really took care of all the little details here, both in the kinds of commercials and the way they flow in and out of the songs. Sometimes the commercials are "full" spots, like for Heinz Baked Beans or Odorono, but oftentimes the interludes are fragmented and shortened or even nonsensical, much the way you'd find it in real life. So before the album starts, we hear horns and a distorted voice listing the days of the week; before "Our Love Was" we hear "Radio London reminds you, goooo to the chuuuuuurch of your choooooooooice,"; before "I Can See For Miles" we have a whole slew of jingles slammed into each other. All the short jingles are memorable as hell, and they manage to be incredibly hilarious, not in so much of a bust-out-laughing way as in a subtle, Monty Python way. It also ends up that one's impression of the song material can't help but include these jingles - "Our Love Was" just seems so incomplete without its intro, for instance.
Commercials or no commercials, though, the main reason I rate this album so highly is that the songs are stunning, an incredible improvement over the inconsistency that had marred A Quick One. To this point, The Who had proven themselves to be an incredible singles band, but their dominance in the album format was still very questionable. Here, though, almost everything works - Pete managed to come up with a ton of great songs in several styles, and the result is an album that never gets boring and flows incredibly well.
Honestly, I consider the first side just nigh of perfect, and only a slight breakdown on side two keeps the album from a perfect score and (possibly) the band's finest moment. The opening "Armenia, City in the Sky" is lyrically lightweight (or weightless, as it's about a city in space; oh I kill me sometimes), but that's the only reason I can come up with for it not being considered a complete classic. Filled with backwards feedback giving support to a wonderful vocal melody (with weirdly distorted vocals), it's the perfect opener for an album like this, and one I wouldn't trade for the world.
After a brief word from "Heinz Baked Beans," the band launches into the wonderful innuendo-laced classic, "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands." There are actually a number of versions of this track floating around the world, and this probably isn't the best one, but even so, it would be hard to find another song that makes handjobs so catchy. The harmonies are perfectly lovely, the lyrics are funny, the melody is simple yet genial, and the shaky-voiced fadeout is a hilarious way to top it all off.
Up next is another commercial and another pop ballad, and each take the album up another notch or three. For some reason, some people are offended by the idea that Pete decided to combine such a genial pop melody with lyrics for a deodorant commercial, but I can't understand that. The lyrics paint out a detailed story of love, loss and B.O., and the ending twist that makes it into a commercial only adds to the novelty and enjoyability. Pete graces the proceedings with a simply lovely vocal, while Daltrey provides good harmonies here and there (I love the way he sings "triumphant" in the background), and in short it's just a good ole'-fashioned pop classic. Much like the following "Tattoo," which features an utterly brilliant guitar line underpinning the vocal melody, as well as MORE of the gorgeous harmonies that the band was proving itself capable of providing. The lyrics do a wonderful job of capturing all sorts of teenage emotions - confusion, directionless rebellion, a longing for "maturity," etc - and they're framed in a context of both humor and regret. In short, it's hard to get much better than this.
But of course, the next two tracks exceed it and then some. "Our Love Was" is a STUNNINGLY gorgeous ballad (with more Pete vocals) with yet ANOTHER brilliant guitar line (which is much like that of John Lennon's "Dear Prudence," written a year later), another great vocal melody, a soaring chorus, and an efficient-yet-moving guitar solo that has to rank among the best Pete ever put to tape. Songs like this show just how much Pete had matured as a songwriter - he had showed on the debut that he could write aggressive, hard-edged songs with the best of them, but A Quick One showed him struggling a bit with softer, less pissed-off songs. On a song like this, though, Pete is able to tap into feelings of love and longing as well anybody ever would again, and do so without relying on anything even remotely smelling of banal.
The best track of all, though, has Pete returning to his more aggressive roots, and this combination of newfound songwriting uber-genius and the style with which the band had always been comfortable results in quite possibly the best song the band would ever do. I'm speaking, of course, about "I Can See For Miles," the first song of the group to really make me take notice and realize the level of genius inherent. Heck, I'll take it one step further - if somebody were to ask me what one track best sums up everything good about 60's rock, THIS would be my choice. Simply put, you will never ever again hear a track that combines such a perfect proto-punk riff with such complex harmonies with such a catchy and untrivial vocal melody (listen to that counterpoint in the "The eiffel tower and the Taj Mahal" part!) with such angry and bitter lyrics with the greatest one-note guitar solo ever with drumming that sums up everything good about Keith Moon. It's all here, and it simply doesn't get much better than this.
Now, unfortunately, the second side can't quite live up to the splendor of the first. But it tries nonetheless. One can spot some slight cracks in the songwriting here and there, as stuff like the acid-rock "Relax" or John's dark comedy "Silas Stingy," while not really bad, cause me to experience a slight letdown after the brilliance of side one. It also doesn't help that the near perfect flow of jingles between tracks isn't as prevalent here as before - there's a couple of brief ads (one for the Charles Atlas dynamic tension course, one for acne medication), but there's no brilliant sequences like the one leading from "Our Love Was" to "ICSFM."
Still the second side does have a pair of stunning ballads (both sung by Pete) that are easily on par with anything on the first side. "I Can't Reach You" is sheer pop bliss, abounding in hooks, and while it doesn't boast any moments quite like the guitar solo in "Our Love Was," I end up finding myself enjoying this even more than that masterpiece. I also mustn't forget the beautiful, simply beautiful "Sunrise," which shows that emotional catharsis can result simply from putting a quality melody in three different keys. The lyrics are completely heartfelt, Pete's singing shows a tenderness that Daltrey couldn't yet have even hoped to match, and the production is such that there really is a "breaking-of-dawn" feel to the whole thing.
For whatever odd reason, though, Pete decided to keep one connection with the previous album - closing things out with a mini-opera. The most notable aspect of "Rael" is that it features the guitar line which would become the "Sparks" theme on Tommy, but the concept, while well flushed-out and all, doesn't add much to the ideas of mutiny and betrayal that hadn't already been exploited in hundreds of literary themes. Still, though, it's a ton less clumsy than the studio version of "A Quick One" (blah blah blah), and while it's not the ideal close for an album like this, the band certainly could have done worse.
In the end, then, though it does falter a bit at the end, The Who Sell Out is nothing short of an incredible pop masterpiece, and one you should rush out and get NOW. The re-release adds a ton of bonus tracks, designed to look like the "lost third side" of the album, and while they're mostly inferior to basically anything on the regular release, they're still worth a listen or two. Personally, I shut the album off after "Rael 2," a minute-long Pete-sung epilogue to the mini-opera that I enjoy much more, but many people swear by the tracks, so your mileage may vary.
Barry Schnorr (jpmorgan.imsa.edu)
What an amazing album. I do disagree with you about some of the
relative stronger and weaker tracks on it, though. Sunrise and Mary-Anne
With The Shaky Hands fail to thrill me--I really like the formers guitar
line, but the singing is just too sappy. But Relax, while not the best
song theyve ever pressed, is kind of catchy.
And I really dig Rael. Its a little weird hearing that guitar line
"again" after getting used to it on Tommy, but Im not complaining!
The
playing is, if not amazing, at least rousing and powerful. I hear in this
not only of Tommy, but also of ELPs Karn Evil 9 Impression 3, like
in those rolling "Now Captain listen to my instructions..." lines and the
ideas of betrayal and chaos. Exactly what it has to do with Israel Im not
sure (this was around the time of the 6-day war) but its a great story
anyway.
Dont skip on those bonus tracks either! Jaguar, Girls Eyes, Hall
Of The Mountain King (they could even do sound effects to the level of
Pink Floyd when they wanted to--cool), Glow Girl, Early Morning Cold
Taxi--all are great. Some of the others are somewhat weak, but its
impressive that outtakes of this quality are the stuff left OFF the
albums.
Oh and psst: You spelled "Tattoo" wrong, and there is no such word
as "persay" or "per say". "Per se" is the phrase, Latin for "itself" or
"of itself".
Rich Bunnell (richbunnell.home.com)
To Barry Schnorr: Actually, "per se" literally means "through itself."
"Of itself" would be "Sui." Yeah, the root of the word "suicide."
JohnnyB8.aol.com
I love this album. And i only got it yesterday! (2/18/01) My favorite
songs
are probably Silas Stingy (I know, not an original, but still great
harmonies
"Money, money, moneybags, money, moneybags there goes mingy stiiingy..."
and
I Can't Reach You. Rael is a good song and Daltrey's Early Morning Cold
Taxi
isn't too bad. I have a question, though. Is that Keith Moon and John
Entwhisle singing lead on Keith's Girls Eyes? I know that they wrote all
of
the commercials together, but they sing really good together if its them.
So,
someone, if you know for sure, post a message here at the site or send me
an
email at JohnnyB8.aol.com. thanx alot. seeya.
(five minutes later)
in your review, you have just a little mistake...the Rael lines aren't
from
Sparks, the Sparks lines are from Rael. heehee
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
Probably the most fun Who album. The extra tracks on the re-release
should have remained on the cutting room floor.
Joe H (jcjh.home.com) (11/25/01)
Incredible record. Everyones pretty much hit the mark with this already
so i wont say much. The concept and the commericals are hilarious to me
though, and "Odorono" is an awesome song for a song about deodorant!! Im
really glad Townshend sang these ballads too, like the amazing "Our Love
Was", "Sunrise", and "I cant reach you", cuz sometimes i just tend to
prefer his voice to Daltreys, and i couldnt imagine him singing them
either! I love this album, and i hope you will too. I'd definatly give
this a 9/10.
Trfesok.aol.com (11/06/04)
The concept itself is probably the most realized of any of the 1967
concept albums (with the possible exception of Days of Future Passed),
but it's definitely the one with the best sense of humor. The Who don't
take it too seriously, fortunately. "I Can See For Miles" definitely
stands head and shoulders above everything else here, but the rest of the
songwriting, I agree, is stronger than on the last album. Kit Lambert's
production is still pretty weak, though.
I also think that you underrate the bonus tracks. "Early Morning, Cold
Taxi" and "Melancholia", I think, have much better vocals from Daltrey
than anything on the album proper, as his style begins to develop towards
what he'd achieve on Who's Next. The latter song is an interesting find
-- according to the liner notes from Scoop, Pete didn't even remember
playing the demo for the band, never mind recording it with them!
Another nitpick, is (just as the original "Happy Jack" should have been
on the reissue of A Quick One), "Substitute," "Call Me Lightning,"
"Pictures of Lily" and "Magic Bus" should have been included among the
bonuses. Great A-sides that were also recorded during this period. But I
guess that would have led to a double CD..
"Daniel Penner" (dzpenner.gmail.com) (09/13/10)
I don't mean to spoil the party (hah), but "Armenia City in the Sky"
was, oddly, not written by the band. It was written for the band by
Pete's then-roommate (and future bandmate) John Keen. Not that the fact
makes the song or the album any less good, but it does throw a slight
wrench in using the song as a exemplar of the band's crazy songwriting
progress (I guess this John Keen fellow was pretty talented). That being
said, the song's crazy-awesome arrangement is certainly the band's (I'd
guess mostly Pete's) work, so no big deal.
Best song: We're Not Gonna Take It
The world's first full length rock-opera, the world today knows of it primarily because of the corny video adaptation or its broadway equivalent. The storyline, in case you haven't exposed yourself to modern-day arts, is basically as follows. A very young boy named Tommy Walker sees his father murder his mother's lover, and is told by his parents that he saw nothing, heard nothing, and would never say anything about it. As a defense mechanism, or something like that, he becomes completely deaf, dumb, and blind to everything except his own reflection in the mirror. As he grows older, he suffers abuse at the hands of
relatives, driving him further into his own little world. His one overwhelming skill, btw, turns out to be playing pinball, despite being unable to see or hear anything. Anyways, his mother concludes that the mirror he stares at all day is the root of his problems, so she breaks it, snapping Tommy out of his mental state. All around, people hear of his miraculous recovery, and they decide to make him their new messiah. Tommy decides to go along, thinking he can make the world a better place by spreading a message of peace, love, and pinball. Unfortunately, after his followers come to his religious home, a seaside resort, they all become disillusioned, and they denounce him and his doctrine. Deeply saddened by this, Tommy reverts into his previous deaf dumb and blind state.
I have to admit, that's a pretty lame storyline, and although Pete took it completely seriously (it was symbolic of ideas he had gained during his following of religious figure Meher Baba), it's difficult for me or almost anybody else to not snicker (although the story seemingly captured the world's imagination and helped with sales immeasurably). And, unfortunately, the dippy plot turns a lot of people away from this album. That is a complete and utter shame, for the story is not the only appeal of this piece, and certainly not why I gave it such a high grade.
Indeed, whatever feelings you may have on the album's influence, for better or worse, or the silliness of the story, or of many other things, this should not obfuscate what I consider one undeniable truth - the actual music is some of the best the rock world has ever seen. If, like me, you view solid riffs as the primary (not the only, but certainly the primary) foundation upon which good rock songs are built, then this album must automatically be considered one of the all-time greats if only because the number of truly brilliant riffs found here is simply stunning. Perhaps it's the fact that there are so many riffs on here that would be obvious standouts on other albums, by the Who or otherwise, that cause many people to seemingly take them for granted (ie it's easier to spot genius in a sea of not-so-genius than it is when many instances of genius are crammed together in one place), but I simply cannot understand (or relate to) any rubric of taste that doesn't revere the brilliant efficiency that is the riffs to songs like "Pinball Wizard" or "Acid Queen" or "I'm Free" or "Go to the Mirror" or "Sparks" or WHATEVER. It should also be noted that Pete's skills in writing high quality vocal melodies for his songs did not diminish whatsoever since Sell Out, and so in addition to numerous high quality guitar riffs, there are also quite a few vocal themes that stand up to anything he ever wrote before or after (I'm in particular looking at the vocal melody to "Christmas," and the themes to "We're Not Gonna Take It" and its companion, "See Me, Feel Me"). And hey, let us not forget the hidden gem of the album, the EXTREMELY catchy, fun and relaxing "Sally Simpson," where Sally accidentally gets whacked in the face by Tommy while trying to touch him at a religious revival of sorts.
It also helps that, because the album is meant to take on an operatic form (at least, that was Pete's intent), Pete realized the need to use these melodies and riffs to create a sort of "song cycle," with frequent repetition of them as needed. Some may use this as evidence in an argument that Townshend actually had less inspiration for this album than on other Who albums, saying that repetition of the same themes over and over demonstrates a shortage of original ideas, but I would greatly beg to differ. Only once on the album does the repetition of a theme blatantly cry out FILLER, in the ten-minute "Underture," where Townshend beats the "Sparks" theme to death and then some; otherwise, all of the other instances of "theme quoting" demonstrate Pete's mastery of style and mood, as he takes the theme in question and creates a drastically different atmosphere accompanying the theme than when it first graced the listener's ear. And as a bonus of sorts, in the opening "Overture" (after all, every good opera needs an overture), we get a glorious preview of all the great themes to come, spliced together seamlessly in a way that can't help but get the listener excited in anticipation of all the great music to come.
Amidst all the "primary" songs, there's also a bunch of short "plot" songs, and while these cause some people to fidget and squirm, I simply have nothing against them. Tracks that serve only as plot exposition would eventually prove one of the slight banes of concept albums in rock, yet these manage to avoid being a problem because they're all short, to the point and memorable. A couple of them are contributed by John and Keith to purposefully bring down the level of pretense (the sad "Do You Think It's Alright?" and "Fiddle About," in which Tommy gets sexually abused by "Uncle Ernie," and "Tommy's Holiday Camp," where Tommy's followers are introduced to their new digs), and the rest are effective bits like "There's a Doctor," "Tommy Can You Hear Me?" and "Sensation." No useless attempts at atmospherics, no attempt to try and make them into more than they are, just little interludes that do their thing and get out of the way for the main songs.
For all the high quality songs, though, the biggest selling point (for me, anyway) is definitely the overall sound of the album. To those of you who were introduced to this album via the Broadway musical, I'm oh so terribly sorry - rest assured, this album sounds nothing like that. Due to being more-or-less broke, as well as realizing that their ability to play this album live would be impeded by excessive "fancy" instrumentation, Pete made the wise decision to make this a rock opera in the truest sense of the word. Aside from minimal French Horn (thanks to John - what a cool guy) and Hammond organ embellishments, this "pretentious" album is rock music at its most base level - guitar (very often acoustic at that), bass, drums and vocals. Nothing is overproduced, the rhythm section is its usual astounding self, Roger's singing is the best yet on a Who album ... what could be better?
In the end, the only flaws are a bit of unfortunate filler (aside from "Underture," there's also the verrrrrry boring and sleepy "Welcome" near the end), and maybe the fact that the sound is more subdued than fans of, say, "My Generation" might be used to. Aside from that, though, this is an E if ever there was one.
Nick Karn (glassmoondt.yahoo.com)
Here's a thought I have dealing with what occurs at
the beginning... the opening lines of the album are,
"Captain Walker didn't come home, his unborn child
will never know him." To me that implies that he was
murdered or died in some tragic accident. So what is
the deal with Tommy 'seeing his father murder his
father's lover'? I'm not sure what happened, as I
guess Pete purposely left things obscure, but the
opening line rules out that possibility IMO.
(author's note): I have responded to Nick on this and have
explained my justification for my viewpoint of the story. At some later
point in time, I may or may not attach a link to a FAQ of sorts with
regards to the story.
This album pisses me off, though, because there's so
much great stuff here that, if it was consistent
enough, it could be one of my favorite albums of all
time, but I hate "Underture" (a HUGE blight here..
boring beyond words), "Welcome", "Tommy Can You Hear
Me?" and other stupid corny short bits as much as I
love "Go To The Mirror!" (what a melody), "Overture",
"1921" and "Sally Simpson". So that's how I came up
with the 8. I need to go get Quadrophenia and
Who's Next. You and George have talked me into
getting more Who stuff. :)
"Lutz, Leonard" (llutz.ADESTA-ITS.com)
Tommy Walker sees his father murder his mother's lover,
"Captain Walker did'nt come home, his unborn son will never know him"
Robert Grazer (xeernoflax.jack-the-ripper.com)
My favorite Who album. While the story is downright stupid the music and
some lyrics are fantastic. There are too many tracks to go into
individually, but I'll mention a few. "I'm Free" is one of the standouts.
It's very simple, but very good. The popular "Pinball Wizard" is great
even if it's somewhat overrated. "1921" is an excellent song on here, and
so is "We're Not Gonna Take It." I think I'll stop there before I name
every song on the album. No, I'll mention one more. I LOVE "The Acid
Queen."
BEST TRACK: MAYBE "Christmas," but I don't really know because they're are
all pretty even.
COMPLAINTS: While no songs are completely bad, a few of them have some
very bad parts. Nothing that significant that needs to be mentioned in
detail, but just know that they exist.
RATING: My Scale ***** John McFerrin's Scale: *10(14)*
Thought09.aol.com
I know not why everyone on this page bashes the story of tommy.
Put simply enough, all it's about finding your inner peace and
spirituality. Ok, it's a little more complex than that, but the point is
that you don't need to pay attention to all the little specific bits that
happen in the storyline. Sparks is tommy...I mean, more can be
explained though those notes of the point of the tommy concept than
anyone set of lyrics, IMO. Which is why I don't mind Underture. Yeah,
it's a little long and repetitive, but I can listen to it and just get
into a trance of what tommy's feeling inside his soul. I mean the fact
that tommy's deaf dumb and blind is just a cover for what townshend felt
about himself and others at that time....the feeling that people are deaf
dumb and blind to their soul. Pete, around '68, was starting to shun the
rock star lifestyle that he was involved in with all the acidheads and
whatnot, and was seeking spirtuality like many people do at one point in
their lives. There were other points to tommy, like the fact that
if you try to find easy answers to life's problems and just join the trend
or follow blindly with the group, you may well be crushed and realize that
it was all a hoax...but basically finding your inner peace is the
point...not 'well tommy was born, then his dad died, then he was abused,
and they couldn't find help for his condition...etc, etc...
JohnnyB8.aol.com
Ok, look. Before I start, i just want to say that, as most of you know,
the
beginning of the story can be easily explained through A Quick One, While
He's Away. So, based on what i've read, heard, and seen in the movie and
play, here is the story, step-by-step (i'll put it in chapters) And i
hope
that you like to read because im going song-by-song as well:
Chapter 1 (Overture~It's A Boy)
Captain Walker is sent to war while his wife is pregnant.
Apparently,
he dies during this time. Tommy is born at the end of the war, however,
it
appears to be too late because Capt. Walker is dead.
Chapter 2(You Didn't Hear It or 1921)
Tommy's mother meets a nice guy who really isn't a bad character
(Ivar
or Ivan the Engine Driver from A Quick One, While He's Away), or so we
think.
Tommy, his mother and her lover live together for a while. Some time
passes
and Tommy grows to like this new man. One night, before Tommy goes to
sleep,
a shadowy-like figure appears in the hallway. It's Captain Walker. He
takes a
look at his son before he enters the mother's room. When he gets to the
mother's room,he sees her with the lover and then either he is killed by
captain Walker or captain Walker is killed by the lover, but ill go with
the
liner notes, which says that Captain Walker killed the lover. (This means
that either the liner notes or Ken Russel is wrong.) Now, Tommy had
followed
his father (Captain Walker) into the room and saw the whole thing.
Tommy's
Mother (who i will refer to as just Mother) and Captain Walker (who i
will
just refer to as Father) pull Tommy aside and tell him that he saw
nothing,
he heard nothing, and won't tell anyone about the incident. Tommy goes
deep
inside of himself and becomes deaf, dumb, and blind.
Chapter 3 (Amazing Journey~Sparks)
Now, i believe that this song should not even be on the album,
basically because the second half (Sparks) is the second half of Rael 1.
Dont
get me wrong, its an awesome song but it just doesnt belong on this
album. If
i could take it off and put another song on the album, it would be Heaven
and
Hell, but it would be at the end (I'll explain that at the end of my
story
here). But basically, this song should be after the Hawker~Eyesight to
the
Blind, and im rambling so ill stop and just say what i have to say. This
song
is about what Tommy sees inside and what he is feeling. Tommy sees
himself
inside his body and is just flying through different visions in his
little
head. Then, Sparks is what he is. Tommy is Sparks. Tommy feels Sparks.
Tommy
sees Sparks. Tommy hears Sparks. It's hard to explain, but that is the
basic
outline of the song.
Chapter 4 (The Hawker or Eyesight to the Blind)
Ok. This song is pretty easy. The Hawker is a preist or minister of
some sort. His church is that of the religion of Pop Culture. The members
of
the religion rely on their gods (musicians, actors, actresses) to cure
their
illnesses. So, Tommy's mother took him to to the church/temple/whatever
to
try to cure him. Well, Tommy ends up accidentally destroying the church,
oh,
and by the way, he isn't cured.
Chapter 5 (Christmas)
Well, its that wonderful time of year again. Where everyone is
getting
wonderful presents and such. Sucks for Tommy. Since he can't hear, see,
or
talk, he has no idea about anything thats going on.. By this time, Tommy
has
his whole family wondering about him. Wondering what is going on inside
his
head. Wondering if he really can tell whats going on, but he just doesn't
know how to respond.
Chapter 6 (Cousin Kevin)
Another easy chapter. Tommy's parents have to go somewhere, so they
leave him with Cousin Kevin, family meanie. After Tommy's parents leave,
his
Cousin puts him through hell. He leaves him outside in the rain, pushes
him
down the steps, and ducks his head under water. Tommy's parents come
back,
but there is no sign of any harm done to Tommy because Kevin fixes him
up.
Chapter 7 (The Acid Queen)
What a weird one this was...Tommy's father takes him to a drugged
out
dancer who thinks that she can cure him. He is subjected to all types of
crap, none of which can cure him. That's it.
Chapter 8 (Underture)
This really doesn't need an explanation. Its much like Sparks. Its
what Tommy is feeling deep inside of himself. Basically a continuation of
Sparks.
Chapter 9 (Do You Think Its Alright?~Fiddle About)
Ok look. There is more to this than just " OOH!Tommy got raped by
his
uncle!". Tommy's mother and father, i guess, realized that Cousin Kevin
wasn't the best babysitter, and besides, he was just a teenager like
Tommy.
So, they decided to leave him with a responsible adult, enter "Wicked"
Uncle
Ernie. It comes time for Tommy to go to bed and uncle Ernie really isn't
with
it. He molests Tommy. Tommy's father then comes in the room...
Chapter 10 (Pinball Wizard)
Tommy begins to have visions again and he sees himself. He follows
himself to the middle of a junkyard and finds a pinball machine. He
teaches
himself to play the game and ends up defeating the local champ. He makes
the
news and Tommy is everywhere. Its Tommy-Mania as the people of the town
go
crazy for him. Tommy becomes a mega-star teen idol-like character.
Chapters 11 & 12 (There's a Doctor Ive Found and Go To The Mirror, Boy)
Tommy's father finds out that there is a doctor in the town who can
cure him. The mother, father, and Tommy get there and the doctor tells
them
that there is no hope at all for Tommy. He tells them that Tommy will be
in
that condition forever. But, Tommy's father is wondering about him. He
doesn't really think that Tommy is Deaf dumb and blind.
Chapters 13 & 14 (Tommy Can You Hear Me and Smash the Mirror)
Tommy's mother, i guess, loses her mind and starts to beg Tommy to
answer her and listen to her. She yells at Tommy because he has no idea.
She
then accidentally hits Tommy with a mirror in a rage.
Chapter 15 (Sensation)
Tommy, somehow, is woken up from his disabilities and can suddenly
see, speak, and hear. He is telling everyonr about his being introduced
to
the world (or as he would say "i became aware this week").
Chapter 16 (Miracle Cure)
Just a little bit about Tommy being cured. It is about a newsboy
who
is letting the world know about Tommy being cured.
Chapter 17 (Sally Simpson)
This is a story in its own. This is the story of the girl who let
rock
and roll run her life. Sally's father was one of the men who feared rock
music. He was a preacher who was very much against against it. His
daughter,
Sally, admired Tommy. Like i said, by this time, Tommy was like any other
Donny Osmond or David Cassidy:All the girls loved him. Sally was
forbidden by
her father to go to Tommy's performance, but she decided to sneak out and
go
anyway. She got there and tried to reach Tommy. She jumped onto the stage
to
touch him, but was thrown off the stage (which is even obvious without
the
movie because it actually tells you that someone threw her.) by a
uniformed
man. She hit a chair on the way to the ground and split her cheek open.
She
needed 16 stitches to close the gap and her father just sat back and
thought
"I Told you so". Sally ended up marrying a rock musician and basically
ruined
her life. The moral of the story? "Mothers, dont let your boys grow up to
be
cowboys."
Chapter 18 (I'm Free)
Tommy is letting the world know that he is no longer a prisoner of
himself and wants everyone to join him. He wants everyone to see his way
and
join him in his way of life. He is asking the world to follow him in the
pinball lifestyle.
Chapter 19 (Welcome)
All of Tommy's followers have shown up at his camp and he is
welcoming
them. It seems as though there is not enough room to keep them all
("There's
more at the door......We need more room, build an extension....") so he
brings them all to the holiday camp.
Chapter 20 (Tommy's Holiday Camp)
A short, annoying, stupid addition to the album by Keith that
explains
Uncle Ernie all cleaned up and helping Tommy at the camp. Most of Tommy's
followers show up here.
Chapter 21 (We're Not Gonna Take It)
Ahh. The grand finale'! This is it. Now, based on the movie, Tommy
apparently has everything under control, that is until his followers turn
his
advice against him and start to rebel. They kill Tommy's parents and run
him
out of the camp in chaos. Riots are breaking out and people are going
crazy.
Ha. Ken Russel is a very imaginative man. Now, unless that is the way
Pete
intended the story to be, this is all wrong. According to the liner
notes,
Tommy has everyone under control and the people who followed him learned
to
play pinball and were cured. Everyone then listened to what Tommy had to
say
and everyone lived happily ever after alleluia amen.
MY OPINOINS
Earlier, you read that I thought that Heaven and Hell should have
been
a part of this opera. Even though it wasn't written yet, it still has a
lot
to do with the story, well the movie anyway. Yes, if the opera is
supposed to
be like the movie, where Tommy's parents get killed, I would have him
sing
Heaven and Hell instead of the "listening to you..." thing that goes on
and
on. The reason for this would be because he would be so upset that his
parents died, and he was deaf, dumb, and blind for most of his life, and
there were other people with his condition. He would be wondering "Why
can't
we have eternal life, and never die? Never die..." I mean, when you think
about it, and according to the movie, Tommy had a pret-ty crappy life. He
was
deaf dumb and blind for a while, his parents were killed, he saw his
mother's
lover kill his father, his followers rebelled against him, his cousin
tourtered him, his uncle raped him, and some nutty, drugged-out "Acid
Queen"
tried to give him a cure by sticking him in a coffin and turning him into
all
types of crap. Wheew. That's alot for some dude to have to go through.
There
are some songs that really don't need to be on the album, but its like
"well,
if i take them away, the album makes no sense at all." So here would be
my
single-album "Tommy"---
SIDE 1
SIDE 2
KK. I hope that this cleared up the story for you guys. If it didn't, and
the
movie didn't, and the play didn't, then just forget it because you will
never
get it. Sombody up there kinda put out the whole idea of the story, which
is
about inner peace and spirituality. So thats it. Thanx for listenin and,
oh
yeah remember.....ITS JUST AN ALBUM!!! Thank You.
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
Dumb story, great music. I have arranged several of these songs for
fingerstyle guitar, and they're some of the strongest in my repertoire.
Great, timeless stuff.
Stephen B Marseille (sbm82.columbia.edu) (7/21/01)
One basic correction that many Tommy fans are mistaken about: Tommy is NOT
the world's first full length rock-opera. That honor goes to The Pretty
Things's "S.F. Sorrow," which came out the year before and features a not
too different story line. In fact, Pete T. has been quoted on the matter as
saying it was VERY influential to him in making the album. Tommy is more
consistently good, but I think the best songs on S.F. Sorrow beat all of
Tommy... like "Baron Saturday," "S.F. Sorrow is Born," and "I See You."
(The song titles alone should help point out some of the story
similarities).
Hugh Trimble (8/15/01)
I'd say that besides The Who Sell Out, this is the best Who album I've
heard. I like it a tremendous lot, but I actually don't think that it is
as accomplished as Sell Out - there is more variety and wit there. In
Tommy, though, there is stunning musicianship throughout by all members -
Daltrey's sheer range of styles, demonstrated superbly on Christmas, in
which he jerks between belting out 'Tommy doesn't know what day it is...'
and the hauntingly beautiful 'See me... feel me... touch me... heal me',
is truly incredible.
I actually enjoy Underture a lot, and although it is just an extended
version of Sparks, which is an extended version of Rael, it works well in
the context of the album and thoroughly rocks - unless, of course, you're
desperate to get to 'Fiddle About' (a rather indescribable song - imagine
child molestation performed by a camp Disney villain while singing 'Heinz
Baked Beans'... in fact I have been known to burst into song in the
company of... anyone very much, and let rip with 'I'm your wicked Uncle
Ernie!', only to be met with truly disturbed faces when I return from my
gleeful sing-song. Okay, I've worried everybody now.)
The most important thing that I can say about this album, however, to
people who may want to buy it but are put off by the story, is this: to
me, the story is completely unimportant. The whole style never makes the
story seem disturbing or portentous - it says it all that the songs about
bullying and child molestation are handled, albeit a little tastelessly,
by the man who brought you 'Boris the Spider' - and I totally ignore the
story for at least the first three sides, each time. In fact, when I
read your interpretation of the beginning - I have never seen the film or
the show - I was rather alarmed. There is nothing in the lyrics which
directly implies murder or anything to my mind - hey, maybe he saw his
parents having sex or something. That's the beauty of the album... the
story is dumb, but you can think about it if you want. It's never forced
down your throat, as in The Wall, at least until the last quarter of the
album.
It's this last quater (maybe the last third) that I'm critical of,
though. The first two-thirds of the album, are fantastic, but there are
too many pointless songs in the second 'act' - Miracle Cure, anybody? -
and when Tommy is (totally implausibly) cured from his autism (autism
explains Tommy's problem quite well... I'm no expert but I understand
that it severely hinders the ability to communicate and express
oneself... coupled with Tommy's psychological internship, this could lead
to people's belief that he is deaf, dumb, and blind... heck, there I go -
I said the story wasn't important but you can think about it if you like)
Roger Daltrey's singing, coupled with the lyrics, just get annoying to
me. In fact, that may well be the point. When it comes to 'We're not
gonna take it', after the tedium of Sensation, I'm Free, and Welcome, I
find myself agreeing with the crowd, thinking "Yeah, shut up, you great
Nancy. Let's rock!"
However, the few duff songs, made worse by bunching them together,
can be totally forgotten during 'We're not gonna take it'. The build up,
from the whispered dissent We're not gonna take it... right to the
totally visceral later chanting and threats (even then, not disturbing:
'gonna rape you' (that's figurative, btw) is again just a cheery, rocking
line like the others) is exhilerating, and when it all slows right down
and returns to the masterful Listening to you reprise a shiver runs down
my spine. It's great stuff.
All in all, Tommy is a superb, likeable, and thoroughly enjoyable
album. If the story appeals to you, then great, buy it. If the story in
fact puts you off completely, as it did me before I recieved the album as
a gift, then buy the album and forget the story. Whatever you expected
to be disturbing or depressing is enjoyable and entertaining (even if the
Uncle Ernie episode is a little sick) and as a whole the album is
thoroughly uplifting.
This is one of my all-time favourite albums, even though I don't
think it's actually as good as some of the Who's other works, I find it
more likeable. And that's the main thing.
9 out of 10
It loses a point for Tommy's post-Miracle Cure whining.
Shut up, you great Nancy!
Trfesok.aol.com (11/06/04)
OK, pinball as a means to enlightenment is not the religious path to
follow -- the allegory doesn't entirely work. But as a statement that
people want an easy path to Nirvana is crystal clear. Aside from the
concept, it's musically excellent. I actually have the two-CD version,
pre-remastering, and it still sounds wonderful. The CD transfer does help
to compensate for the still-wimpy production of Lambert. Roger's singing
is the best yet ("Sally Simpson" shows him handling the melody quite
well),although the power of his live performances had yet to be captured.
"Underture" seems to be padding to flesh the record out to double album
length -- you're right, it didn't need to be 10 minutes long. Otherwise,
no filler. Still, I do think that the public overrated it, especially
when compared with a lot of what came after it.
John B. Atwood" (jbatwood1.comcast.net) (08/13/10)
While I understand people's feelings about the Tommy story being
silly, and I don't for a minute pretend it is 'great art', I think there is
more to the story than people give it credit for.
I think people miss that it is intended to be hyperbolic and surreal. There
is something very English about it, sort of in the sense of Monty Python.
It is not intended to be an Arthur Miller drama about a person who is truly
deaf dumb and blind, or how he got that way, or how he works his way out of
it. Rather, it is about someone who suffers more than would seem normal for
a human being, finds ways to grow in spite of it, then experiences a great
deliverance. But all of this is mere set-up for the debacle at Tommy's
Holiday Camp, when everyone walks out on him.
I first heard this in the Summer of 1969, and bought my own copy in the
early Fall. I listened to it again and again, mostly because I loved the
music. I even played the great majority of the songs in coffeehouses on a
single guitar. But the story began to grow on me after awhile, and I
started to feel that it was meant to be a parable about the tension between
the World War II generation and the Baby Boomers. In other words, as I
think Pete Townsend himself once intimated, it is but an elaborate reworking
of "My Generation", but with a tremendous amount of sympathy given to the
older generation.
Like Tommy, the WWII generation suffered some pretty outrageous things.
There was the Great Depression, and then the abject horror of World War II,
followed by the nightmare of the atom bomb and the cold war. And despite
all that they went through, they managed to "figure out how to play pinball"
all the same, and then the War was over, the good guys won, etc. and there
followed a time of unmatched prosperity The flavor of that may have been a
bit different on each side of the Atlantic, probably more jubilation on this
side, more relief from loss and destruction on the other, but it is valid in
either case.
However, like Tommy, our parents seemed to always feel like we had to live a
simulated version of what they went through. Anyone who grew up at that
time heard the constant lectures about "how it was in my day" and how "you
couldn't get away with that in the Army", and on and on. One line toward
end is a comical echo echo of 50's and 60's home life: "and put in your ear
plugs put on your eyeshades-you know where to put the cork."
Of course, after a while, we basically said, "We're not gonna take it." But
our rebellion was not all that simplistic, just like the record wasn't.
They sang "we forsake you, gonna rape you" etc., but then while the final
"See Me Feel Me" suggests repentance, it also seems to beg for
understanding. Plus, as it is all the same voices, it has the effect of
blurring who is doing the talking in the story. (It isn't entirely the case
that Daltrey is always Tommy, and Townsend, Entwhistle and Moon are
everybody else all the time.) At the end, with all of them singing, it
creates a kind of role ambiguity between "We're not gonna take it" and
"Listening to you, I get the music."
Despite the 60s rhetoric, we never really wanted to see our parent's
generation trashed. Truth be told, we idolized our parent's generation. We
were just frustrated that they couldn't see that we had to have our own
experience, our own rite of passage, make our own contribution to the world,
not just be clones of them. And while they marched off to War with their
parents admiring them, we marched off to fight for Civil Rights or freedom
of expression or against the Great Mistake of Vietnam were treated like
ne'er do wells and scum. The era was a lot more complicated than movies and
TV want to make it.
I think deep down we really all longed for reconciliation. Take for example
the report that exists of how many Baby Boomer men broke down and cried in
"Field of Dreams" when the fellow says to his Dad, "you wanna have some
catch?" The Who themselves have said that the ending is intentionally
ambiguous. Tommy was in a sense the bad guy, but then again he was the
hero. Is See Me Feel Me a longing for a reconciliation that we hoped would
come, but maybe never did, except in individual circumstances? But I think
the whole thing ends on a hope that someday it will get worked out.
The Who themselves have said that Tommy performances took a kind of
spiritual dimension, that "Listening to You." was almost like a cathartic
group prayer. I don't know that every one who just listened to the album
got that, it is, after all, silly, and confusing, and weird. So maybe it
worked better live, maybe the hyperbole and the weirdness had more impact in
the immediacy and power of an auditorium than on a record player.
Come to think of it, has anyone reading this ever seen Mozart's The Magic
Flute? I love Mozart also, but that story is about as dippy as they get.
Frankly, there is very little in the standard opera repertoire that is on
par with Great Expectations or Pride and Prejudice as stories. So much of
Italian opera especially is based on stories that I wouldn't even bother to
read. So give Tommy a little bit of a break.
Oh, by the way, about the short ditties in Tommy such as "Extra" and "Do You
Think It's Alright": they are true operatic devices, called Recitatives. I
didn't realize that until years later when I went to my first opera. It
seems that Townsend was taking the opera idiom seriously, not just stringing
together a bunch of songs and pretentiously labeling it 'opera'. And as
recitatives, they are pretty true to opera form. Maybe that's why some
don't like them-it is hard to make a recitative be rock, no matter how it is
instrumented. I think Townsend did a nice job with those, and it is a
measure of his writing ability that he could come up with such touches.
ismaninb.gmail.com (01/13/12)
Opera is not about storytelling. If you think Tommy silly, try
Entführung aus dem Serail by Mozart. Still the connaisseurs love it.
Sure, there are some opera's with thrilling storylines. Tchaikovsky's
Mazeppa and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov are fine examples. But that's
by far not enough. There are opera's with fascinating stories that are
an utter borefest too.
Opera is an attempt to create a total experience, appealing to as many
senses in as many ways as possible, without falling apart - an opera
also must be a unit. Exactly there is the challenge. For a composer of
an opera it's so easy to get carried away and lose focus. All the
different and often conflicting parts must be in service of one goal.
There is the music, both in its separate songs and in its entirety.
There is the visual aspect, obviously absent on the album Tommy. So no
matter its defects, to understand it you must see the movie at least
once. I saw it before I bought the CD and its images certainly helped
me (but also my father, who knew the album first) to understand and
appreciate Tommy. There are also points like psychology and character
development, eventually symbolism.
So the question is: does Townshend deliver? Can he compete with the
classics? My answer is: yes, he can. The idea that reusing melodies
and themes is an argument against Tommy is flat out stupid. It's
necessary to create that unit. The trick is to change the connecting
themes according to the needs of the story. That is exactly what
Townshend does - in fact, in my opinion, he doesn't it enough. Some
parts of Tommy too much stand on their own, musically speaking. But
even that I can't hold against him for the simple reason that the
perfect opera still has to be created, even after a zillion attempts.
Compromises and even patchwork are practically unavoidable exactly
because of the inner contradictions in every single opera project.
The music in its parts is great of course. It's more poppy and less
rock than The Who did before, but why mind? Again the question is if
the songs on their own serve the overall goal. They do. They are great
both on their own ánd in their context.
Besides the Underture - I have burned a one CD-copy without it, which
is an improvement - I have one major complaint. Daltrey sings almost
all the roles. That makes it harder to identify with the characters.
Thát's the main plus of the movie soundtrack. Alas Oliver Reed and Ann
Margret suck at singing, but Tina Turner, Elton John and Eric Clapton
are so well casted.
My guess is that for a near-ideal version we'll have to wait another
50 years or so, which means that I probably won't live to hear it. My
ideal is a well chosen cast, indeed a rocking approach of the
arrangements, with less acoustic and more electric guitar than on this
album. Pinball Wizard of the soundtrack simply annihilates the
original version, but in other songs the modest approach works better.
At the other hand I would like much less synths than on the
soundtrack. This rearrangement should be done by an experienced
classical composer with keen interest in rock'n'roll.
You think this is sacrilege? An impossibility? Check out the history
of Borodin's Prince Igor and learn how many composers (and how much
time - more than 100 years!) were involved in completing that one. In
such cases the end simply justifies the means. Until then we must rely
on our imagination to think of what Tommy really can be - one of the
say 100 greatest opera's ever.
Ross Dryer (dryerross.yahoo.com) (09/13/12)
I basically agree with you on most of this review. However, the story might be lame, but it's very entertaining, I think. Not very
feasible, though!
I won't prattle about all of the songs like a do on my other comments; but I do want to talk about a couple. First off, the "See Me
Feel Me/Listening to You" part has got to be my favorite part of the album, PERIOD. Those harmonies are fantastic, and the
ATMOSPHERE. But I also think "Is it Me?" is just as good, almost even better. Wow.
I would also like to prattle about my other favorite of the album, and that's "Cousin Kevin". Why on Earth does no one like this
song enough to say two words about it?!? First, you've got this frantic, but kinda cute and innocent repetitive guitar pattern,
along with boomy drumming. The first lyrics come in, and they seem pretty innocent too, just "I'm your cousin, let's play a game"
stuff. With fantastic harmonies, of course. But then, by each line, the key drops and drops, and the lyrics get progressively
darker, going from that "I'm your cousin, let's play a game" to "You won't be much fun" to "You won't get anywhere being tied to a
chair" to "I'll think of OTHER games we can play...". Man, those key changes chill me out, and the repetitive guitar pattern is
still the repetitive guitar pattern. Then, we have a climactic, spooky, but slightly sad melody "Hooooow would you feel if I turned
on the bath..." while the guitar changes to something scarier, and Keith's cymbals scare the very life out of you as Kevin starts
to do simply awful things to Tommy (which ends with "...Catch cold so you DIIIIIIIIIE"), and it's actually strangely beautiful, if
awful; but then, we get to the REALLY scary part of the song, where everybody's vocals are positively drop-dead amazing as they
sing a surreal, frightening melody as we get to see the REAL Cousin Kevin ("'Cause I'm the SCHO-O-O-OL BUL-ly..."). Repeat it all
again, and end it with the charming repetitive guitar pattern in its key at the beginning, and you have just about the only Who
song that scares the absolute spit out of me. LOVE it.
Great album, too. Man, it doesn't take four billion instruments to make a classic album, does it, Spector?
Best song: I Can See For Miles (well, all of them actually)
This is the greatest compilation ever (or at least tied for first with Past Masters 2 and Sly and the Family Stone's Greatest Hits). It was out of print for a long time, and supplanted by other compilations with most of these songs (mine was My Generation: The Very Best of the Who), so it may be easier just (as suggested below) to buy one of those and rearrange the song ordering to match this compilation. Still, if you can find this, you should buy it, as it's a perfect compilation both in terms of material and of song order.
Six of the songs are found regular Who albums, and all of them great, so I will focus on the remaining eight. "I Can't Explain" was the band's first big hit single, and it combines a simple-but-genial riff (which would be stolen and reused by future hard rock and punk bands many times, with only small alterations) with great lyrics about teenage emotional confusion. I especially dig the fun contrast between the aggressive instrumental parts and the high-pitched vocals, particularly the backing ones.
After "The Kids are Alright" comes "Happy Jack," a weird song about a social outcast where the drums are shoved into the front of the mix, effectively carrying the song while the guitar and bass establish the melody lightly in the background. Following (sans post-song commercial) "I Can See For Miles," we come to "Pictures of Lily," a delightful tale of a teenager fantasizing over a pinup model named Lily, only to find out she's been dead for decades. Aside from the amazing melody and fun harmonies, it has a great naughty mid-section where John's French Horn parts can't help but evoke walking the parapet.
Following "My Generation," we come to "The Seeker," the only song on the album to sound like it belongs more in the Who's Next era than in the 60's. The production is stronger, the guitar sound is better than in the 60's, and Roger has erupted into the louder-than-hell frontman that he'd only shown in live performances in the years previous. The lyrics are great, too, depicting a young man trying to find his place in life and some greater meaning to go along with it. Then it's way back to the past with "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" (co-written by Roger), an aggressive power-pop song with a great anthemic opening strum, some effective feedback in the middle, and lyrics about thinking you can take on the whole world with just your bad self.
After three more album cuts ("Pinball Wizard," "A Legal Matter," "Boris the Spider"), we finish off the album with three of the best songs the band wrote during the 60's. "Magic Bus" is a fun play on the "Bo Diddley rhythm," with fun psychedelic-laced lyrics about a guy wanting to buy a magic bus so he can go visit his girlfriend. I have no idea whether this is a loose metaphor for drugs, or if it's just silly trippy fun, but the song is a great one, taking everything great about The Who during that period and putting it into a form the band hadn't tried yet. Following this is "Substitute," driven by a monster bassline and containing lyrics about things in life not being the way they seem on the surface. The line "I look all white but my dad was black" caused some controversy for the band, forcing them to change the line in some performances, but that's just one of many great lines to be found here.
And finally there's "I'm a Boy," a "micro-opera" about a young boy whose mother wanted four daughters but instead had three daughters and a son, and who makes him play the part of her desire. It would be tragic if the song weren't so fun; the contrast between what the son wants to do in life, with what his mother makes him do, is especially sad. I should note, by the way, that the song is presented in a different version here than in other places I've heard the song; it's extended, with sweeter harmonies and humorous horn parts.
Simply put, you cannot call yourself a Who fan and not own these songs. If you can't get this album, then get the songs somewhere else, but to me, this is where they belong.
TheRubberCow.aol.com (1/16/02)
or find it in a used record store. I see the vinyl copies on sale for under
$10 all the time.
Jeff Blehar (jeffblehar.hotmail.com) (02/23/05)
Even better, you can go and buy the 2-CD The Ultimate Collection, which includes all the tracks on Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy plus a full disc more. Then program the sequence in yourself if you must. I agree with you though, this was one of the most formidable greatest hits collections in rock for a very long time, and it's because it actually just gives us what we want: all the great singles (plus one great album cut, "Boris The Spider"), and arranged in an appealing running order. No fat. No "skip" tracks. No excuse for not owning all of these songs.
Martin (cdmx.gmx.de) (11/02/05)
The CD is still available for cheap in Canada! one of the best
sounding compilations - mastered by Steve Hoffman. Don't forget to
order his 80's Who's Next CD from Canada, too - budget price without
bonus tracks. Stunning!
daniel penner (dzpenner.hotmail.com) (05/03/07)
on your recommendation i got this on lp for 6$ that i found at a used store,
and is along with quad and who's next of course, the only who record that
ever gets put on (actually i love sell out as well, but i haven't had the
fortune of crossing its path yet). it's just astonishing how well sequenced
this is, and i agree, that with past masters, this is the greatest comp.
i've ever heard. it's very difficult to even tell that this isn't its own
album. I'd sure be fooled!
Trfesok.aol.com (01/19/08)
This introduced a lot of people to the early Who, and it really was a
nice little collection. All of these songs are also available on the
boxset, though, and I think that's a better value. However, as you
pointed out, the longer version of "I'm A Boy" is here (the boxset
has the UK single version), and it's tons better, with Entwistle's
eerie horn lines. I don't know if anyone would want to pick up this
just to get that, but based on the rest of these classic songs, you
won't get ripped off if you do.
Best song: My Generation
The studio version of The Who was a great band, with good-to-great albums and great singles, but that version of the band wasn't the whole story. The Who were a band whose live persona and sound were extremely different from their studio counterparts, and it's just as well, because there are a lot of people (myself included) who consider The Who the greatest live rock band they'd ever heard. This album, along with Isle of Wight, is a fixture in my overall top ten, and I suspect that if the band put out any more full archive releases from around that time, they'd all get 10's or F's as well.
A note about the album before I proceed. There have been three different incarnations of Live at Leeds through the years. The first was a 6-track, 40-minute single LP version released back in 1970. In 1995, the band released an expanded 70+-minute, 14-track, 1-CD version, containing all of the non-Tommy material of the evening, plus a performance of "Amazing Journey"/"Sparks." Then, in the early 2000's, the band released the entire concert, placing all of the non-Tommy cuts on the first disc and the Tommy performance on the second. The 1995 version is the one I became acquainted with first, and it's the one that largely converted me into a Who fan, so I (admittedly arbitrarily) am primarily considering that version in reviewing this album. Yes, this means that I'm essentially treating half of the final release as "bonus" material, but the Tommy performance doesn't seem to have been given the same re-mastering treatment as the rest, so I don't feel too unjustified in that.
Back to the album, the most superficial evidence that The Who live bore little resemblence to the band that had done A Quick One and Sell Out is that, aside from the performance of Tommy (which is somewhat abridged), only three tracks tracks on the album had previously appeared on Who studio albums ("My Generation," "A Quick One While He's Away," "Tattoo"). Otherwise, the band dips heavily into its hit-singles catalogue, and also relies heavily on covers of oldtime rock-and-roll/blues numbers. They even kick off the show with a song, "Heaven and Hell," that never made it onto any regular studio albums, and which was written primarily for the purpose of live performance. But more than the track listing is the sound: live, the band was LOUD, yet ferociously tight, and the sound demonstrates an awesome crunch without ever devolving into directionless noise. The instrumental dynamics are really something to behold; Pete mostly uses some of the most ferocious rhythm playing I've ever heard to lay down a foundation over which Moon and Entwistle can dominate the sound with amazing drum and bass lines, but he also puts out some great solos when needed. This album largely shows that Pete may not have always functioned as a "lead" guitarist in the purest sense, but there's no question that he leads the direction of the songs at any point, and that Keith and John had an incredibly well-developed ability to follow his lead. And one mustn't forget Roger, who, despite obviously not being in top condition (he sounds a little under the weather), still sounds incredible overall, introducing the fierce voice that would first manifest itself on a studio album with Who's Next.
The familiar songs all receive major transformations, emphasizing that the band wasn't content just to play its songs exactly as they were in the studio. The rendition of Tommy strips away all of the quiet acoustic aspects of the studio version (and I liked the quiet acoustic aspects, mind you), grabs onto the great riffs and turns the tracks into simply ferocious rockers. The highlight of this performance of Tommy, to me, is definitely the "Amazing Journey"/"Sparks" combination, with monstrous basslines and feedback in the latter, but while some of the rest shows the band as slightly tired and exhausted, most of the other Tommy numbers are great as well. The ending portion of "We're Not Gonna Take It" goes down especially well, though I should note that Roger had to re-record his vocal track at a much later date, thus slightly marring the "authenticity" of the performance.
The non-Tommy material gets largely reborn as well. "I Can't Explain," "Substitute," "Happy Jack" and "I'm a Boy" all get turned from cute little power pop ditties into full-blown hard rockers with Pete, John and Keith taking turns trying to blow my speakers out. "My Generation" kicks off a 15-minute medley, with Pete pulling out amazing guitar lines one after another (there's a moment when the sound goes quiet and then Pete starts playing this shimmering guitar line that has to be one of my favorite moments in all of rock music, and definitely one of my favorite Who moments) and the others showing an amazing ability to follow suit (incluing Roger, who sings a reprise of the "See Me Feel Me" section and a variant of it at a later point). "Magic Bus," which closes the show, turns into a 7 minute theatre piece, with Roger and Pete engaging of what has to be one of the most infamous (and rightfully so) vocal back-and-forths in the history of rock music. "A Quick One ..." changes drastically from the excessively sissified original, adding power to the instrumental parts, some really terrific singing from everybody, a hilarious atmosphere and just enough clumsiness to work with the song. "Tattoo" breaks the pattern in that it's done closely to the original, but it sounds great, so I'm not going to complain.
Oh, and don't forget the great opener. "Heaven and Hell" gets sung by John, and it immediately demonstrates the unbelievable level of power and tightness in the band's live sound. Pete gets off a FANTASTIC solo in the middle, but it's in his function as a rhythm player that he shines most in this track, and Keith and John do a good job of showing why they could make a strong case as the best rhythm section in rock.
And then there's the covers, three of which were on the original six-track version. "Fortune Teller" (which segues into "Tattoo") may be a little sluggish at first, but it has enough power to make it work, and once it picks up steam, it equals any other version I can imagine. "Young Man Blues," one of the band's signature stage pieces in the era, starts with some terrific vocal-guitar call-and-response, then breaks into a frantic instrumental break featuring Pete soloing at a breakneck pace and then going nuts trying to squeeze sounds out of his Gibson SG, before coming back together for a huge finish. "Summertime Blues," then, makes a good case for being the band's best cover, and the best version of the song ever done. Let's face it, it would be hard for another version of it to surpass the powerful and tight playing of this, or especially for somebody to a better "boss voice" than John does (Boris strikes again!). And finally, as the liner notes say, there is "the best pre-Beatles British rock'n'roll song bar none," "Shakin' All Over." It's just more great rock'n'roll with more great howling from Roger, more insanity from Keith and John, and more great soloing from Pete.
Now, for a long time, I considered this their best album bar none, and figured that when I got around to making one of these
sites, this would be getting the top grade. The problem to me is that, for the time, this was actually a pretty average show from the band, and didn't showcase them at their very best. This was their first performance in England after six weeks of touring the US, and they were playing a full length Tommy every night and (presumably) starting to get a little sick of it. In fact, if you read the excerpts from an interview they did that day (included in the liner notes), you will see that the guys, particularly Pete, were really getting tired of performing. Plus, as mentioned, Daltrey, while sounding great, still sounds like he's not at his very best. On the other hand, though, I guess these problems speak more to the band's credit than anything else; if a substandard Who concert can be considered the standard for live concert albums for almost 30 years, imagine how these guys would do on a good night!
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
This album (the version reviewed here, not the much shorter original),
was my introduction to The Who, and a glorious introduction it was. One
of my all-time favorites!
No1Yanks23.aol.com
Ok to get the Live at Leeds thing out of the way, yeah it's excellent,
"Heaven and Hell" rules and it deserves a perfect score, being the second
greatest live album ever.
On to my next subject
You said, "For while it may be disputed how good their studio work was and
how they rank among the greats, there is little or no doubt that The Who are
the greatest live rock and roll band ever."
There is a huge doubt. How could you not even consdier the Stones? Have you
heard Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out. That's the best live album ever and there are
dozens of Stones bootlegs that are better. Let's compare Ya-Ya's with Leeds,
and I know people have been arguing about this subject, I've decided to add
to it.
The Who's playing is great on here, it's really amazing, but the fact is The
Stones made better songs (unless you like the Who's songs better of course :)
). Would you rather take "I Can't Explain", "My Generation", "Summertime
Blues", "I'm a Boy" and say, "Substitute" over "Sympathy for the Devil",
"Midnight Rambler", "Street Fighting Man", "Honky Tonk Woman" and "Jumping
Jack Flash"? I really doubt it. Also if you have Napster you should download
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Midnight Rambler" from the Brussels
concert in 1973. Compare the bands at their live peak, I believe the Stones
were much better. So yes there is doubt, and millions of people think the
Stones are better live. You should check them out.
Sorry to sound like a snob, just trying to prove a point.
kramer (bkramer2000.hotmail.com) (10/11/01)
Check out the new deluxe version of The Who's Live at Leeds. They add
the entire set of Tommy which is absolutely fantastic. In fact, with
that addition, this puts Leeds ahead of Isle of Wight which I liked more
(probably because it was longer and more live Who is by definition,
great!). You still get the greats (Young Man Blues (My Favorite Live Who
Song Ever!), Heaven and Hell, Summertime Blues, Amazing Journey/Sparks(on
the Tommy part ofcourse), And the phenominal My Generation). The Tommy
Part doesn't compare to the original. Like Isle of Wight, Leeds' version
of Tommy is loud, raw, and energetic.
Ken Toops (spootnek.hotmail.com) (10/16/02)
This is a great live album one of the best! I have the 14 track CD!
I'm listening to it now & I noticed it had track stops in the wrong places!
Track 2 "I Can't Explain" ends with the Intro for "Fortune Teller" Who is
the MORON that sequences the CDs? The Inrto for "Fortune Teller" should be
at the beginning of Track 3 "Fortune Teller"!
Trfesok.aol.com (01/19/08)
Ignoring the live vs. studio debate (this doesn't beat Who's Next,
IMHO), the only debate is whether this one or ..Isle of Wight is
better. This performance does sound sharper and more focused than
that one to me. Pluses are the extended medley after "My Generation",
one of the few instances when jamming doesn't sound self-indulgent
(the Grateful Dead or the Allman Brothers, anyone? -- this has
anything they did beat); "A Quick One" -- the only reason that the
Rock & Roll Circus/The Kids Are Alright version is better is that
they goof around a bit too much here; "Magic Bus" -- a full, complete
performance; and "Tattoo", which is one song I wouldn't have thought
they would do live. Of course, the sheer volume of material on
..Wight (Tommy and post-Tommy material) puts this one at a slight
disadvantage. As with ..Wight, I'm going to complain about the
covers. Unlike the Stones or the Beatles, they never had major
success with covers, and I could care less about their "influences"
when they still had tons of better originals they could have added to
the setlist. Otherwise, you really can't go wrong with either of
these live albums.
David Sheehan (davidasheehan.gmail.com) (05/13/09)
I gotta add my two cents in on the Leeds vs. Isle of Wight debate. I
find that Leeds is firmly the better of the two, and I'll tell you
why I think so (in no particular order): 1) The extended My
Generation jam section. 2) A Quick One (While He's Away) instead of
Water. Both are great, but really, by the time of this recording,
they had A Quick One honed to absolute perfection, and it's at least
as good as the performance on Rock and Roll Circus (or The Kids are
Alright). 3) Entwistle is higher in the mix (score!) 4) I think the
fact that it's an indoor venue (it was indoors, right?) gives it a
fuller sound. They easily fill the room with sound while it's tough
to fill the outdoors, even for The Who.
But they're both fan-flippin'-tastic. Oh, and that second disc on the
deluxe version does sound different (worse) than the first disc, but
not enough to detract from the score. A perfect 15, easily.
Damien Browning (damienbrowning.hotmail.com) (09/13/12)
the who live at leeds is my favorite concert album ever, although i don't know if it was overdubbed or not.
Theo Duncan <(theoduncan01.icloud.com) (12/13/16)
Actually, as Pete tells in his autobiography, he recorded most of the shows from The Who’s turn of the decade tours, but, for various reasons, ASKED HIS SOUND GUY TO BURN ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!
Best song: We're Not Gonna Take It
It would be hard to think of another band where even the most hardcore
fans could reasonably claim that two live albums recorded within months of
each other would each deserve consideration as one of the greatest live
albums of all time (Maybe Grateful Dead fans would argue with this;
hopefully Pearl Jam fans wouldn't). For a very long time, the traditional
debate of "greatest live album ever" tended to center around Live at
Leeds and The Rolling Stones' Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, but the
moment this performance was unearthed from the archives in 1996, this
jumped into the thick of the discussion. For me, despite the fact that
it's an archive release, this is the best Who that money can buy and the
greatest live album ever, just a tick above Leeds.
That doesn't mean fans of Leeds will necessarily love this one,
though. While the two concerts were recorded only about six months apart,
Leeds depicted a very different kind of concert from this one.
Leeds was performed at an indoors theater for a bunch of college
students, and it showed the band as a well-oiled machine, firing on all
cylinders; it's a great live album for anyone who likes the combination of noise and
precision that the band could produce, and it's an album that rewards a
great set of speakers. It also showed them playing a little more
conservatively than might have been desired, which isn't shocking given
that they'd just gotten back from the US and were a little tired. Aside
from the band members, Roger wasn't at his very best, and might have even
been a little under the weather.
In contrast, The Isle of Wight festival was a gathering of a few hundred
thousand totally stoned teenagers and young adults who just wanted loud
music and a lot of pot (and who spent much of their time complaining that
it wasn't free), and the band adjusts its playing accordingly. One major
improvement comes from Roger, whose singing here, in contrast to whatever
issues may be on Leeds, is probably his greatest recorded work. I
wouldn't go as far as I used to in saying that this is my favorite (over a
whole album) rock vocal performance from anybody, but it's still way up
there.
As for the other members, the playing is a little less clean and crisp
than at Leeds (Moon, for instance, seems to be noticably off in a
handful of spots), but it's compensated on the whole by the way it seems
like Pete is trying to execute the audience with his guitar playing. Yes,
he goofs on a couple of the more intricate guitar parts, and misses some
chords here and there, but his rhythm playing on this album is
spectacular, and besides, the guitar tone is awesome. Wait, no, that won't
do, let's try that again. THE GUITAR TONE IS AWESOME. IT'S THE GREATEST
GUITAR TONE I'VE EVER HEARD!!! For some, this trade (relatively speaking)
of conservative precision for energetic sloppiness won't be a worthwhile
one, but it's one I'm willing to make just fine.
The concert can be divided neatly into three parts, and all three are
fantastic. The pre-Tommy portion opens with three tracks that were on
Leeds, and overall they sound surprisingly different from there. "Heaven
and Hell" suffers a little bit from Keith losing the beat a bit with his
drumming (one of the few times I've ever heard that from him) in the
beginning, and from Pete making the mid-song guitar solo section much less
like the (effective) Jimmy Page aping on Leeds and more like a caveman
crushing a tiger with a rock, but it ends up working fine. "I Can't Explain"
immediately shows that Roger's voice is in top form, and then there's
"Young Man Blues." There are a couple of moments of sloppiness in the
start-stops in the first part, but they're minor, and they're more than
made up for by the mid-section. Pete goes absolutely insane in here,
bashing and thrashing and squeezing all sorts of heavenly feedback noises
out of his guitar, and basically blows away the Leeds version of this
section.
The band then takes the opportunity to introduce the audience to two
Lifehouse tracks, which ended up condemned to rarity status but which are
quite great. "I Don't Know Myself" features a fun riff and some great lyrics
along the lines of the title, and "Water" gets extended from its standard 4
-minute length to a monstrous 9-minute epic, featuring some terrific
soloing and some of Roger's best singing on the album (the way he sings
those opening lines is just glorious). Of course, if you're feedback
averse at all, you should probably stay away from "Water" here, but if
that's the case, why are you listening to this album in the first place?
And then we have the main attraction: Tommy. If you have never heard a
great live version of Tommy (and no, the Leeds rendition was not great,
only good), you haven't lived. As on Leeds, the acoustic guitars are gone,
leaving in their wake a furious assault as only The Who could provide. The
star of the show is, as you might expect, Pete; I know it might seem
monotonous to keep bringing up his riffing, but I don't think it can be
emphasized enough here. Also, it becomes completely obvious at times how
much passion he has for this, his brainchild, even after performing it over and over and over again (which he alludes to in the introduction); listen to his triumphant
playing in the extended coda of "Overture" or his singing in "It's a Boy" or
the absolutely 100% perfect riffing in "See Me Feel Me" (my favorite
part on the whole album) and you'll know what I mean. There are
guitar lines in "See Me Feel Me," in particular, that make me absolutely
weak in the knees. Roger is awesome in this part as well.
The post-Tommy sequence is fantastic as well, featuring a non-stop
"Summertime Blues"/"Shakin' All Over"/"Spoonful"/"Twist and Shout"/"Substitute"/"My
Generation"/"Naked Eye" (another Lifehouse song, one of my very
favorites)/"Magic Bus" medley. All of the songs sound different from any
version I've heard before, even for somebody like me who knows Leeds
basically by heart. Summertime Blues is sloppier than the perfect Leeds
version, but "Shakin' All Over"/"Spoonful"/"Twist and Shout" obliterates the
Leeds version ("LIIIIIIIIIIIIES about you"), so that competition largely
ends up a push. Plus, there's the additional bonus of when you hear Pete's
gutiar start to give out near the end of "Magic Bus." Rarely have I ever
heard anything cooler than what are essentially the guitar's deathbed
moans. The one and only drawback is that it stopped him from playing more
(reports say that he was furious when his guitar broke because he wanted
to play even more, but whatever).
For what it's worth, Pete himself always said that this was one of their
best nights, and I'd have to assume this is true. Somebody who already has
Leeds may not see the worth in shelling out money for this as well,
but as somebody who loves Leeds, there was nonetheless a long time
where I probably listened to this twice as much as any other Who CD. It's
not just the way this album displays the eternal genius of The Who, their
ability to bring cacaophony and beauty together and fuse them into one
overwhelmingly moving and powerful force, better than any other album by
them. No, it's more than that; this live album, more than any other I
know, is the perfect symbol of where rock music stood at the crossroads
between the 60's and the 70's. That is, a decade or so into its life, with
one foot still firmly in the past, and one foot moving tentatively into
unknown, "artsier" territory. It is a celebration of rock's past, and a
show of optimism for its future, and that vibe can't help but make it even
better to me.
Paul Walker (seraphim7s.yahoo.com)
My father went to this Isle of Wight festival at the
tender age of 17. According to him, he walked round
the whole time and NEVER saw any trouble. The
disturbances were confined to a very small part of the
venue. When he returned home he was shocked when
people asked him "Did you see any of the trouble?"
because it was blown out of proportion by the press. I
suppose it was something to do with the media's views
on Rock Music and youth culture at the time. Anyway, I
just wanted to put the record straight on my Dad's
behalf!
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
Possibly the greatest live album ever. Sloppy in places but who cares?
Daltrey in particular is at his peak here. The best renditions of I Don't
Know Myself, Naked Eye, or Water that I have heard yet. Why the HELL did
these three songs not make it onto Who's Next? They certainly beat the
hell out of My Wife, Going Mobile, or Getting In Tune.
Trfesok.aol.com (11/14/04)
Well, the performance isn't as precise as on Leeds, but I have to agree
that it's excellent. Of course, subtlety goes out the window when it
comes to the live Who -- loud is the modus operandi here.. But the Who
was one of the few groups that could combine noise with melodicism, so
even their jamming isn't dull. My only beef is that I could have done
without their oldies covers - -by now, the band had plenty of original
material (where's "A Quick One.."?) to fill a 2 hour set. Still, a great
addition to Leeds.
Best song: Won't Get Fooled Again
To put it mildly, Tommy was a huge success. Not only did it give the band greater exposure than ever before, but in the eyes of many it lifted Pete up from being a mere rock writer to a full fledged composer. Along those lines, it diversified their audience, as rich and upper-class people from all over wanted to go see "the rock opera." Unfortunately, the success of Tommy soon became more of a burden than a benefit. Supposedly, many a new fan thought that the album was called
The Who and that the group's name was Tommy. This was a major reason for the release of Live at Leeds in 1970; the group desperately wanted to remind fans who the real Who was (loud hard-rockers). In short, Tommy had become bigger than The Who themselves, and this bothered Pete much more than it pleased him. He desperately wanted to
come up with a concept album greater than Tommy in the eyes of the public.
In trying to come up with this new concept, called Lifehouse, Pete pretty much crossed the line from genius to insanity. The general storyline was that in the future, when everybody lives in virtual reality and is
controlled by a Big Brother of sorts, somebody discovers that once upon a time there was something called "rock music." Eventually, he gets a band together and they hold a concert as they try to discover the "lost chord" that will free people and bring them to a Nirvana-esque reality. So basically, it's The Matrix crossed with rock music, with conceptual themes largely ripped off by Rush for their 2112 suite. Beyond the plot, though, Pete had the idea of the music culminating in an actual transcendent note, and to create this note using astrological and physical data (fed into a computer) of members of the audience where the band would play its shows. Naturally, neither the other band members nor the audience members had patience for this, and Townshend's failure to make anybody else really understand his ideas helped contribute to a nervous breakdown. After he recovered, the band essentially decided to strip out the conceptual element of the sessions, and pared down what was easily a double album's worth of material to a single album. The result was a critical and commercial smash, and one of the most beloved albums in classic rock history.
While I certainly don't have any particular attachment to the concept of Lifehouse, I really feel that the decision to make this into a single album is the album's greatest weakness. The first two tracks sure feel like the beginning of a big epic musical journey, and the last two tracks sure feel like the end of a big epic musical journey, but the middle feels to me like a jigsaw puzzle where you're only given a third of the pieces. I guess the end goal was to make the middle portion as close to a representative sample of the rest of the sessions as possible, with a single allusion to the central concept courtesy of "The Song is Over," but I'm not convinced they made anywhere near the best possible sampling of the available material. Plus, I can't totally get over the idea that they'd include half of the two-track centerpiece (or so it seems) of Lifehouse, which directly QUOTES the other half, and then throw the other half ("Pure and Easy") into the outtakes pile (especially when I really think it's the better of the two, and musically near the top of the band's catalogue, even if lyrically it's weird and flaky). Point is, it's very hard for me to ever think of this album as anything but a single LP teaser of the sessions (which it basically is), and it's no coincidence that when I listen to tracks from this album, it's almost always in the context of a larger sequencing of tracks from most of this album's material and some of my other favorite material from the sessions (and some that wasn't recorded until later, but was supposedly part of the original conception).
All that said, while my theoretical double album version of these sessions would fall into my overall top 5, this single album version still falls squarely in my top 40 or so. The thing that jumps out the most in listening to this is just how BIG the sound is; the band has left the days of 60's power-pop completely behind, and in its place is an approach that's noticably slower but also noticably thicker. As I said in the overall introduction, this is one of the quintessential 70's classic rock albums, and that comes just as much from the dense (with layers of guitars and various keyboards piled on each other in places) arrangements as from anything else. Of course, it can be argued that, with this album, the band lost much of the charm that had made it so interesting in the first place, and some moments certainly veer a little too solidly into mid-tempo sludgey macho rock territory, but on the whole, I find this new-look "mature" Who just as interesting as the 60's version of the band ever was.
Plus, Pete's songwriting was still functioning at a ridiculously high level. The only track on here that I ever tend to skip is "Gettin' in Tune," and even that starts off as a very nice piano-driven ballad (and there's something quite nice about the lines, "I get a little tired of having to say "Do you come here often?"/But when I look in your eyes and see the harmonies and the heartaches soften"). The problem with it is that, around the 1:40 mark, the pretty piano ballad basically evaporates, and in its stead comes a head-smashingly sluggish guitar-led song with Roger and Pete singing "Getting in tune with the straight and narrow" for what seems like an eternity. Yup, if there's a single reason, circumstances surrounding Lifehouse aside, that this album could never get the mark of the band's best work, this track is the reason.
Other than the slightly throwawyish, but still nice "Love Ain't For Keeping" (it's a two minute acoustic track here, but there's a much better four minute version with Pete on vocals), the other "middle" tracks are all more or less terrific. The chorus to "The Song is Over" is ridiclously overblown, and I do feel a little silly singing along with it, but it has enough legitimate power that I sing with it nonetheless, and when it's focused on its piano-ballad (with effective guitar for color, and a rousing solo in the middle) aspects, it's totally ace. "My Wife" is a fun Entwistle-penned mid-tempo rocker, with lyrics about what he'll need to survive now that his spouse is going to kill him, and "Goin' Mobile" is an up-tempo acoustic-based rocker about, well, living in a mobile home and going wherever you please. It originally annoyed me a bit, but it adds a nice bit of hickish levity, and the combination of the nice subtle synth underpinnings and the bizarre effect Pete uses on his guitar makes it a near classic.
The bulk of the album's reputation, though, stems from the track pairs that open and close the album, and rightly so. "Baba O'Riley" (aka "Teenage Wasteland" to people who don't know better) has to be considered one of the great album openers in all of classic rock; from the amazing opening synth loop (that persists through the song and plays along with the rest of the band), to the three piano chords that say as much as any three chords ever have, to the lyrics that summarize Pete's rejection of his pointlessly rebellious generation, to the fiddle-driven conclusion (Keith's idea), it's no wonder this became one of the band's calling cards. "Bargain" may have later ended up getting used as a cheap advertising jingle (with its "I'd call it a bargain, the best I ever had, the best I ever haaaaaaaaaad" chorus), but here it's essentially just a love song, and one of the most powerful ones I've ever heard. Lyrics aside, declaring that it would be worth it to do all sorts of bad things if it meant winning somebody's love, it's full of great, thick guitar sounds, a great synth line at the end carrying the main chord sequence while guitars are piled around it, and fantastic vocals from both Roger and Pete. "Behind Blue Eyes," the album's penultimate track, starts off as a lovely downbeat acoustic ballad, then turns into a bit of a generic arena rocker, but overall the song still holds up as a classic.
Finally, we have the album's most infamous track, the closing "Won't Get Fooled Again," an anti-anti-establishment anthem (and a fine compliment to the similar sentiments of Baba O'Riley) that's simply one of the greatest rock songs ever written. From the nagging synth line (which opens the song, lingers in the background the whole time and then moves to the forefront again near the end), to the slashing guitar lines, to the controlled chaos of the drumming, to Roger's "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" scream near the end, every bit of the song rouses, entertains and impresses the hell out of me. You know what my favorite little detail is? It comes when the main instrumentation disappears near the end, leaving the synth line by itself (with only a very quiet acoustic strumming buried in the mix); the right channel holds the upfront mix of the synth line, but what I often prefer to listen to is just the left channel, which has the very quiet "echo" of the line. That "echo" sound is INCREDIBLE, and without it the synth line would sound like listening (in general) to a 5.1 audio mix without plugging in the rear speakers. In any case, I know there are some who find it overlong, but I think it deserves every second of its 8+ minutes.
In the end, whatever complaints I might have aside, this is a totally first rate album. In the end, it has Roger putting on his first truly powerful studio performance; it has Keith with a cooler drum sound than ever; and it has Pete near the peak of his arranging and songwriting prowess. And it has the guys walking away from a giant bathroom on the cover! I wonder if the "outhouse" on the cover is symbolic that the album is essentially the leftovers of "Lifehouse," or if I'm just reading too much into it...
PS: If you're wondering, this is what my ideal Lifehouse sounds like (including tracks that originated here but weren't recorded until later):
"Baba O'Riley"
David Tomany (dtomany1.maine.rr.com)
American photographer Ethan Russell is responsible for "Who's Next"
cover
photo,not to mention "Quadrophenia" LP photographic insert,which if
you
own
an early pressing of record,is a collecters item.Anyhoo,Russell put out a
book of his work entitled "Dear Mr. Fantasy" back in the mid-eighties(out
of print I beleive)that contains his work plus great text.He ripping
through the English countryside with Townshend behind the wheel of his
Mercedes,rest of band entourage in their own cars as well,doing 110
mph
attempting to find a muse for "The Who's" album cover.Hilarious
recollection from Ethan as Townshend drove his car like a madman scaring
the shit out of the photographer.Anyway,they happend by that slag heap
pictured on the record sleeve.It was a rural dump.Concrete pillars are
used
to prevent the ground from shifting.The initial idea was for the band to
approach the pillar like something out of Stanley Kubrick's 2001.But one
of the band, probably Keith,promptly took a leak on it.An amusing
aside,some of the band were not able to piss on cue and what looks like
piss on the concrete is actually film cans of rain water.The perfect
looking sky on the cover was superimposed by Russell as the actual weather
was overcast.
Awake600.aol.com
I wouldn't rate this album quite as high as you would, but it still rules.
The first two songs (Baba O' Riley, Bargain), the middle one (Song Is
Over) and the last two (Behind Blue Eyes, Won't Get Fooled Again) are
pretty much Who classics, especially "Won't Get Fooled Again", one of the
best rock anthems ever written, and of course I don't even have to mention
Roger's scream near the end of the song, fully deserving of all 8:32 of
its' time for sure - is there anyone who DOESN'T think it's the best song
on this album? I've never heard otherwise...
"Baba O' Riley" best demonstrates Pete's effective synthesizer usage and
his ability to create simple, but oh so powerful and original, riffs, and
is definitely a classic, and its' followup "Bargain" gives it a run for
its' money demonstrating his talent for melody writing and the band's
rocking power. "Song Is Over" and "Behind Blue Eyes" are incredible
ballads with hard-hitting emotion, the former with an amazing chorus that
I don't consider overblown for a second (which is true for anyone else
here).
The remaining tracks, though, are a little ordinary in the presence of
such classic material - "Love Ain't For Keeping" just kinda comes and goes
lthough it is nice, I'm not a fan of "My Wife" mostly because of
Entwistle's vocals, and the infamously hated by Prindle "Goin' Mobile" is
a good and catchy, but normal rock song. And while I don't exactly hate
"Gettin' In Tune" (the verses are quite powerful), I will say the chorus
is somewhat annoying and repetitive, leaving a lot to be desired compared
to the rest of the song. Still, the remaining material is so excellent
that this definitely deserves a 13.
BTW, about "2112" being a ripoff of the Lifehouse concept, that song is
more a direct parallel to Ayn Rand's short story "Anthem", and it probably
goes much less deeper than what Pete came up with. The Who's influence was
probably apparent on Rush in the riffing (along with Zep), though, and the
ending riff to the third part of "The Necromancer" is even a little
similar to the opening riff of "Baba O' Riley" with a few more notes added
on to it.
Echo Albarn (whoneedsthisreality.hotmail.com)
It is important to note that this album was re-released in 1995 with
nearly an album-full amount of additions, most of which came from the
Lifehouse project (Which Pete "mostly" finished this previous
year). Bonuses include "Pure and Easy" (one of the linchpins of the
Lifehouse concept), "Water", "Naked Eye", and the original mix
(featuring a nice little Hammond part) of "Behind Blue Eyes".
Thought09.aol.com
This may be my favorite album of all time. It's the first who album I
ever got and started on that road to wholiganism. I love every song on
it...EVERY FUCKING SONG. My Wife is a great tune, but seems a little out
of place w/ all the lifehouse tracks. The original album is great,
but the double sized 95 reissue is what makes it so amazing.....EVERY
SINGLE ONE OF THOSE SONGS are perfect as well...just priceless, enough
said. Oh, and as a comment to the guy who said he's never heard anybody
say they think 'wont get fooled again' isn't the greatest on the
album...well here's me. I'd rate it in the top 5 on the album for sure,
but not #1. Oh, and I love 'love ain't for keepin'"...pure rock and roll
folks...and yes the version on odds and sods rules...
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
This album would be perfect but for three quibbles: Getting In Tune,
Going Mobile, and My Wife. Given some of the other material that
Townshend had lying around, there' no excuse for this.
Craig Stevens (dmc.stevens.ns.sympatico.ca)
I always thought that the cover was a nuclear pylon left over from a
nuke going off and the who were pissing on it as a sort of 60s protest.
But then when i herd it in 1981 I was under sedation from a
hallucinogenic accident to the extent that the synthisizers werealmost
like a religeous experiance and audibaly communicative to the point of
auditorial hallicination as was the hole album.
Joe H (jcjh.home.com) (11/25/01)
Definate 9/10. They've really branched out here, and now they are a full
blown, mature rock band, even though i prefer Tommy and Sell Out. All the
songs are really great, "Baba O Riley", "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Wont get
Fooled Again" are absolute classics, and the rest of the songs are great
too. I find Moon's drumming awesome and even hilarious at times, with
those funny, complex drum fills and such.
Trfesok.aol.com (12/09/04)
Oh, no. only a 9? This IS the Who's best album. The first, and best,
example of the group finally bringing its live power to the studio.
First, it sounds fantastic. Especially for 1971 -- Glyn Johns gave the
band the clarity it needed without sacrificing its power. The early
versions of songs like "Pure and Easy" and "Behind Blue Eyes," with Kit
Lambert producing, don't compare with Johns' work. And everyone is at
his peak as a musician. Daltrey, in particular, stands heads above any of
his previous performances. And every song is great - Townshend hit the
top as a songwriter. Its too bad there wasn't room for more Lifehouse
songs, but we did get to hear more as time progressed. Not overrated in
the least -- the band's real classic.
Jeff Blehar (jeffblehar.hotmail.com) (02/23/05)
Count me as one of those who think this album suffers from its over-seriousness. But before I get to that, I want to point out what an amazing transformation The Who have made in the studio. It's practically a caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly sort of change. Townshend & Co. were last seen in the studio with Tommy, and before that The Who Sell Out. Now both of those albums featured lush melodicism and excellent ensemble performances, but they were still relatively “light” in many ways: they sounded like extremely creative kids giving it their all. On Who's Next, they've clearly become men, for better and worse. Townshend is now writing epic songs and gaining newfound mastery over his lyrical “voice,” Moon's drumming is wild as before but with a new sense of discipline, and Entwistle is brazenly virtuoso on the bass. And then there's Daltrey. On Tommy Roger Daltrey still sounded like a teenager; from his first words on “Baba O'Riley” it's clear that he's jumped into another plane vocally - he sounds immeasurably more mature, and he has that leonine ROAR that you heard some of on Live At Leeds.
Unfortunately, when The Who grew out of their adolescence and into musical adulthood they also seem to have lost one of the things which made them so effortlessly lovable: their uniquely goofy sense of humor. Entwistle still had his black sensibility (“My Wife” is an anti-romantic classic), but Pete was so consumed by his spiritual seriousness and his musical ambition that Who's Next noticeably sags under the weight of Lifehouse's (ultimately rather flaky) search-for-the-lost-chord pretensions. The truth is that Townshend had matured immeasurably as a lyricist, songwriter, and production innovator (note the pioneering work with synths and tape loops) by 1971, but not enough for his grasp to equal his conceptual reach.
“The Song Is Over” hurts the most from this, but “Getting In Tune” and even “Behind Blue Eyes” are marked by it as well. “Going Mobile” has actually always been a favorite of mine precisely because it offers temporary relief from all these Big Philosophical Statements. Then again, sometimes the Big Philosophical Statements come out as timeless as masterpieces: “Baba O'Riley” is nothing short of a declaration of purpose, both in its disorientingly innovative structure (hypnotic synthesizer-loop introduction, haunting fiddle conclusion) and in its anthemically skeptical lyrics. No youth revolution for him: in an age where the Boomers were lost in a reverie of narcissistic self-regard and mindlessly conformist politics, Townshend declares “I don't have to fight to prove I'm right/I don't need to be forgiven” and dismisses an entire generation of psychedelic revolutionaries and cosmic protesters as “teenage wastelamd.” “Won't Get Fooled Again” is practically a conservative anthem when you think about it: spit in the eyes of the Maoists and Marxists, Yippies and Hippies, rioting '68ers and Weathermen, and all those who dreamed of revolution. In a single iconic statement - “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss” - Townshend was at once less equivocal, more eloquent, and far wiser than John Lennon ever was on the subject.
Austin (zinzam.dejazzd.com) (12/13/08)
This is one of my favorite albums of all time. Although not the best album
ever or even The Who's best, as some would say, this is still an amazing
album. Despite its flaws, I'd probably still have to give it a 15. "Baba
O'Riley," "Bargain," "My Wife," "The Song is Over," "Behind Blue Eyes," and
"Won't Get Fooled Again" are such amazing songs that it would be impossible
for me to give this anything but a 15. And contrary to popular belief, I
actually find "Baba O'Riley" better than "Won't Get Fooled Again."
Oh, by the way, John:
Steven Highams (rawdon.lilly.gmail.com) (07/13/13)
Good album, this. The only problem is that ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ are so fabulous that nothing in between comes close to matching them. Oh, and there’s another problem too: the hype. It’s in that club with Sgt. Pepper and the like, and if you’re aware of the hype before you hear it, the actual record is going to come off second best. That’s the only reason I have never heard Dark Side of the Moon to this day, and the reason why I always refused to listen to the Beatles until I was in my early twenties. Indeed, I still have reservations about the Beatles a quarter of a century later; there’s that knee-jerk thing, “Oh, the Beatles are my favourite band…” While I appreciate and enjoy them, they wouldn't be on my top twenty list of favourite artists (if I did one, but that would be a dreadful waste of time).
Love that juxtaposition of hard rock guitar and flickering synths here, although it didn't work quite so well on Who Are You. It’s horrible to be so predictable, but that 1969-73 period really was their finest (the single ‘Relay’ is criminally overlooked), though I enjoy The Who by Numbers and Who Are You well enough. What I like about Townshend is the way he treated each new album as a project, with a theme. It makes you want to go out and create something too. Tommy and Quadrophenia are wonderful rock opera/concept albums, only matched, outside of the prog arena, by Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare.
Incidentally, John, there’s another live album out, The Who Live at Hull, 1970; I don’t know if it’s been released in the States. It’s a two-disc CD, with the whole of Tommy on the second disc. Live at Leeds was very nearly Live at Hull; Roger has always said it was the better gig, but there was a problem with the bass on the tapes, though Pete says in his autobiography, Who I Am, that it was less intense than the Leeds gig. Whatever, they’re both out now.
Best song: Sea And Sand, The Rock or Love Reign O'er Me
Phase two of the band's quest to one-up Tommy originally took the form of a musical autobiography. Yup, the band's 1972 project was an album called Rock is Dead, Long Live Rock, made of a mix of Lifehouse leftovers and some new tracks. With about 2/3's of the album done and ready, though, the band apparently realized that too much of the album sounded like Who's Next, which should have been an obvious risk from the beginning given that they were using leftovers from that album. So the band scrapped that project, and aimed for something both similar and quite different: a musical biography of a prototypical Who fan from the band's earliest days as Mod idols. The end result, another 2-LP rock opera, largely ended up confusing the music-buying public (its high peak on the US sales chart notwithstanding), and not all fans of the band revere this as one of the band's great peaks, but I consider it their studio triumph, and for the most part its reputation has seemingly increased in general over the years.
The story concerns a Mod (a kind of British subculture in the mid-60's that really liked American R&B, had a special affinity for The Who, and who enjoyed riding scooters, wearing tailored suits, getting high on amphetamines, and beating up Rockers, the other big British group of the day) named Jimmy, who pretty much had a lot of the quintessential problems of being a teenager. He didn't get along with his parents (though, as acknowledged in the lyrics, this tension is just as much Jimmy's fault as it is the parents'); he wanted to make his mark on society but couldn't find an identity outside of being a mod (a group that ends up letting him down, and which doesn't really note him as an individual anyway); his girlfriend leaves him for one of his best friends, and so on. All this would just be part of a typical teenager's struggles, were it not for an additional problem: Jimmy has four distinct personalities (i.e. he's "quadrophenic," a play on the term schizophrenic, even though this is a play on the incorrect usage of the word, but never mind that for now), and he's at a loss to figure out which one is the real him. Taking this a step further, each of these personalities is associated with a specific band member (this is the point where the album starts to lose a lot of people). The Roger personality is that of somebody who wants to put on a tough facade but breaks down in seeing all the injustice in the world. The Keith personality is the one associated with the reckless lunatic who would participate in protest marches and help trash hotels; this is embodied (quite sadly) in the Bell Boy who turns out to be another mod lunatic that ended up selling out by working at one of those hotels. The John personality is a hopeless romantic, and Pete's personality, the most interesting of the four, is one that recognizes his weakness, that he is ultimately at the mercy of others, and who only wants that "love reign o'er me."
There are a couple of notes I want to touch upon with regards to aspects of the story I see people mention pretty frequently in discussing the album. First, I tend to think that people make too much of the association of individual band members with Jimmy's personalities. Sure, the connection between Keith and the guy who likes to break stuff is pretty obvious, and it's not surprising that Pete would assign the most interesting of the personalities to himself, but there isn't an obvious connection between Roger and John and their respective personalities, and I don't think there needs to be one. I tend to think in listening to this album (and I could be wrong, but I doubt it) that Pete came up with the idea of four personalities well before he decided to connect them with individual band members, and I almost think one of the main reasons he ended up connecting the personalities to band members was to add some heft to the image of Jimmy looking forward on his scooter and having the four members of the band looking back at him in the mirrors.
The other thing I want to touch upon is the idea that the resonance of this album is too closely tied in with Jimmy's teen angst circumstances and with Mod culture in general. I grew up in the 80's and 90's in the Midwest, far from any trace of the Mod/Rocker references that serve as the album's backdrop. I had some of the typical tiffs with my parents growing up, and had an incredibly awkward social life, but truth be told, in the grand scheme of things, my circumstances were pretty well off and well adjusted, and I was very straightlaced overall. I bought this album when I was 18, a freshman in college, and it completely resonated with me then, yet years upon years later, it still holds up shockingly well and has even improved to my ears. For all of the time, age and location specifics that work into this album, the main underlying themes are quite universal: trying to figure out who you really are in the grand scheme of things; trying to find acceptance while retaining individuality; trying to make sense of a world where so many bad things happen; trying to cope when people and ideas you've trusted ultimately let you down, and so on. Many of the ideas and themes touched on in this album are ones I only really came to appreciate in my 20's and beyond. Yes, this is probably the best teen angst album ever (at least, to me), but a large part of that is because it transcends conventional teen angst into something far greater. This is an album about [pretentious] The Human Condition [/pretentious] if there ever was one.
Lyrics and story aside, though, this album gets a 10 because the music is awesome. This is the band's version of Pet Sounds in that it's closer to a Pete Townshend solo album than a true Who album in terms of how much contribution each of the other band members to its development. Yes, Townshend had always been the dominant creative force in the band, but even the last two albums each had tracks from Entwistle, and the final track listing of Who's Next was certainly more the other band members' doing than Pete's. This album, though, is Pete's baby from top to bottom: pretty much everything except the drums, the basslines, and other people's singing came from his conceptual, songwriting, arranging and (to an extent) production efforts. That shouldn't short sell the contributions of any of the others, though; Roger's singing is amazing throughout, Keith puts on his greatest drumming performance ever (the chaos is turned down just enough to turn Keith's usual mad scientist drumming routine into a performance that should make even doubters take note), and John puts in such an amazing performance throughout that this has a perennial place as one of my top 3 greatest bass guitar rock albums ever (the others are Fragile and Led Zeppelin II).
You know what? If ever an album deserved a track-by-track analysis, this would be it. "I Am the Sea" immediately establishes the album's thematic focus on water, with crashing waves sounding as the album's four themes are each introduced in turn. Then, after all four themes are shown, we break into "The Real Me," a blazing show of the band's "traditional" rocking power (especially in the basslines, which are so well-written it's flabbergasting) that makes effective use of trumpets in the chorus. In this track, we learn about Jimmy's self-confusion, and how he's searched for answers from others but that nobody seems able or willing to help him. From here we come into the instrumental title track, a six-minute suite that essentially functions as this album's "Overture," with each of the themes elaborated upon before crashing down in a bombastic manner at the end of the "Love, Reign O'er Me" theme. There's a lot of emphasis on synthesizers in this track, but the main star is certainly Pete's guitar, which plays a wide assortment of extremely beautiful lines.
"Cut My Hair" comes next, and this is where we learn more about Jimmy's relationship with his parents and with society in general. He has his differences with them, sure, but he knows they're basically good people, and besides, they did find drugs in his room, so it's not like they don't have cause to be upset. We learn that he identifies himself as a Mod, with all the superficial trappings that go along with it, but he still doesn't feel totally part of the culture and has to, in his words, "work myself to death just to fit in"; he asks, after all, why he has to be different just to earn respect, and why he's part of a crowd that hardly notices he's there.
"The Punk and the Godfather" is the album's second amazing rocker, full of great punkish guitar lines and amazing basslines, and lyrically based in traditional Fathers and Sons ideas of generational warfare. On the surface, at least: it turns out the song is actually about Jimmy going to a Who concert to look for a guide for his life, only to find out that the band is just putting on a facade of being like the Mods and has nothing in common with the life he's chosen. In the end, the band (and rock music by extension) ends up being just another thing that lets him down. The song sure isn't a letdown, though!
"I'm One," starting off the second side, is a track I long considered filler because I couldn't figure out at all where it fit in the grand scheme of things, but I wouldn't dream of that now. It features Pete on vocals, and goes from a quiet acoustic number into a solid mid-tempo guitar-based rocker, with lyrics both celebrating and bemoaning (I think) the fact that he doesn't really fit in with the people around him. "The Dirty Jobs," then, is the one song on the first half of the album that can almost certainly be thrown into the filler category; it does a good job of conveying the angst Jimmy feels in his life as he tries to make do with various odd jobs, but I've always tended to find the string/horn arrangements a little awkward, and Roger's vocals don't really do it for me here either. Up next, though, is Roger's theme, "Helpless Dancer," and it's a good one, based on a nagging Easterny melody and featuring Roger singing about various awful things in the world that get him down. In the end, all of these negative things lead to one thing: You stop dancing. Amusingly enough, this is immediately followed by a sample of the beginning of "The Kids Are Alright," which soon fades out into a brief snippet of John's theme.
The next song, "Is it In My Head?," was one of the songs that originated in the Rock is Dead sessions, and as such it doesn't fit in squarely with the story, but it's a good, painful ballad, and I'm glad it's here. The critical line that brings it back into Jimmy's general problems is this: "I try to number those who love me/and find exactly what the trouble is." The side then finishes in a flurry and with a flourish, courtesy of "I've Had Enough." The opening lines are some of my favorites Pete ever wrote: "You were under the impression/that when you were walking forward/you'd end up further onward/but things ain't quite that simple/You got altered information/you were told to not take changes/you missed out on new dances/now you're losing all your dimples." If there's ever been lines that better conveyed anger at one's choices and the forces around them that helped lead to those choices, I haven't heard them. Musically, the song weaves the various themes in and out of each other, presumably symbolizing Jimmy's complete and utter confusion with his life; the part of him that wants to be a mod alternates repeatedly with the Love Reign O'er Me theme, giving way to a banjo-driven theme over which Roger expresses disgust with everything in his life before finishing off with, "I've had enough of trying to love." Apparently this is the point in the story (as explained in the liner notes) where Jimmy's scooter, his prized posession as a Mod, has gotten trashed, but you wouldn't know that from the music; all you'd know is that something bad just happened inside of him.
Side two opens with "5:15," with Jimmy riding a train to the sea, baked out of his mind, and reminiscing about all of the various decadent experiences he'd had at Mod parties and the like. The main portion of the song is a bit showtune-ish, but unless you have a complete allergy to such things, you shouldn't be bothered, because underneath the horns is a terrific rocker with great guitarlines and more of those amazing amazing basslines. I found the song a bit excessively cheezy during my first couple of listens, out of context from the album, but I think it's a great stand-alone track, and an amazing part of the album.
The next song is often overlooked in picking the great tracks of the album, but over the years I've found that "The Sea and Sand" moves me so much that it would be ridiculous for me not to pick it as one of the best. This track begins the portion of the story that consists of Jimmy walking along the sea, musing about where he's let life take him and how crappy his situation, and I find this track amazing both lyrically and musically. The song first relates how Jimmy got kicked out of the house, with Jimmy snidely remarking that "the family's complete" with him gone. It then moves smoothly into a flashback (from not long past) of his association with the mods, and his frustrations in trying to find his place among them, both men and women. The imagery in this song is just overwhelmingly real to me: every time, I can see Jimmy bawling his eyes out in frustration at how he tries so hard to impress with his dress, but that no matter what he does, everybody around him seems to look better, and he can't connect with the women around him. In the end, all he has out of being a Mod is the identity of being a Mod (an idea brought out by the repeated singing of the line "I'm the face if you want it," quoted from the first Who single, back when they were the High Numbers). And musically, this crosses an incredibly gorgeous ballad, with wonderful singing from Roger, with a more rocking part (sung by Pete) that reprises a theme from I've Had Enough whenever he's singing specifically about being a Mod. In the end, if you can't find beauty in "The Sea and Sand," you probably won't find beauty in Quad.
The next song, "Drowned," seemed a little wimpy and fillerish the first few times I listened to it, and I still get that feeling a little bit, but the only reason I can think of for that is that, for an up-tempo rocker, it sure does sound awfully Broadwayish in places (especially in the piano parts). Plus, there's a lengthy portion of it that's just a reprise of the horn-guitar back-and-forth theme in "5:15," and that gets a little tedious. Honestly, though, the song is a pretty effective mid-tempo rocker beyond those elements, and it has all sorts of neat lyrical imagery, drawing further on the idea of drowning in water, which Pete apparently meant as symbolic of drowning in God's love or something along those lines.
Side three concludes with "Bell Boy," which is Keith's theme and a critical portion of the album's plot. In this song, Jimmy thinks back to an experience where he meets the Mod (an "Ace Face") he had followed in trashing up a hotel a couple of years earlier. As mentioned earlier, Jimmy sees that this Mod has now become a bell-boy at this hotel, and in seeing this Jimmy loses faith in the identity he had created for himself as a Mod. The bell-boy (voiced by Keith) sees nothing wrong with having "sold out" in such an egregious way, despite the fact that he's now a boot-licker, and even expresses disdain and contempt for the idea that Jimmy hadn't grown up and done the same. As for the music, this is yet another incredible, driving rocker, with a great chord sequence driven by the guitars and the synths, and both Roger and Keith do great jobs with their respective parts.
Side four, then, is just flat-out amazing. The first track, "Doctor Jimmy," contains a couple of instances of John's theme, the romantic Is it Me? bit, but the majority of the song is about Jimmy the hepped-up, psychotic, dangerous lunatic. Lyrics aside (and they're great, conveying somebody who's reckless to a fault, no matter who around him he hurts), the song is driven forward by a frantic synth loop, with more nice basslines and good guitar parts for color. In the fade out for the track, we come to "The Rock," which is essentially the same idea as the title track, but done with an even better arrangement. Keith's drums have an effective amount of echo put on them in the right spots, and they practically sound like cannons as he plays a bunch of incredible parts through the track. This song clearly represents Jimmy's internal struggle between his four personalities, and all four themes are presented in incredibly moving ways, climaxing in the part where all four parts are contributing to the song in some way at the same time. It's tough to fully describe the song's real impact, but if any song on here illustrates the outright greatness of Quad, it's The Rock.
In the end, Pete's theme comes through as the victor, and "Love Reign O'er Me" is everything that the rousing climactic finale of an album like Quad should be. I actually originally heard it in an abridged single form on a terrible greatest hits album, and it never made any impact on me whatosever; it was only when I heard it in complete form on the radio in my car one day over Christmas break during my Freshman year of college that I realized what an amazing song this was, and that I had to buy this album as soon as possible. It takes its sweet time with the bombastic, piano-led introduction, and when the song portion (full of great singing, emotional guitar work, the amazing lyrics and that great synth loop) is done, the end has every bit the bravado it deserves.
Now, for a long time, I was under the impression that Jimmy had his big revelation at the end, and then committed suicide, and that's what the Big Finish represented. Several years after getting into the album, though, I read an interview with Pete, and I found that the correct interpretation (and if Pete's isn't correct, whose is?) of the song is much more interesting. There is a death here, but it is not of Jimmy; instead, it is essentially the death of Jimmy's inner struggle to figure out who he is, and of his self-pity, and essentially of the immaturity that is holding him back. Jimmy, in this moment, grows up, and though his life will be a struggle because of his bad decisions and habits to this point, he has a fresh start. And you know, I like the idea that that is something to celebrate, an idea worth depicting in the big, bombastic, earth-shattering way it is at the end of this album.
So in the end, this is the band's studio triumph. It's not the easiest album to fully assimilate on first listen, but it's one that fully rewards further listens, and one of the greatest albums I've ever heard in my life. And frankly, I just don't see how somebody could find greater meaning in The Wall or Mellon Collie than in this album. It's bombastic, but it's sincere beyond words, and what more could you want from the greatest hard rock band ever?
Robert Grazer (xeernoflax.jack-the-ripper.com)
Ok. This may be tough. Quadrophenia is good, but nothing more.
Entwistle proves himself as one of the top 10 bassists, and Daltrey is
impressive as well. In fact those two are really great on here, and Kieth
and Pete are good as well. My problem is that the quality of the songs is
unpredictable from track to track. They range from excellent to really
really bad. For example, "The Punk and the Godfather" is excellent, one of
the best Who songs ever. However the previous track, "Helpless Dancer" is
a pretty bad song. None of the songs on here are complete failures; John
prevents that. Some come close though. "Sea and Sand" could be the worst
on the album, despite the talent displayed. "5:15" is hurt by the horns.
I usually like orchestrations or horns in songs, but it didn't work here.
Oops. I'm sorry, I was wrong. The worst song on this album is "Helpless
Dancer." UGH! Not a complete failure; as I said there are no complete
failures on this album. But it is pretty close to one.! Even though it is
a good ending to the album "Love Reign O'er Me" is too short. This could
have been a complete classic if it was five or six minutes instead of
three.
Now despite all that I've said, there are some really great tracks on
here. How about "Drowned?" Can John get much better than that? I doubt it.
Not too many bassists could. The previously mentioned "The Punk and the
Godfather" is the first great song on the album. "I've Had Enough" is
another classic. Still, inferior to Tommy.
BEST SONG: "Doctor Jimmmy" is the song that show the best of this album.
Great in every way. Even though I generally prefer "See Me, Feel Me" to
"Is It Me," I will say that the version of "Is It Me" in "Doctor Jimmy" is
better than any version of "See Me, Feel Me."
COMPLAINTS: I said them all already.
RATING: My Scale: ***1/2 John McFerrin's Scale: 7(10)
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
Magnificent. I don't agree with you on the filler; I think everything on
here is terrific. The story is only slightly better than Tommy, but who
cares?
Tim Eimiller (ClashWho.aol.com) (1/08/02)
A beginning-to-end masterpiece. I think this is the greatest album ever made.
Lyrically and musically it's a powerhouse performance. Every member shines.
But the thing that really puts this album over the top is the passion, the
sheer emotion, leaking out of your speakers.
Jimmy is every-teen. You watch him slowly fall apart as all the rugs are
pulled out from under him, only for you to witness his epiphany, his
salvation, at the end with "Love, Reign O'er Me." When I listen to that song
in the context of the album I am simply overwhelmed every time.
The anger, the guilt, the pain that Jimmy feels is palpable. All the angst
that every teen feels on his path to adulthood is expressed here with great
conviction and amazing empathy. Thank you, Pete Townshend, for this album.
Charles Allison (charlie.cwallison.fsnet.co.uk) (8/26/03)
For any drummer and admirer of Keith Moon, BELL BOY is one of the greatest
tracks of all time - especially when the songs returns after the ludicrous
moody quiet bit to those crashing drums (I can do that bit!!!)
Not as good as WHO'S NEXT but a classic nonetheless.
Live (I only saw them once) they were unsurpassed and bloody loud too.
The stones were never as good as these guys at their best.
Charlie Allison
Simon Brigham (slb23.shaw.ca) (4/07/04)
Quadrophenia is my favourite album by The Who, and one of the greatest
double albums of all time. Pete is great as usual on guitars and
synthesizers, Roger is in top form vocally, John is amazing on bass,
and Keith is just wonderful throughout the album.
I first listened to it in 2000. I must admit I didn't like side three
("5:15", "Sea and Sand", "Drowned", "Bell Boy") as much as the other
sides, but it grew on me. The four main musical themes (though really
great) get kind of repetitive at some points, but it has an arguably
better (and more realistic) story than Tommy, and the music (IMO) rocks
harder than the music on Tommy, also.
Best songs: "The Real Me", "Cut My Hair", "I'm One", "Dirty Jobs", "Is It
In My Head?", "I've Had Enough", "5:15", "Drowned", "Doctor Jimmy",
"Love, Reign O'er Me".
Rating: 9 (14)
Jeff Blehar (jeffblehar.hotmail.com) (02/23/05)
It's the greatest rock album of all time. I don't think there's any higher praise I can offer it than that. I've spent my money on thousands and thousands of CDs, covered the entire spectrum of popular music from metal to ambient to folk to country to prog to pop to you-name-it, and Quadrophenia still stands out for me as the most ambitious and fully realized project anyone's ever pulled off in the genre at large. Moreover, it does something that I think all truly profound art ought to: it deeply involves the listener emotionally. Lots of intellectually impressive music and art keeps its audience at an enforced distance (it seems to be the modern aesthetic), but Quadrophenia engages you in both your head and your heart without ever being cheap or manipulative. There's a term for what this album evokes, and uncoincidentally it's also what both Townshend and his creation Jimmy are searching for: the experience of the sublime.
And man, that's no mean feat. Townshend was writing about the early '60s "Mod" youth culture over a decade later AND from the point of view of an outsider, and yet his lyrics (and liner notes - brilliant character writing) are miraculously free of cliches or patronization. They're not poetic in the same way as Dylan's could be, but then Townshend's not writing about psychedelic jesters and two-wheeled gypsies, but rather about a lower-middle class malcontent kid. And they depict the emotionally chaotic mind of a moody, dreamy, confused adolescent with alternately sharp and subtle strokes. ("Cut My Hair" in particular is underappreciated in this regard: it captures the poignantly real ambiguity in Jimmy's relationship with his parents; they're NOT monsters - which is how most lyricists writing the same song would portray them - and Jimmy recognizes this even as he fights with them.)
I could spend all day raving about how perfect Townshend's lyrics are on this album - he's working on levels most lyricists can only dream of attaining - but I have to pay tribute to the music as well, which expresses Townshend's baroque thematic and structural ideas brilliantly WHILE carrying the weight of the emotionally searing storyline AND WHILE also, y'know, totally f***in' rocking. "The Real Me," "The Punk And The Godfather," "5.15," "Drowned," and (the underrated) "I've Had Enough" are the true heirs of the musical breakthroughs of "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Bargain." Of the four musical themes which stand in both for aspects of Jimmy's fragmented personality and members of The Who, only Roger's "Helpless Dancer" is less than perfectly suited to its placement and the album's overall mood - and even then, the "Helpless Dancer" theme returns to form an integral part of the instrumental finale. And that finale, "The Rock," really encapsulates for me all the ways in which this album is Townshend's triumph. To be sure, Daltrey sings brilliantly, Moon gives his final hurrah as the world's greatest rock drummer, and Entwistle plays bass as effortlessly as light plays upon the water. But "The Rock," which reprises each of the four themes and then brings them together in a fusion of four into one, is microcosm of all the emotional highpoints and climaxes of what's come before, and is a tour-de-force in terms of writing AND arranging.
When I think about how Quadrophenia comes together in so many different ways, how it simultaneously engages the listener on so many different intellectual, musical, and emotional levels, and how it manages to gracefully execute so many tricky conceits solely at the service of a larger spiritual and narrative purpose ... well, it's at times like that I begin to toss around the much-abused word "genius" with respect to Pete Townshend. He clearly suffered for his art, both before, during, and after (he clearly burned out in a major way after Quad), but not in vain. 10/10, 15/15, whatever - it's simply the most treasured thing in my entire collection.
David Dickson (ddickso2.uccs.edu) (08/30/07)
Reading the very last paragraph of this review, John, all I can say is
this: Thank God you don't have an essay on this site akin to
Starostin's "Rock Music is Dead" shpiel of bull (no offense, George).
I would have had to call you a name. Preferably "Proghorn."
All joking and name-calling aside, though (call me DICKS!), I agree
with you that this is an excellent album--the best of the Who's career
by an immensely, ridiculously, and crapaciously long shot. Call Tommy and
Who's Next what you want, but from a pure entertainment standpoint, I think
the Kinks and Led Zeppelin had this band beat HARD into the ground during
1969 and 1971, respectively. The Kinks were far better pop songwriters on
Arthur, and frankly, no one beat Led Zeppelin for pure hard rock until the
punk era. So what if the Who came first? They were never masters of
atmosphere (or singing, for that matter--but that's really a matter of
personal taste). Plus they
nearly always wore their classical influences on their sleeve. Hence,
when they attempted to sound RAWKISH (a la "Out in the Street," "I Can
See For Miles," "My Wife," etc.), they merely sounded twee.
So it's only when they ignored rhythm n blooze and played that
"classical" card to the HILT that we have greatness!! Aka,
Quadrophenia, virtually the only Who album on which the band allows
themselves unfettered bombast (as opposed to the "dinner theater" of
Tommy and the misplaced YEAAH! approach of Who's Next). Sixteen
songs, 80 minutes, all dramatic, all befitting. Whereas Tommy was
really more intriguing from an intellectual standpoint than an
emotional one (and yeah, I include "See Me Feel Me Touch Me Taste
Etc." in that), Quad plays the emotional card from start to finish,
resulting in such splendiferous emotional arcs as the "The Real
Me/Quadrophenia" suite, the transition from "Is it In My Head" to
"I've Had Enough," and the entirety of side four, one of the most
sublimely operatic pieces of music in all of classic rock. (and believe you
me, I've heard ALL classic rock ever recorded, so what I just said makes a
lick of sense. . . )
Aaaaanyway, it's that "emotional arc" thingamajig that causes me to
ferociously defend the two albums you lambast in your final paragraph. To be
honest, I think the Wall is a hair lower in quality than Quadrophenia, and
it's true it probably wouldn't exist if not for the Who's work, but to call
it a "pale imitator" misses the mark, I think. Sure, it may be a ripoff of
Tommy, Schoolboys in Disgrace, and Quadrophenia, but only in the same sense
that Joyce is a ripoff of Conrad, Ibsen, and Yeats--in the end, who cares.
Actually, it's probably more accurate to call The Wall a ripoff of Bowie's
Ziggy Stardust, in the sense of the themes it expounds upon--namely, rock
and roll suicide. That's a matter for another reader comment, though--my
opinion is, it may not be as consistent musically as Quadrophenia, but it is
for damn sure more diverse and unpredictable. In a way, I'd say that mostly
makes up for its compositional shortcomings and nasty thematics.
Mellon Collie, though, is a personal pet peeve of mine, one that I seem
unable to see eye-to-eye on with anyone over the age of 26. The general
objection I get to that album ranges from "Sellouts. . . careerists. . .
capitalists. . . I smell bad!" (all indie fans)to "Modern music. . .
goshdarn kids. . . doodly diddly!" (Starostin, Flanders, old people) to "His
voice stinks" (Mark Prindle) to "The lyrics stink" (professional critics) to
"Quadrophenia is better" (present company).
My response: So it's not the ultimate statement of teen angst or the first
double album ever made--big deal. It's also not a rock opera or a concept
album, either--so you can wash that "pale imitator" accusation right out of
your hair (South Pacific, Act II, 1949). It's just 28 songs released in
1995 written in the musical style of the time. And, in my solitary opinion,
despite its whiny voice and shabby lyrics, its 2 hours of musical excess
hold together more cohesively than most so-called concept albums one-third
its length. I may be alone in this opinion, John, but I think if you give
that monstrosity another 122 minute and 6 second chance, you'll find it to
be the glorious culmination of the art of the double LP, not the
degeneration. But then again, I was born in 1982, and I also like
Queensryche.
Trfesok.aol.com (02/02/08)
I like the album a lot, with several really classic songs. However,
it reminds me, in a sense of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The
"philosophy" behind the album is entirely different, of course.
However, like Gabriel/Genesis, Townshend/The Who overreached here.
For one thing, the concept is too tied in with a specific, time place
and culture -- specifically, the mods of early 60's Britain. Of
course, I'm a bit too old for teen angst, but even so, the references
are a bit too obscure and off-putting (or, you can't figure out
what's going on every now and then, as in "The Punk and the
Godfather"), so that you can't always relate to the character. The
split personality business doesn't work, either. I mean, for example,
Pete says "Helpless Dancer" is Rogers' theme, but why? It's easy for
Pete -- he knows the Who, so it makes sense to him, but it doesn't to
an outsider. Only "Bell Boy", piggybacking on Keith's wild man
reputation, works in this regard.
The biggest beef I have is with the production. I like big and
bombastic, of course, but (again, like The Lamb..), it's a bit too
much. On Who's Next, the big production complemented the lyrical
themes and the band's playing perfectly. Here the increased synth and
horn overdubs, sometimes, overwhelm the songs too much. The fact that
the group's attempt to play the album live with backing tapes ended
in disaster proves the point. The big arrangements, to a certain
extent, undermine the down-to-earth subject matter of the lyrics. For
some reason, as Pete got less surrealistic, the music got bigger. A
more stripped down approach, like on ..By Numbers, might have been
more appropriate.
Even so, there is some great material here '' The Real Me", "The Punk
and the Godfather" (even with those weird lyrics), "5:15" (the horns
provide a great hook), "Dr. Jimmy." I would also go with "Love, Reign
Over Me" as top tune. In this case, the big production underscores
Roger's passionate vocal and the more universal lyrical message. It
(along with "Is it in My Head?") were actually recorded before the
album concept even existed, so it totally works outside of the
album's context. On the whole though, even though I enjoy it while
it's on, I don't think it has quite the staying power of ..Next.
"sam farina" (samantfar.gmail.com) (04/13/10)
Very good album, probably the Who's best. Definitely the best of their's
that I've ever heard. Not worth the praise you give it though. Not one of
songs on here is bad, but for me, too many are simply uninvolving or flawed.
For instance, most of side two (excepting I'm One and Helpless Dancer)
doesn't do anything for me, though all the songs have their moments. I also
don't like how Bell Boy loses a lot of its momentum when Keith starts
singing. And Doctor Jimmy is way too long.
That said, when its good, its *really *good. Standout tracks are The Real
Me, The Punk and the Godfather, I'm One, The Sea and the Sand, Drowned, both
of the instrumentals, and Love Reign O'er Me. Any album where half the songs
stick out as highlights has to be good.
I give it a 9/10, or by your scale, something like a 10(13).
Best song: Pure And Easy or Naked Eye
A collection of unreleased tracks and rarities (gathered up by John while the band was working on the Tommy movie) which, in the CD age, has been expanded from its 11 track size into 23
songs. This is good, since a lot of the best tracks on here were not on the original release. I should note, by the way, that the grade here is for the original album; the expanded one could probably muster a B.
The first two songs of the original album ("Postcard," "Now I'm a Farmer") kinda suck, but the other nine are mostly a delight. The biggest highlights are two Lifehouse outtakes that, as mentioned in my Who's Next review, would have easily made the cut on my ideal double version of the album. "Pure and Easy" was that album's conceptual keystone, and thus it's really strange lyrically, but musically, I tend to consider it one of the best things the band ever did. The opening theme is taken from the end of "The Song is Over," only underpinned by an organ instead of the bombastic piano of that song, but the song has several different melodies that flow in and out of each other with ease. Plus, it has one of my favorite Pete guitar solos, and the ending portion, with Pete repeatedly singing, "There once was a note, LISTEN!" is pure epic brilliance.
I tend to slightly prefer "Naked Eye," though. Except for one really stupid line in the second verse, the song is lyrical perfection, and the song is one of the best melancholy anthems to come from the band. The alternation of verses between Roger and Pete is very effective, and I don't think Roger could have nailed that third verse better in a thousand years. And once again, the guitar parts just floor me with their emotional heft, especially in the lengthy coda.
The rest of the original album is a weird hodge-podge. "Long Live Rock" was a big single for the band, and one of the best celebrations of rock star decadence I know of. "Put the Money Down" was another Lifehouse extra, but it's pretty obvious why it stayed in the can, and much the same can be said about "Too Much of Anything." Now the non-Lifehouse material, from the 60's, now that's a little more intriguing. "Little Billy" is an amusingly morbid anti-smoking song, and "Glow Girl" is way prettier than a pop song about a plane crash has any right to be. Plus, it ends in the "It's a Boy" theme from Tommy, except that, in this case, "it's a girl, Mrs. Walker, it's a girl." And finally, there's the band's first single, "I'm the Face," referenced on Quadrophenia and released when the band was still The High Numbers. It's a very average song, of course, but it's still a hoot.
Anyway, the expanded edition has a lot of great extra stuff. Among other things, you get the original B-side version of "Mary-Anne with the Shaky Hands," a fun cover of "Under My Thumb," and decent (though inferior to the live ones) covers of "Summertime Blues" and "Young Man Blues." The best of the Lifehouse-era numbers come in the form of "Water" (much shorter and tamer than the Wight version, but a delight), "Time is Passing" (one of the weird cases where a song can be called bombastic and understated at the same time, and a marvelous anthemic ballad) and a version of "Love Ain't for Keeping" with Pete on vocals. This one, frankly, blows away the Who's Next version; the acoustic guitars of that version are ditched for a guitar sound on par with the one in "Won't Get Fooled Again," and the song ends in a rousing two minute instrumental passage with great guitar and synth noises throughout.
There are some other nice tracks here and there, and they make the album worth picking up in the end. This album is inconsistent, as can be expected from any outtakes collection, but any Lifehouse fan needs it for the best stuff. Plus, let's face it, if this album had been released ten years later, we could've had It's Hard outtakes on here.
Glenn Wiener (Glenn.Wiener.Entex.com)
Hi,
Looks like you have a nice website going here. Hope you expand it more.
Anyway, I'm glad you recognize Odds and Sods as a very good
recording.
Truthfully its the sleeper in the Who's collection. I really like Little
Billy as its my personal fave. Too Much Of Anything is beautifully
written
and sung. You don't sem to recognize it. Pure And Easy has one great
guitar
solo in the middle. In general, they are all good tracks that is the
original recordings.
Trfesok.aol.com (12/09/04)
I could have done without most of the early stuff (especially the
covers), but most of the post-Tommy material is really good. Particularly
the Lifehouse outtakes : "Too Much of Anything" , "Pure And Easy"
(different, and better, versions than the bonus tracks on Who's Next --
Glyn Johns does it again for the group!), the hard-rocking "Love is for
Keeping," "Put the Money Down" and the fantastic "Time is Passing." There
are a couple of great B-sides (Daltrey's "Here's for More," from 1970 and
Entwistle's 1972 "When I Was a Boy") that I would have liked to see here.
On the whole, though, a fun collection for anyone into the Who at all.
Matthew Teplitz (eteplitz.wideopenwest.com) (02/23/05)
Hi,
Glad you recognize Odds and Sods as a good recording, as it is too often
overlooked. However, the released version of the CD is actually shorter
than what MCA had originally planned! Here are some tracks that were
going to be released, or here are some problems with existing tracks, or
just tracks I think they should have included:
Under My Thumb doesn't have the electric guitar mixed in - easily heard
on Who's Missing and bootlegs. Also, why include Under My Thumb when The
Who's cover of (This Could Be) The Last Time is superior to the Stones
version?
Young Man Blues, while disputed, is either (or both) 1. Slowed down
around 7.5% (don't remember the exact, read it somewhere) - making it
more lethargic than what's intended and 2. They used the wrong take while
making the album. The original can be found on bootlegs or the extremely
rare multiartist The House That Track Built vinyl released in I believe
1970. Unsure about how this compares to the one found on the Tommy
Deluxe Edition.
Signal 30 - an instrumental performed I believe 1966/67, great energy,
plenty of distortion, feedback, etc. from Pete - it was going to be on
the reissue, but they ran out of room! Can be found on various bootlegs
- look for the magnificent Pop Goes Art bootleg for A Quick One/Sell Out
era recordings. My version is on The Who '66 bootleg.
Here For More - I can't honestly say I've heard this song (yet), it was a
B-side from 1970/71 I believe, but should have been put on just cause
it's one of the very few songs Daltrey wrote!
Waspman - a truly off-the-wall song written by Moon the Loon, B-side to
"Relay".
Here 'Tis - a Bo Diddley (Ellas McDaniel) number covered by The Who when
they were still the High Numbers, it's one of the very few (4? - I'm The
Face, Zoot Suit, Leaving Here, Here 'Tis) recordings done under the High
Numbers, not exactly their best, but IMHO, all the High Numbers
recordings should have been put on - more for historical value than
anything. This is excluding the bootleg of a 1964 performance at the
Marquee - which has surprisingly good sound for a 1964 audience (?)
recording.
Dogs - okay, not The Who's best moment, but it really didn't deserve to
tank as a single - IMO, it was probably designed as more of a humorous
recording than a serious one.
Dogs, Part Two - only heard part of this instrumental written by Keith
Moon, released in 1969, though it was recently released on Disc 2 of the
Tommy Deluxe Edition, so it's really pointless now.
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - another one of The Ox's truly morbid recordings!
Circles - not to be confused with the so-called "Shel Talmy version"
found on My Generation and My Generation Deluxe Edition, but this was the
so-called "Who" version (self-produced) recorded in duophonic sound,
making it sound more proto-psychedelic than ever before. I first heard
it on The Who '66 bootleg.
Okay, that's enough of my nitpicking of a truly great album of rejects
(these "rejects" top many bands' best material!). Some of these
recordings are made a bit easier to find thanks to reissues with bonus
tracks, but some of these tracks can only be found on rarities albums
like Who's Missing (a Canadian import still going for a reasonable $20),
Two's Missing (skyrocketing, I've seen as low as $45, as high as $75),
and Rarities Vols. 1 & 2 (Japanese import goes for ~$25). Some of these
(Signal 30) can only be found on bootlegs, which is a shame, people
should be able to hear these "rejects" more easily. I know I'm sort of
sounding like a music/Who snob, but I'm not and the only reason I know of
these tracks is through bootleg trading :). Plus, I'm sure there's even
more alternate takes and stuff from The Who's vaults, but John made some
really good decisions for the album.
Eh, I was never too enthusiastic about this album when I had it in its original configuration, and I'm still not too excited about it even now. So they added a lot of bonus tracks: great. But WHY OH WHY DIDN'T THEY PUT THE MISSING B-SIDES ON? Look, I'm far more interested in having a remastered version of songs like “When I Was A Boy” (a great Entwistle B-side that was his lone contribution to the Lifehouse project) or “Here For More.” And where are “Circles” (the “Substitute” B-side version), “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,” or “Waspman?” The live “Baby Don't You Do It?” THESE are the tracks that any hardcore trainspotting Who fan has been dying to get good CD copies of, not yet another frickin' version of “Leaving Here” or the WRONG VERSION of the studio “Young Man Blues” (the right take, originally released on a Track Records sampler in 1970, was finally released on the new Deluxe Edition Remaster of Tommy) or THE SAME version of “Summertime Blues” that was also released on the BBC Sessions disc.
Okay, rant over. Wait - there's more. So they decided to resequence the album chronologically. Fine. But if you're gonna do that you damn sure better get the chronology right and not make amateurish mistakes that even mid-level fans would notice. They clearly wanted “Naked Eye” rather than “We Close Tonight” (which is actually the latest song on the new remastered Odds And Sods) to close the album, so they misstated its provenance. In truth, it doesn't date from 1973, it's really a Lifehouse outtake that was recorded immediately after the Live At Leeds period. “Now I'm A Farmer” and “Postcard” (which sounds completely different in its remixed form) actually come from 1969, not 1973.
This time I promise the rant's over. There's some very nice stuff on this disc that deserves to be checked out, my bitching aside. “Glow Girl” was also included on the remaster of The Who Sell Out, but here it doesn't have a crossfaded beginning and sounds a little brighter. “Faith In Something Bigger” has terribly clumsy lyrics (aw, Pete was so cute when he was desperately sincere!) but gorgeous singing and songwriting, while “Little Billy” is a stone riot! (Did you know they actually performed this song live? There's a great-sounding bootleg floating around out there of their 1968 Fillmore East show where they debut this song and actually rock the hell out of it. I'll have to send that to you.) Everybody else hates “Now I'm A Farmer,” but dammit, I enjoy The Who's dopey humor. This is the spiritual brother of “Dogs,” and I have a large soft spot for the late '60s self-deprecating Who. “Naked Eye” is a great song in any version, and I actually prefer this to the live performance. I'll give this disc a 6 or a 7 out of 10 for these bright spots, while still screaming about how the record label is keeping those rarities out of my hands.
"Dan Hogg" (dantheman_sg27.yahoo.com) (02/13/10)
A few random tidbits:
1. What was the extremely stupid line in Naked Eye? The one about covering up your
guts? :-)
2. The band needs to be put on trial for leaving this version of "Maryanne" to this
album, and NOT putting it on Sell Out. Dropped the ball big time.
3. I've always regarded "Put the Money Down" as an early runthrough of "Who Are
You," though I know the two have nothing to do with each other. Hmm.
Best song: Dreaming From The Waist or Blue Red And Grey
If there's ever been a more apt title for an album, I've never heard it. See, no matter what one's opinion might be of the last few albums, it's hard to deny that there was an escalation from album to album in terms of the amount of work that went into shaping the songs, arrangements and conceptual aspects of each album. Even if one doesn't care for it, I don't see how one can deny that Quadrophenia was one of the most philosophically complex albums ever made to that point, and it's clear to me that the melodies and arrangements stretched Townshend's abilities as far as they possibly could go. After the great leaps from album to album in the last few years, one had to wonder how on earth Pete could possibly top Quad.
The answer was simple: he absolutely couldn't. Rumor actually had it that Pete had considered breaking up the band after Quadrophenia, and honestly it would have been a logical break-off point. It had been the first album on which he himself had written all of the songs, which meant that (as mentioned in that review) it could be considered a Townshend solo album. In addition, the subject matter made it somewhat of a "let's commemorate our roots" affair, making it seem as if The Who had come full circle; one could have argued there wasn't really anything more needed from the group.
Worse than that, though, was that Pete was about to hit 30. Sure, everybody feels a little bit of trauma from reaching that age, but to the man who had penned the famous line "Hope I die before I get old," ten years earlier, this was horrid beyond words, and led to the mid-life crisis of midlife crises. Basically, this was not fertile ground for Pete as a songwriter and musician, but the other guys didn't want to break up when the band was still in the prime of its career in terms of popularity. And so, Pete was essentially dragged into the studio, out of obligation to his bandmates and to MCA.
This album sounds tired. With only a couple of exceptions, Pete's songs are basically vehicles for him to complain about how depressed he feels, and it wears me down a lot. Plus, the arrangements, while still demonstrating a nice amount of energy, technical skill and cleverness, are kinda drab; it's weird to have a 70's Who album that (unless I'm mistaken) doesn't have a single synthesizer part on it. I know that part of the intent was probably to have a "back to basics" element in the sound, but instead of revitalizing the band this approach just makes seem more lifeless than I'd like. Plus, while John and Keith are in regular good form (not the amazing form of Quad, though), Roger seems a little weirdly subdued. I know that the songs here are mellower in general than the ones on Quad (which bled energy and power even in the softer moments), but still, some more powerful performances from Roger wouldn't have hurt.
All would be forgiven, though, if I thought more highly of the songs themselves. I only consider a couple of the songs on the classic level for the band, and while only one of them strikes me as outright bad, the rest tend to hover between "somewhat above average" and "somewhat below average." The first classic is "Dreaming from the Waist," a great rocker (with cool sounding basslines and lovely guitar lines in the quieter moments) with lyrics about Pete wishing he could control his hormones and other urges. Plus, it has one of the few really great Daltrey vocal parts on the album. The second is the one ray of hope and optimism of the album, the Pete-sung "Blue, Red and Grey." This song features Pete playing what sounds like a ukelele, as well as somebody (John?) playing an oh-so-warm horn part in the background, and the lyrics are charming, with the chorus culminating with "but I like every minute of the day." I don't know if this song was Pete fooling himself, or him just trying to remind himself that there was still good in the world, but I'm glad this song is here.
The one song on the album that I clearly dislike, on the other hand, is the closing "In a Hand or Face," which starts off promising with a crisp guitar line, but which degenerates into nearly suicidal territory with the lyrics. I know that the "I'm going round and round" chorus is supposed to symbolize circling the drain, but it ends up sounding kinda dumb, and that's a bad combination with something that sounds depressing as well. Among the rest of the songs, the ballads fall short for me, well behind the standards set by Quad. I like the anthemic power in "How Many Friends?, "so it's a keeper, but both "Imagine a Man" and "They are All in Love" have always struck me as more than a bit lazy in a typical mid-70's way, and I never have any desire to listen to them.
As for the others, the best is probably the opening "Slip Kid," another Lifehouse remnant that, while not among the best material from those sessions, has a decent enough riff and good lyrics that indirectly touch on life slipping by you as you age. "However Much I Booze" is an extremely disconcerting mix of an upbeat, hickish rocker with Pete trying to cram as many self-flagellating lyrics into each line, with little concern for meter, as he possibly can, and while I mildly enjoy it, it's not a favorite. And finally, "Squeeze Box" is the album's one bit of goofiness, a hilariously gross excuse for Pete to write about his mother's breasts in metaphor. Again, not one of my favorite singles from the band, but it's certainly not deserving of the hatred that a lot of people have given it over the years. And finally, John contributes a decent mid-tempo rocker about the weariness of being a rock musician, called "Success Story"; its most notable elements are the return of the Boris/Boss voice, and the awesome promotional video that made its way into The Kids are Alright.
I originally gave this album a lower grade, but even after softening towards it a bit I still can't help but feel it's a weak link in the band's history. Get it, but not before several others. On the plus side, I should note that the remastered version has three live bonus tracks, all of which they're fantastic. If you care, they're "Squeeze Box," "Behind Blue Eyes," and "Dreaming from the Waist" (which has John going nuts with his basslines, to good effect).
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
This one is better than most people (you included) give it credit for.
Yeah, it's kind of depressing. But a lot of the music is just gorgeous. I
actually think Dreaming From The Waist is kind of a loser, but I
absolutely adore Imagine A Man and They Are All In Love. Great stuff.
Eric B. (sonicdeath10.hotmail.com) (11/09/03)
the title of this album seems fitting at first. it seems like the band is
going by the numbers. but that's not true! it also seems like there's a
lack of craft and care in these songs. that's not true! in fact, pete is
STILL a great song craftsman: a quick listen to any song from this album
compared to early (still brilliant) who songs confirms his growth.
i agree the melodies are hard to find. i think this is partially because
pete doesn't SLAM them down with power chords. he tends to play quietly,
or using major, minor chords. he doesn't go for catchy: he goes for
beautiful. and most of this album is that. especially nicky hopkins piano
work. brilliant.
success story is the funniest one on here though. there's a hilarious bit
on the kids are alright movie where john shoots a bunch of gold records
while this song plays in teh background. he even gets the tommy (no pun
intended) out!! when asked how he could shoot all those gold records, he
said "it doesn't matter, they're roger's any ways." funny thing is, roger
said it was probably true!! funny guy, that entwistle.
any ways, i would have agreed with you about this album if i rated it
like a year ago. time has made me come to love it. hell i love all their
albums (to various degrees: lately face dances and even it's hard grew on
me! mostly face dances, it's hard is still weak, but not horrible).
trfesok.aol.com (06/13/10)
Well, I'd probably give it the same overall score as you do, but for different
reasons. Your two favorites, actually, are a couple of my low points. I don't think
the introspective lyrics of "Dreaming From the Waist" work well at all with the
rambling rock music or Daltrey's blustering vocal. The same goes for "However Much I
Booze", even though Pete sings it. By contrast, there's such a melancholy air about
"Blue, Red and Grey" that it totally undermines the sentiment in the lyrics. It
comes off as uncomfortably sad as opposed to whimsical.
I do like the balance of the album, though. The other three ballads are neat in that
Pete combines these gorgeous melodies with incredibly bitter, misanthropic lyrics.
Particularly "Imagine a Man" -- the second verse is quite a shock after you hear the
first. Plus, I do think that Roger sings these really well. "In the Hand or a Face"
has a cool, razor sharp riff that makes up for the slight deficiency in the lyrics.
John's track fits in well with the overall tone of Pete's songs, although it's much
more sarcastic. The album could have used a bit more of him, I think. Fortunately,
the two singles lighten the mood up a bit. "Slip Kid" reminds me of "Tangled Up in
Blue" in the sense that each verse seems to be sung from the point of view of a
different character at a different point in time. Hard to believe that it's a
Lifehouse outtake - where would it have fit in? Finally, "Squeeze Box" was a fun and
popular single, with its dopey innuendo. According to the liner notes of the Scoop
collection (where you can find the demo), Pete considered it a bit of a throwaway.
He was amazed that the band liked it enough to record it and make it a hit.
Anyway, the album is pretty good. I don't particularly mind the dry sound, with no
synths -- these songs wouldn't have worked well with synthetic or real
orchestration. I'm glad that they didn't continue in this direction, though.
Best song: Who Are You
Depending on whom you ask, this is either the band's big comeback album after the relative doldrums of Numbers, or just another stage in the band's final crash and burn into irrelevance. I definitely fall into the first category: it's not on the same level of greatness as the albums the band put out during its peak, but at the least it's a second-tier classic, and the band's final great hurrah. It's not that hard to understand, though, why so many people, including many hardcore Who fans, tend to rag on this album quite a bit. There are two main sources of complaint that fans tend to have about it:
1. This album prominently displays a rapidly declining and dying Keith Moon. He died about a month after the release of this album, and pretty much everybody makes a note of how, on the album cover, he's sitting on a chair labeled "Not to be taken away," one of the great ironies in the history of rock music. While there are fits and spurts of drumming that somewhat resembles the mighty, energetic, cathartic bashing of yore, the majority of the drumming on this album is disturbingly pedestrian. Yes, his death ended up occurring from an accidental overdose of pills, but that was just the final push in a lifestyle that had largely broken his body and his mind, and it spilled over into his professional life.
2. The overpowering return of synthesizers to the band's sound. The synths are appropriately updated to the available sounds of 1978, so they seem a little less "classy" in places than the best sounds on Who's Next and Quad, but I think they sound fine overall, and they give effective depth to the overall sound. Plus, I don't think they drown out the sound quite as much as people sometimes make it out; the synth layerings almost reach a prog-level of complexity, but there are still a lot of hard (and delicate, when need be) guitar and bass parts throughout the album, so it's never hard to remember that this is a Who album, in the end.
As you can see from the grade, neither of these two aspects bother me much, and in turn there are a couple of things in general that I really like about the album. The first is that Roger is in top form through most of the album, bouncing back from the slight doldrums of Numbers. With the exception of "Guitar and Pen" (a song that sucks from top to bottom anyway), where he takes on a weird, unpleasantly Broadwayish tone, his singing easily lives up to the standards set on Who's Next and Quad. More important than Roger, though, is that I really like almost all of these songs in terms of their melodies and riffs ("Guitar and Pen," again, is the big exception). One thing that doesn't get mentioned a lot is that, in the couple of years before this album, Pete started writing songs for the Lifehouse project again, and this seemed to bring out the best in him. Four of Pete's six contributions to this album (according to Wikipedia, that paragon of undiluted truth) were aimed at a reboot of the project, and all of these strike me as among the highlights of the album.
The opening "New Song" laments the difficulties of trying to come up with a good, original idea when it seems they've all been tried before, and it's effective in its mix of powerful synths, powerful guitar chordings and Roger's powerful vocals. "Sister Disco" (an epithet for braindead disco fans, supposedly) is a solid mid-tempo rocker driven by powerful, hyperactive synth lines, and also features some of the album's few moments where it seems like Keith is about to break out his lethargy. Roger apparently hated the synths in this song, and I know of a few people who despise the song, but I think it's great, and it would become a live highlight later on. The jazzy "Music Must Change" (the original working title of the album) ends up stripping out Keith's drums completely, leaving only a few cymbal strikes, and Pete ends up using his own footsteps and the squeak of his shoes to keep the rhythm. It has a great melody, alternating well between quiet subtlety and rousing bluster, and Roger plays up to both well.
And who can forget the closing title track? It's the strongest declaration of a band's inner identity I've ever heard, supposedly based on an actual encounter with The Sex Pistols in a bar (that could be urban legend, though), and if it's not a masterpiece it's darn close to one. This is a song that sounds like it really needs to take a dump; from the weird synth line, to Roger's roaring vocals (where he sings like it would be the last song the band ever did), to the powerful guitar chords in the return section, this song just oozes tension. Only the quiet mid-section, with sparks flying off of Pete's fingers on the acoustic guitar, gives any form of release, and if anything it goes away too soon. And, of course, this is the one song on the album to show the band's rhythm section in prime form; Moon sounds pretty great on this track, I think.
Of Pete's other two songs, "Guitar and Pen" is an overlong bore, but the orchestrated ballad, "Love is Coming Down," strikes me as one of the band's most underrated songs. So help me, I think Roger's performance is just phenomenal in this song; every time I hear it, I can just see the strength in the song's subject going up to a ledge and jumping off, and I can't help but feel extremely moved when I hear Roger singing, "Love is burning teaching turning OUT in me." It's an extremely schmaltzy number, and I can understand hating it, but it's some of the best schmaltz I've ever heard.
I'm also quite fond of the three songs John contributed to this album, the last good songs he'd have on a Who album. "I've Had Enough" is a solid mid-tempo orchestrated anthem, and while the lyrics are a bit banal, the melody and Roger's delivery make up for them. "905" was originally intended for a rock opera John planned to write, and it's an interesting robotic song about somebody who was grown in a factory and fears that nothing in their life is original, that "everything I do's been done before." And finally, "Trick of the Light" is a solid mid-tempo metallic rocker, with a fascinating riff, about somebody who wonders if he was good enough in bed to please a hooker. The topic is rather risque, and makes me wish John would have gone back to dark comedy at some point, but it's a fine song.
So, with this much that I like about the album, why shouldn't this get a C? The reissue is really nice as well: the highlights among the bonus tracks are an early version of the title track to Pete's eventual solo album, Empty Glass, and it's a good version of one of the best songs Pete ever wrote. There's also an interesting alternate version of "Who are You," with lyrics in the second verse that are much more viciously self-deprecating than in the regular version.
Gene Kodadek (g_kodadek.hotmail.com)
I didn't like this one very much. I actually thought Enwhistle's songs
were the best here (905 and Trick Of The Light are both awesome), and I
liked Sister Disco well enough, but I actually found the title track to
be way overrated. A letdown.
Eric B. (sonicdeath10.hotmail.com) (11/09/03)
one of the first who albums i got. it's also one of the best really. pete
combiines the RAWK who and the "subtle keyboard who" of the next two
albums perfectly. THREE john songs, each a winner even if "trick of the
light" has inane lyrics i've never heard a bass sound like his does on
this track! guitar and pen MIGHT be a bit weaker for reasons i can't
explain.
Dane J. Hitt (dane.j.hitt.gmail.com) (07/31/05)
FINALLY! Someone who recognizes the beauty of "Love Is Coming Down."
This album is Roger's shining moment if you ask me, at a point where
Keith and Pete are both on downward spirals, Roger still shines
bright.
Trfesok.aol.com (12/02/07)
The best since Who's Next, and they haven't done better since. All
the tunes are solid, and a few are great. The return to synths is
very creative and continues to advance (especially on the title
track), without overwhelming the songs as they did sometimes on
Quad. Roger is sounding more gruff, but still putting the fire into
his vocals. I also like "Love is Coming Down" -- Roger tends to be
underrated as a singer of ballads. I don't really hear a big downturn
in Keith's performances, despite the liner notes and everyone's
complaints -- the songs themselves call for a bit more
restraint. "Music Must Change" is a bit pretentious, but the jazzy
sound is unusual for the Who. I agree that "Guitar and Pen" gets to
be a tad annoying (and two mixes are entirely unnecessary), and I got
sick of "Had Enough" after hearing it on the radio too much before
the album was released in the US (a UK import single came out first),
but, on the whole, it's a classic, the last great Who record, and
their most essential, after Next.
Best song: Young Man Blues or See Me Feel Me
If you're a fan of The Who, or even just of rock music in general, and you haven't seen The Kids Are Alright, you pretty much need to do it this week. Not only is it probably the best band biography film ever made, it's one of the great celebrations of rock music ever put together. Released in 1979, it spans the band's whole career to that point (except for any mention of Quadrophenia), and it does an amazing job of intercutting footage and interviews from all different points of their career. From the band's relative infancy, to its final (staged) performance as a quartet, this basically shows all of the fun and power the band was capable of through its life.
The soundtrack, while mostly consisting of cuts from the movie, is a little weird and jumbled, though. While the rest of the album consists of previously unreleased live material, there are some inexplicable inclusions of the original studio versions of songs ("Magic Bus," "Long Live Rock" and "I Can See for Miles," which isn't even used in the movie). There's also the version of "Happy Jack" that was recorded at Leeds, but this has obviously been made redundant. Even more inexplicably, the original CD version kept these studio tracks, but excluded an awesome performance of "Join Together" (which isn't in the movie), "Road Runner" (a great old r'n'r number) and a version of "My Generation" that starts off as a slow blues jam (Daltrey sounds AWESOME when he growls out "I hope I die before I get old" in a gravelly voice) before speeding up to its standard tempo. The eventual reissue included this track, though, so try to seek that version out.
The album (and the movie) is introduced by a performance of "My Generation" done on The Smothers Brothers, which ends with an explosion that Pete clearly had not expected. This era is also represented by (I've been told) the first ever live performance of "I Can't Explain" (with Keith showing right away he was a cut above others of the day), and a nice (though with awful sound quality) performance of "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere." The band's "glory years" are represented by a GREAT performance of "A Quick One" from 1968 (it's probably better than on Leeds, and the actual performance in the film is one of my favorite movie scenes of all time), a GREAT 1969 rendition of "Young Man Blues" (with one of the weirdest and coolest guitar tones I've ever heard), and some GREAT excerpts of Tommy from Woodstock. My favorite of this part is the "See Me Feel Me" portion (when the sun came up), and it's fascinating to me to hear Roger's voice almost halfway morphed between the soft studio version and the LOUD live version of Leeds and Wight.
Aside from "Roadrunner," the live performances skip to the late 70's, and they're mixed. The 1977 performance of "My Wife" is REALLY sloppy, but it rocks with a vengeance, so I don't mind it horribly. "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" are taken from a performance specifically done for the purpose of the film, and as they depict the band in the short time before Keith died, they aren't as orgasmic as they could've been, but they're still great. Keith's drumming is really lethargic in "Baba O'Riley," but it's still awesome to hear Pete's loud guitar parts replace the lovely piano parts of the original. And as for "Won't Get Fooled Again," it's freaking amazing here, and Roger's "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH" roar exceeds even the original.
So it's slightly mixed in quality, but only slightly; the album has a very high proportion of material that's either great or right near it, and while I eventually decided to knock the rating from a D to a C, it's still marvelous. Besides, in another universe, this would have been the band's perfect swan-song, and that has to mean something.
Marco Ursi (marco_ursi.hotmail.com)
I've always thought this was an odd record. The song selection is all over
the place but there's enough good stuff to warrant purchasing it. The
coolest part of the whole album comes during "A Quick One While He's
Away".
If you listen closely, you can hear Keith Moon let out a big scream every
time he goes into a big drum fill! Great stuff!
Kerry & Kayoko Canfield (k2canf.SpiritOne.com)
The version of "My Generation" on the first side of this album actually
occurred--not on the British "Ready Steady Go"--but on the American
"Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." For those not old enough to have seen the
original '60s TV show, the Smothers Brothers were Tommy and Dickie, who
played guitar and standup bass, respectively, on satirical renditions of
"tranditional" folk tunes; Dickie was the "straight man" of the duo. The
introduction to the Who here is from Tommy Smothers, whose character was
defined by (what must have been deliberate because it was so brilliantly
timed) scattered ineptitude when announcing and going off on hilarious,
erroneously based tangents (similar to the later "Saturday Night Live"
Roseanna Roseannadanna character of Gilda Radner). If anyone is not
familiar with this, by all means see the film, which opens with this clip.
The film excerpt then closes with Townsend smashing Tommy's guitar and Tommy
then requesting to borrow Dickie's bass (which exchange is not included on
the recording), harking back to the ongoing sibling rivalry between the two
brothers (which of course was just another aspect of their shtick).
Incidentally, the TV show was cancelled by the network carrying it because
of the brothers' refusal to tone down its sociopolitical content!
As for the "Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" rendition of "A Quick One,"
one also has to see the film of the show to appreciate the power of this
performance (however silly this "mini-opera" itself may be). Basically, the
Who adopted a take-no-prisoners attitude and stole the show from everybody
else appearing in it, including its stars. Keith Moon especially is
maniacally messy and brilliant, and the shots of him encapsulate perfectly
his irreplaceable contribution to the band.
Best song: A Little Is Enough or Empty Glass
I've had a strange relationship with this album over the years. When I first bought this album, I did so after having fallen in love with the version of "Empty Glass" found among the bonus tracks of Who are You, and I expected to adore this album. For the first couple of years that I owned it, though, I found the album mildly disappointing; I liked it quite a bit, but I thought of it as the title track, a couple of other nice tracks and a whole bunch of lesser tracks, and my original review reflected that. Over time, though, it slowly grew on me, and grew on me a LOT, to the point where it ended up taking a place among my 100 favorite albums of all time. Unfortunately, I never got around to changing my review, and for more than half a decade my written opinion and my actual opinion were horribly at odds. Time heals all wounds, though.
The big thing about this album is that, if anybody ever needed to break out of a band setting and go do a solo album, it was Pete Townshend in 1980. He was never the most emotionally stable man to begin with, and the last couple of years had brought him trials that came close to breaking him. First and foremost among these was the death of his longtime bandmate and good friend, Keith, and the fact that Pete eventually just had to suck it up and go back on tour. Second among these was a major existential crisis; not only was this around the time when he was quoted as saying (roughly) that he felt he was actually a woman, and not only was he (supposedly) trying to figure out whether he was gay or bisexual or what, but he also had to deal with making sense of where he now stood in his chosen profession. Add to this the continuing frustrations he had with getting older, and with his self-perceived general failings as a person, and the end result is that Pete had a lot things he had to say that he just couldn't say in a band context.
Indeed, this sounds nothing like a Who album, even if a few of the songs could have worked as Who songs. This is probably for the best, though, especially since I'm not overly thrilled with The Who by Numbers, which marked the last time Pete had bared his feelings so bluntly on record. Obvious differences (no Roger vocals, no really interesting work from the rhythm section) from the Who sound aside, there's also some serious tone differences from Numbers and, honestly, from pretty much any other "singer-songwriter" album I own. Pete does strike a depressing tone in some parts of the album, but only in parts, and the moments of self-pity and self-flagellation in no way overpower the actual music or the general feel of the album. On Numbers, aside from the gross ridiculousness of "Squeeze Box," only "Blue Red and Grey" showed any joy in life, but even then it was so out of place that it almost seemed like Pete was jumping out of his skin to convince himself he actually meant it. Here, though, I feel an undistorted sense of honesty through most of the album, and that means acknowledging the good AND the bad in his life.
Of course, none of this would make me rate the album so highly if the songs weren't so good. Out of the album's ten tracks, I'd say only three fall significantly short of "stellar," and those three are still quite good. "Keep on Working" is a really weird number, slightly Broadwayish, full of multi-tracked vocals about trudging through the necessary tasks of life, while the other two ("Cats in the Cupboard," the closing "Gonna Get Ya") could probably have worked better as Who tracks, with Roger belting out the lyrics over Pete's riffage. Neither of these have particularly great riffs, but the guitar work is still pretty addictive, and the paranoid feel of the former is quite intriguing.
All of the other songs are fantastic, and definitely work better in this context than they would have with Roger and company. "Rough Boys" introduces a new brand of Townshend rocker, one with the guitars made as slick and shiny as possible, and more heavily accented with synthesizers than even on Who are You. Plus, the lyrics, full of gay-macho power, would only sound right coming out of Pete's mouth ("I wanna bite and kiss you" is the best example). The next track, "I Am An Animal," goes strongly in the ballad direction, and is the quintessential declaration of Townshend's general existential confusion. The lyrics, saying that he was a human being, but also an animal and a vegatable, are the perfect extension of his idea that he was a man but also a woman (which is reflected in the line where he declares himself, "queen of the fucking universe"). The melody is a little simplistic and stiff in the verses, but only a little, and it's made up for in the counter-melody (the song doesn't really have a "chorus" in the classic sense).
"And I Moved" is also a little simplistic melody-wise, but it features a marvelous set of rolling piano lines throughout, and the lyrics are one of the most tender expressions of a man's love towards another man in the act of coitus that I could imagine. It's probably a song that would have gotten the band crucified had it been made as a Who song (and that's if it ever made it past the cutting-room floor), but as a solo Pete song it feels just right. From there we jump into more lighthearted territory with a cute synth-pop anthem, "Let My Love Open the Door," the song's big hit single (and a mainstay of romantic comedy soundtracks). It's actually more of a hymn than a standard love song (Pete at one point referred to this song as "Jesus Sings"), but it's so slick that this is practically un-noticable (kinda like how George Harrison filled All Things Must Pass with those love songs to God).
"Jools and Jim" is a song where Pete lets loose on music critics and on other bands who've dismissed the band don't care about anything relating to them (including the fact that Keith Moon was dead). I used to consider it a bit dorky as a rocker, but Pete sings his lyrics with a lot of passion, whether in defending Keith's honor or in bashing on writers in general ("Typewriter bangers on/You're all just hangers on"). Plus, there's a quieter section, with Pete singing some great lines in falsetto, that combines a great melody with an air of disdain as well as I've ever heard the two put together.
The centerpieces of the album, though, come in the remaining two tracks, between "Cat's in the Cupboard" and "Gonna Get Ya." For a long time, I dismissed "A Little is Enough" as just a kinda nice love song, but time has revealed it as so much more to me. Forget the fascinating synth line, and the marvelous vocal melody: there's one stanza that sums up how to keep one's head up during the struggles of life as well as any I've ever heard:
"Just like a sailor heading into the seas
Yes, Pete had a hard time with his life at that point, but he knew (as I've come to learn) that just because there's a lot of bad in your life doesn't mean there isn't some good somewhere in there. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and go after what little good you see in life, and in the end that is ultimately enough.
Or, at least it is when you're not feeling horribly depressed. "Empty Glass" is one of the greatest songs I've ever heard, both in lyrics and music, and one of Pete's last really great songs ever. The opening is one of the angriest one-note guitar lines I can imagine, the verses just reek of self-hatred (sung with passion to a great melody), the quiet chorus is beautiful, and the part near the end where he combines a happy chord sequence with sarcastic lines that make it seem like he was going to hang himself any day is just ridiculously awesome. Yes, it's directly reminiscient of the whinier tracks on Numbers, but it's oh so much better than something like "However Much I Booze," in every which way.
In the end, this is just a fascinating look into the soul of one of the most fascinating figures in rock music, and done by somebody who still cared about making worthwhile music. I can't guarantee that all Who fans will enjoy this album, but I do think it's a shame if they don't.
PS: I do think it's really weird that he dedicates "Rough Boys" to his kids, and the album to The Sex Pistols.
JohnnyB8.aol.com
I like this album. I mean, its really not as good as All The Best Cowboys
Have Chinese Eyes, but that doesn't make it bad. I like Jools and Jim the
best. To me, it sounds like two kids who are still young enough to change
their lives, but they just go around and turn their backs on rock and
roll.
Its like Pete said "They don't give a s--- Keith Moon is dead." Its
about
little kids who don't appreciate rock's predecessors, like the Stones,
Beatles, The Who, Led Zepplin and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Now,
although
he probably didn't think that it would go too far, it did. Kids today go
around talkin about Papa Roach, Green Day, and Nirvana like they are
something great. Like they are original. And i should know because i am a
kid
and it ticks me off that all the kids that i know treat old rock and roll
like crap, and the oldest rock that they know is the Police. They think
that
Nirvana invented rock and roll and all they did was crap it up. Nirvana
sucks
and i don't give a flyin hoot whatt anyone says. Whenever i have to sit
in my
friend's car, his mom cranks it up and it makes me want to tear my
nipples
off. And don't get me started on Rock and Rap. What in the hell is that?
Eminem, Limp Bizkit and Korn. More white guys just tryin to be from the
ghetto. They talk about the ghetto like its somethin special. like they
came
from there and got famous and their proud. If you are proud that you came
from some dirty, nasty,
afraid-to-step-outside-of-your-house-cause-you're-gonna-get-killed
neighborhood, then stay away from me cuz you are just damn weird. These
guys
are sickening. as Mark Prindle would say "I heard some song at HMV the
other
day and it was the worst song that ive ever heard in my life. It was some
guys singin "I won't give a f--- about you until you give a f--- about me
and
my generation. Who is that guy? Somebody kick him in the balls for me."
he is
right. the guy does need to be kicked in his balls because that is the
worst
song i have ever heard and its sickening that it has to share the same
name
as the Who's song. Ans kids look up to these idiots. They are like "Wow!
This
guy is singin about killing his wife! I gotta try that! And look! This
guy is
talkin about slitin his wrists! Gotta try that one!" Then some kid will
get
killed and some stupid moron who told him to do it in a song will come
out
and say "Oh. It was just a song i didn't mean for him to do it." then
he'll
get sued for a million bucks, but he won't lose because the judge will
rule
that the music didn't force the kid to do it. he just took the music the
wrong way. So all im tryin to say is that little kids are impressionable
and
that they should learn to respect older music. thank you.
Trfesok.aol.com (12/02/07)
It's not the best album the Who never made, but it is tons better
than the Who album that would follow, that's for sure. One thing that
I think you overlook is a spiritual quality in a number of the lyrics
-- the title track, "And I Moved", "I Am an Animal", even "Jools and
Jim" (although it's juxtaposed against some anger in that one.) This
is nice, because Pete gets personal without indulging in the
annoying whining that brought down the last couple of Who albums a
bit. And the rockers are a lot of fun. "Let Me Love Open the Door"
may be cheesy, but I get the feeling that Pete doing this
one entirely with tongue in cheek. The production is a bit too smooth
-- the mix could have brought the guitars a bit more forward. The
vocals, on the other hand, are great - Pete fully explores his
range. A nice start to Pete's 80's solo career.
"Ceebee Jeebee" (illegal_bionic_rabbit.yahoo.com) (12/13/10)
This is definitely my favorite Townshend solo album. Now in A Little is Enough, the
highlight of the album for me occurs just before the gorgeous stanza that you
mentioned. It's when Townshend comes out of the bridge and does his rundown on the
guitar that goes keerrrrrrrrang!!!! "Just like a sailor heading into the seas..."
The part that sucks is if you have the most recent remastered version, you'll find
the bastards edited that guitar lick out.
Cameren Lee (cameren_lee.yahoo.com) (01/13/12)
This album is magical, even though Daltrey's words of "It could've been a great, great Who album" have a point. Townshend's best
post-1973 work, though I am certainly not putting Empty Glass up with Quadrophenia [personal note: being a foster child with
Asperger's, as Quad concludes, "Love reign o'er Me" - or rather: "o'er
me.............................................LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (cue timpani, synth, french horn, guitar, ah, you know
the rest)")]. Though Pete was around rock bottom at the time, he could still make a masterpiece like he does best: candid, yet
compassionate.
I agree with your "D" rating (BTW, I love the ratings system around here).
Ward Whipple (wardo68.yahoo.com) (03/13/12)
I've discovered your site recently, and am enjoying it immensely. Yesterday I looked at the Zappa, and today it's the Who.
Just a couple of things about your view of this album. Pete wasn't so much questioning his sexuality around this time as he was
drinking to excess and dabbling in cocaine and heroin, pissing off his wife more than he had to date. What you read as homosexual
leanings (not that there's anything wrong with that) is more simple. "Rough Boys" is skewering the macho posing of "leather-clad
rockers". "And I Moved" was written for Bette Midler to sing, so it's not about two men.
Also, considering how much you (justifiably) love "A Little Is Enough", I'm surprised you didn't mention that the little synth line
between verses is identical to the bridge of "Uniforms" on Chinese Eyes.
Best song: You Better You Bet
The bad thing about having a band where everybody's so important, and where everybody has a distinct style, is that it really pisses people off when you replace one of the band members and keep recording. Keith's death would have been a perfectly good excuse to break up the band, especially since Pete had shown he could make good albums on his own, but I get the feeling that John and Roger weren't so eager to let the Who name die. After all, Pete could smoothly transition into a solo career, but what the hell were they going to do? Plus, the band still owed music to its label, and (I'm guessing) would have been hit with a financial penalty had they done the best thing from an artistic perspective and just given up. So the band picked up ex-Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones, who doesn't even try to imitate Keith's style but still shows himself on this album to be a solid "traditional" drummer.
Indeed, the low grade for this album, the lowest rating I've yet given a Who album, has nothing to do with the drumming. It's not even that the band's sound has softened considerably since Who Are You, as they were obviously trying to reposition themselves in a New Wave, synth-pop direction for the 80's. No, the first reason I give this album a low grade is the songwriting. Aside from two (mediocre at best) Entwistle rockers, and a couple of strong tracks bookending the album, the songs on here really give the impression (especially in the context of the strong numbers on Empty Glass) that most of Pete's best songwriting was going towards his solo career, and not towards the band. Only one of Pete's songs strikes me as outright bad (the rambling "Cache Cache," which is just too bizarre lyrically and too rambling in the melody), but even as Pete-sung tracks I don't think I'd ever see them as better than fairly nice.
The big second reason is that Roger sounds like crap on this album. On this album, Pete mostly gave up writing songs built around Roger's traditional singing strengths, and Roger doesn't sound good in the new approach he uses. I'm not even sure how to describe the tone he takes on this album, or how to compare it to what he'd done before (a comment below says he was aiming to sound more traditionally British instead of like the American/British cross he'd cultivated for the past decade). All I know is that I keep trying to imagine what most of these songs would sound like with Pete on lead, because Roger just DESTROYS (in a bad way) "Don't Let Go the Coat," "Cache Cache," "Did You Steal My Money," and "Daily Records" for me. The one moment where Roger sounds totally comfortable is in the chorus of "How Can You Do it Alone," which otherwise has kind of a low-key speaking/singing thing going (which I admit I don't totally mind). Most of these have the potential to be at least decent, and Pete's backing vocals sound perfectly in place most of the time, but as is, these songs kinda stink.
(As an aside, I should point out that one of the verses in "How Can You Do it Alone" is easily the album's funniest moment. Try and figure out which one!)
Entwistle's songs, as mentioned, aren't very great either. They're not as awful as I used to think, but they're extremely unremarkable "heavy" rockers, without strong riffs or really amusing lyrics to save them. Plus, John's vocals in "The Quiet One" are really terrible, even if the melody is kinda catchy. You is somewhat better, with Roger seeming more comfortable than usual, but it's still rather messy.
The salvation of the album, then, comes in the first and last tracks. "You Better You Bet" was the band's final major hit, and it really deserved its acclaim. It firmly establishes the album's synth-pop leanings right away, and Roger's voice has some of the same weird attributes that bother me in the rest of the album (and when he does his traditional gruff singing, it sounds a little awkward), but the melody is fantastic, as are the lyrics (a couple of groaners aside). The closer, "Another Tricky Day," definitely would have worked better as a solo Pete song, but Roger's vocals sound better here than on much of the rest of the album, and the very simple power-chord guitar line that drives forward the song works to its benefit. Neither of these songs are all-time classics for the band, but they're close, and after all a second-tier Who classic is better than most band's best songs.
I used to give this album a 5, but at this point I'd say a high 6, bordering on a 7, seems more reasonable. I mean, there are a whole lot of potentially decent songs on here, and that has to count for something. Buy it if you're really curious.
Peter Just (pjust.mindspring.com)
A quick note about Kenney Jones, his history and why Pete brought him
into the band. Jones was the drummer for The Small Faces, The Who's East
London counterpart Mod band. The Small Faces members' included Steve
Marriot and Ronnie Lane (PT's "Rough Mix" album). After Marriot left to
form Humble Pie, The Small Faces turned into The Faces with Rod Stewart on
vocals and Ron Wood on guitar. Kenney Jones had a long association with
The
Who because of the two bands shared Mod backgrounds, shared billings for
shows in 1966-67, his work on the Tommy soundtrack and friendship with all
the Who members, especially Keith.
Jones and Townshend have mentioned in interviews that he became the most
logical replacement for Moon because of this shared heritage. Bill
Curbishley has mentioned that, at that time in the fall of 1978, after
Keith
died, Kenney Jones was "the best drummer availble" in England. If you
have
a chance to listen to live Kenney Jones drumming from Faces and 1979 Who
shows, you'll actually get an entirely different view of Jones.
Unfortunately, Face Dances and It's Hard didn't employ the
same drumming
style that he brought into the band circa 1979.
Also, see your mistake regarding release of Empty Glass...EG
came out in
1980 before the release of Face Dances.
JSmith2549.aol.com
I have enjoyed reading your reviews of the recordings up until this point.
I like Face Dances. This record contains many examples of great
song
writing and is well produced. I will never understand the negativity that
this recording has generated among the true Who fans. Simply stated, my
opinion is that this is the best Who recording since Quadrophenia.
Remind yourself, that every Who studio recording offers something
completely different. That being said, there is no comparison between
Face Dances and Who's Next. The Who's sound is not measured by their
studio recordings as much as by their live concerts.
Some people say Face Dances is nothing more than a Townsend solo
recording; I disagree. By Numbers and Who Are You contain
just as much
solo material as Face Dances if you are judging by the personal
aspect of the lyrics or any other measure.
(author's note): Actually, it's not just the lyrics - solo Pete is
distinctly different in musical style from Who Pete.
You tend to place some blame on Roger Daltrey's vocals; I find his vocals
to be as competant as ever with the only exception being Don't Let Go the
Coat where he is just off key. The stupid Broadway style of singing you
mention applies to every Who album. Roger was over the top and bombastic
on every album.
(author's note): Yes, but the difference between the songs on here
and the songs on, say, Quadrophenia, is that those songs almost
required Daltrey to be over-the-top bombastic. These songs call for
a soft, trembling sissyish voice. Like, say, PETE'S.
What the Who did in the studio throughout their career did not accurately
reflect their live performances. Bootlegs I have from early 1981 confirm
to me that the songs from Face Dances are among the most refreshing
and powerful concert performances at that time (ie. Tricky Day, Did You
Steal... and Quiet One). You also make the comment that this album just
fell into the category of generic 80's pop. This record was nothing like
what was going on in the 80's at that time.
It is not worth the time to debate whether the Who should have continued
with or without Keith Moon; I will say this, isn't it nice to finally hear
some drums on a Who record again? You know the drums are virtually
nonexistent on the previous two albums; yes there are some token moments
for the drums but not the backbone the Keith should have been providing.
Face Dances confirms to me that Keith was just a performer, not a
musician. Not that that is a bad thing, but don't make any comparisons.
JSmith2549.aol.com
I have never considered Pete's voice to be soft trembling sissyish. I
considered his voice to be high, emotional, charged, and always in key.
Daltrey's vocals on Face Danes are no different from Quadrophenia,
other than the mix is better (brighter).
As I said, there are some token moments from Keith on the prior two
albums; Who Are You is a prime example, as you mention. But if not for
the record of his live perfromances, Keith's drumming is, as you say,
non-descript in the studio, more so than Kenny's is.
I think Face Dances is a solid effort by the Who; no less than the
prior two albums.
ChrisTr.frontiersoftware.com.au (3/29/02)
I realise this is by now, a fairly old argument, so please indulge me as I too enter the fray with this rather lengthy discourse.
It would seem that many fans of the Who simply never forgave Pete Towsnshend for not writing variations on 'Who's Next' for the rest of the band's career. This is a great shame as it creates a stifling environment for both the artist and the listener. One of the admirable qualities of the greatest recording artists of any era has been their ability to grow and mature. This often leads them into genres vastly different from where they stared. Indeed, imagine if the Beatles kept to their "I Want To Hold Your Hand' formula for the remainder of their career. The average teenage fan would have outgrown them in a couple of years and the public at large would have missed out on some of the most amazing music of our era. This is true of any enduring act during popular music's history and is, in this case, especially true with regard to The Who.
When one sits down and plays every recorded work by The Who, back to back (assuming you had the time), the listener would realise that each album is vastly different to that of its predecessor. Whilst each album is instantly recognisable in regard to the singing, playing and energy of the band, the general tone, or vibe if you will, differs. With 'My Generation' it was the raw R&B feel, with 'Sell Out' it was the humour and with 'Face Dances' it's the sense of having grown up.
Admittedly one could say that after the demise of Keith Moon, the time would have been right for Townshend to call it a day for The Who. However Townshend has always stated to the press in subsequent years that he didn't want the fans to think that Keith's death was directly responsible for the break-up of the band. This was also a period, after a lengthy sabbatical, of much activity for The Who which the members understandably didn't want to curtail after so much time and effort.
Face Dances saw The Who launched, amid a barrage of publicity, as the New Who. Indeed the addition to their live act of Kenny Jones, keyboardist John 'Rabbit' Bundrick and even a brass section on some dates are attest to that.
The logical conclusion to this introduction of a New Who was to produce a new album which we now know as 'Face Dances'. Whilst being a massive commercial success, and my introduction (along with 'The Kids Are Alright' soundtrack) to The Who, the album was soon heavily derided by the critics and the bulk of the hardcore Who fans. The main reasons being that Kenny was not Keith and the songs weren't 'Who's Next'.
Whilst I can't commit to any one album by The Who as being my favourite, I must admit that 'Face Dances' is a good album and is often found on either my turntable or cd player. Firstly the production on this album by producer Bill Szymczyk is masterful. The sound is crisp and clear to the extent that you can finally hear John Entwistle's trebly tone without having to strain and the use of effects are tasteful. The full frequency spectrum is represented faithfully and fully from the thump of Kenny' kick drum to the highs of the guitar and vocals. That is to say that the production does not carry any of the muddiness nor tinniness inherent in their recordings of the sixties. Keep in mind too that this was 1981, well before the advent of digital recording - although there are many arguments to be had concerning digital vs. analog, which will be omitted from this arena.
The cover artwork too has always been noteworthy to me. The individual portraits of the band members, painted by noted artists of the day, coalesce into a spectacular collage of colour to entertain the eye. Only the artwork of Quadrophenia, from a design point of view, stands above it.
The main point of any criticism of 'Face Dances' is levelled at the playing and songwriting. One factor as mentioned above was that Kenny wasn't Keith.
Whilst I can say without reserve that Keith Moon was the most unique drummer around (and still is), Kenny was certainly no slouch. In terms of time keeping Kenny Jones was a more reliable player which gave John the unique opportunity of concentrating on the groove rather than having to watch Keith's feet and hands to see where the beat would land. Creatively Kenny was able to make a contribution of note. A quick listen to his playful and subtle shift of the beat on 'You Better You Bet' whilst still maintaining the 4/4 drive of the song never fails to impress me.
Pete's guitar work, whilst more subdued than his previous efforts is still enjoyable. One of my favourite moments on this album is the country style fingerpicking in the solo on 'Daily Records'. Pete displays admirable retraint on this album by allowing space for the guitar to breathe rather than trying to fill every niche with a wall of sound.
John's bass work is faultless and tasteful in it's interplay with the other instruments and his ingenious use of changing the feel of a song by alternating from driving eighth notes to employing arpeggios and back again. Indeed John has struck a balance between his trademark, blistering playing and holding back to serve the song, which works well and displays a growing maturity in his work.
Much has been said about Roger's vocal ability on this and the follow up record 'It's Hard'. Once again the band displays evidence that it had no wish to rest on its laurels, but to attempt to chart new territory. On 'Face Dances' Pete encouraged Roger to abandon the mid-Atlantic style for which he was noted in favour of a much gruffer English delivery. Again, in 1981 English bands such as The Jam and The Clash were very popular in the U.K. and were attracting a growing audience worldwide (albeit slowly) thus influencing many British artists to return to a quintessential English sound. This gruffer delivery works to a large extent throughout this album the best examples being 'You Better You Bet', 'You' and 'Did You Steal My Money' whereby the listener can almost feel Daltrey's anger confronting the listener. Admittedly there are some moments where Roger's bluster would be better tempered by Pete's gentler vocal like on 'Cache Cache' or 'Don't Let Go The Coat'.
Speaking of vocals, the backing vocals are by far the best ever on this album throughout and John's singing on his autobiographical 'The Quiet One' is first rate.
As stated, whilst not perfect, 'Face Dances' is a wonderful and brave record which represents the band at a period of great change. No longer chained to previous expectations Pete was now free to experiment with new sounds and address issues as a man in his mid thirties that he would not be able to tackle at age twenty. To the astute listener, many of these changes were in evidence on the 'Who Are You' disc which ironically, many fans at the time considered a return to form for The Who.
Eric B. (sonicdeath10.hotmail.com) (11/09/03)
should they have broken up? probably. still, i enjoy these songs for what
they are: great little keyboard songs. yes, roger can sound annoying.
there's next to no guitar. the drumming is weak. but i dunno these songs
are cool for reasons that are impossible for me to explain. in all
reality i should dislike this album but i don't. like a 7 or an 8.
trfesok.aol.com (06/13/10)
I seem to be in a minority on this one, but I consider this to be the worst of the
Who's studio albums, for a number of reasons. Moon was to essential to the group's
chemistry, for one thing. Jones could never have compensated. And I have to agree on
Townshend's songwriting. Several songs -- "How Can You Do it Alone?", "Cache,
Cache", "Don't Let Go the Coat", "Did You Steal My Money?" --contain weird metaphors
which make it impossible for the listener to relate to the lyrics, as much as they
might mean something to Pete. Pete also wants to give us a glimpse into his working
life in "Daily Records" and "Another Tricky Day", but the songs don't really make
you want to care.
However, it's not just the songs, per se. For instance, the demo of "Cache, Cache"
(on Scoop), with just, bass, drums and Townshend's voice and guitar, is much more
powerful. I do have to agree with you that a lot of this comes down to Roger's
vocals. His all out rock and roll voice just doesn't work with most of these lyrics.
It seems he couldn't relate to the songs, either, so he just sang them in his usual
way, and it just doesn't make sense.
The album's biggest flaw, to me, though, is the horrible, lightweight production.
They hired Bill Szymyck, who produced the Eagles' biggest hits, but he proved to be
totally incompetent when dealing with the Who. The drums and Pete's guitars, for the
most part, are buried in the mix in favor of the keyboards. This doesn't help, when
Pete provides the wimpiest, most boring synth sounds imaginable -- a far cry from
his exciting and innovative work on previous albums. John's bass tones don't seem
affected by the production, but that is certainly not enough to carry the sound.
Only three of the songs come out relatively unaffected by all of this. Unlike you, I
really like John's two songs. For one thing, oddly enough, besides the great bass
sounds, Pete's guitars also are more prominent "The Quiet One" also has some cool
rolling piano lines and Jones's best performance. John's voice had deteriorated
startlingly (cocaine?), but the lyrics are very cool. "You" has some very funny
lyrics, as well, with Roger's vocals the best on the album, singing a driving rock
song. "You Better, You Bet" is a goofy pop song that is a bit out of character for
the band, but it fun, along the lines of "Squeeze Box".
But, the album is quite weak, especially when compared with the Townshend albums
that came immediately before and after, or even (IMHO) with the next Who album.
Pete really should have saved these songs for himself and tried to write real Who
songs instead.
Best song: Slit Skirts
I originally savaged this album, giving it the equivalent of a 7, and it was only that high because I really loved the closing "Slit Skirts" (which I still do, even more than before). Time seriously improved my attitude towards it, though (even if I still can't give this higher than a 9), so when looking at the comments below, remember that anything from before mid-2008 is from when I said I didn't really like this.
The big thing about this album is that it's a really easy one to seriously dislike. It's full of lyrical imagery that's opaque to a degree Pete had never before shown, not even on Quadrophenia. It's full of cheeseball synths, with guitar parts only coming out in force in brief stretches. It's full of melodies that don't have easily discernable hooks. A few of the songs feature Pete reciting his confusing lyrics instead of singing them. In a lot of ways, this is the kind of album that gives "pretentious" music a bad rap, because there are a lot of places where the main thing supporting the ambition is just more ambition, without sufficient substance.
That said, while I still hear a lot of these faults (even if many people would disagree with me about them, which is their perogative), I have to admit that most of these songs have at least something to make me like them. "Stop Hurting People" sounded absolutely ridiculous to me the first few times I listened to it, what with the recitations and the overabundance of synths, but there is definitely an interesting effect in the song, and the "People stop hurting people" chorus (and even the main synthesizer riff) is quite entrancing. And so it goes with most of these songs. I still find "Stardom in Acton" rather dull from start to finish, and a couple of others don't thrill me, but I'm fond of a lot of these songs. "The Sea Refuses No River" is a total callback to Quad, not just in the style and in the melodic guitar work, but also in the imagery of water as a symbol of the self. "Prelude" is a pleasant throwaway, but while "Face Dances Part 2" starts sounding like the dumbest, plinkiest track ever, the parts that go, "I can only stare, you make me feel, like I don't care" are freaking gorgeous.
"Exquisitely Bored" is aptly titled, but not because it's boring itself; rather, it's because the feel of the song strongly conjures up what it feels like, well, to be sitting around bored out of your mind. "Communication" is a messy-as-hell track, but it's a case where the messiness becomes so INSANE (how else to describe Pete's "comma comma comma comma" warblings) that it really becomes involving. "Uniforms (Corps D'Esprit)" has a rather moving chorus (it's a little dull otherwise, but you can't have everything), "North Country Girl" is a welcome change of pace from the rest of the album (it's a traditional folk song kinda shoehorned into the 80's feel of the rest of the album, but even a little traditional folk is useful here), and "Somebody Saved Me" ... well, I like it more than I used to. It's a full-out "confessional" ballad, and in some ways it's duller than dirt, but the lyrics are rather moving in places, and I do sorta like the heavenly chorus.
The big highlight, though, is most definitely the closer. "Slit Skirts" is simply one of the best expressions of the frustrations of getting old that I can possibly imagine. I used to feel a little unsettled by the striking opposition between the non-metric rantings of the verses and the incredibly catchy and resonant chorus, but over the years I've come to think that the two really emphasize the power of the other. The lyrics are really good (especially in the verse that ends with "and it's she who has to beg"), and the seven second guitar solo near the end is the album's best testament to Pete's low-key mastery of his instrument.
In the end, though, while I basically like most of the songs, I find this album is well less than the sum of its parts. I much prefer to listen to these songs individually than to hear them in context, and I definitely suspect that's the opposite of what Pete intended. Still, if somebody really liked Empty Glass, they'd probably like this at least somewhat, if only for "Slit Skirts." Tread with caution, though.
Brian Meyer (brimeyerhofer.hotmail.com) (6/25/02)
Ok, i'll be the one to step to the plate for ATBCHCE. one of the best
solo records by a modern musician. that's all...
alright, the spoken word stuff does seem odd, especially at first,
but when you delve into it, it totally captures pete's thoughts and
colors in a new and amazing way.
track by track, and i don't have the album handy by the way, People Stop
Hurting People is a good starter because it gets the spoken stuff right
up front to let the listener know this is different. It also embodies
the style and slant from the lyrical and message viewpoint. I tend to
take a broader stance about the message whereas pete drives from the
personal perspective. all in all the track mainly sets up...
The Sea Refuses No River.
Just read the title, that's a thing of beauty in itself.
Like most great songs this one comes and goes for about 4 plays, and
then one day, when you least expect it bam! brilliant! how could i've
missed this! catharsis! ok you get the idea...Pete released a new live
version in 2001 and he omits the best line...he knows how to keep us
wanting...
Prelude could be pete's most beautiful soft song. Again, in the right
time at the right place, this can send you...
Face Dances takes the tempo up and i thought the video was neat, but the
audio is the thing...
back down with Bored in CA...which sets up...
Communication, didn't read much of what you said on this except for the
insane thing, which this song is only partially, comma, comma comma,
reminds of course of Generation except it's a nervous pete trying to comm
comm communicate? or is it something else, community? commas as
in punctuation? word play galore here...
Stardom brings back the energy and the anger..cheesiness in the sound?
have you heard the cd? what a band, it's the big country clan, stewert
RIP...
Uniforms is a gem, i saw a video of this one with pete as a waiter in
uniform, another gem. get the guy some new cloths.
NC girl, pete does Dylan's version on his recent live stuff, much better,
but it does set up....
Somebody Saved Me. Pete's homage to Keith, ostensibly, what more can be
said...
Slit Skirts line "there must be something learned' is transcendental to
those inspired by Pete....and we finally get a guitar solo only to be
faded out, put on live "sparks" quick!
anyway, read your review, and calling Saved shamefully dull means you've
missed the style of the record. I liked your analysis of Slit Skirts
and i think Pete is trying to deliberate mix and contrast on this record,
poetry and music, intellect and impulse, exuberence with wisdom, i could
go on and on, let me know if i should, definately one needs to take their
time with this one. When the 999th time of Baba is getting stale, it's
time to turn to this one...
trfesok.aol.com (06/13/10)
OK, despite the title (what the hell does it mean? The little story in the liner
notes only adds to the confusion), I really like this album. It's very different in
a lot of places than the last one, of course, and TONS better than the previous Who
album. For one thing, Pete's keyboard work returns to his previous creativity, and
even the guitar playing is better, if not prominent. "Stardom in Acton" is actually
my favorite. I don't find it dull at all -- it's actually the closest thing to a
classic Who rocker on the record. I like the lyrics, whether he's confessional
("..Acton", "Slit Skirts", "Somebody Saved Me"), spiritual (the first two tracks),
or just engaging in fun wordplay for the heck of it ("Face Dances",
"Communication"). I agree about "Slit Skirts", although the slightly different take
in the video is a bit better. People complain that the album is too pretentious and
obscure, but, unlike the songs on Face Dances, the obscurity is more due to
experimental art than trying to make personal a statement with oblique metaphors,
while the personal songs are more direct. Keeping the two types of songs separate,
rather than trying to combine the two styles, works much better here. Plus, Pete's
voice is much more suitable for this material. I was pleased to enjoy it again so
much after pulling it out again after a couple of years. From what little I've heard
of what came later, it seems that this was Pete's last good solo album.
Best song: Emminence Front
Ugh. Chinese Eyes wasn't a perfect album, but it showed that Pete still had both some creative spunk and some strong songwriting abilities. I kinda suspect that, prior to release, there were many hardcore fans anxiously awaiting this album, hoping for a comeback. BOY were they probably disappointed.
There is one great song on here, and it clearly better belongs on a solo Townshend album than on here. "Emminence Front" is no less than an 80's classic, and it's a song that would have never worked with Roger singing or (dare I blaspheme) Keith drumming. The jazzy synth loop, the popping basslines, the simple guitar lines and the robotic (in a good way) drumming combine with Pete's singing into a song that shows a man just completely tired of life, and the effect is amazing. It used to strike me as rather average, but I now think it's incredibly powerful, and there's a surprising amount of depth in the sound that can only be uncovered with good speakers or headphones.
Too bad none of the other songs come close. A lot of it actually kinda sounds like classic Who, if you disregard the unexciting drumming, but it's a boring, stiff, uninspired version of the band. Roger sounds closer to his classic style here than on Face Dances, but his efforts are wasted on really bland lyrics and melodies, and the effect is bad. Hearing Roger belt out "People are suffering! I'll say it again. People are suffering! I'll say it again," in a completely earnest way, like he was singing something off Quadrophenia, makes me fidget every time, and the album is full of instances like that. The title track starts off with a really moving guitar line, but by the time the chorus comes around, with Roger bellowing, "It's hard! It's really really really really haaaard!!!" while Pete awkwardly harmonizes, I just want the song over. Roger does a decent enough job with "I've Known No War," but again, he just can't save an overlong, underwritten bore like this. "Why Did I Fall For That" almost sounds like the theme song of an early 80's sitcom, and "A Man is a Man," aside from one interesting part in the middle, just goes in one ear and out the other. Add in that John's three songs are all easily disposable (the last one, "One at a Time," is a little better written than the others, but then again it also features John singing, and he sounds no better here than on "The Quiet One"), and that there are some other boring songs on here, and it's no wonder I give this a low rating.
Still, there are a couple of songs other than "Emminence Front" that are worth keeping. I used to hate the opening "Athena," but other than the "she's a bomb!" exclamations from Pete in the chorus, I find the song kinda fun. Roger's singing suits the song decently, there are well-placed horn parts, and Pete's "She's just a girl just a girrrrrl" interlude, as underwritten lyrically as it may be, has some quiet emotional dignity to it. I'm also increasingly fond of the closing "Cry If You Want," which shows the band essentially doing a war march. The main hook of the verses, the frantic way in which Roger sings the verses, is basically lifted directly from "Communication" on Chinese Eyes, giving strong credence to the idea of It's Hard just being rejected material from Pete's solo albums, but the band does a good job with what it's been given. Roger provides just the right amount of grit in his singing, and Pete's repeated "oooooooooooooooh cry if you want" is a pretty decent hook in the end.
While I like this album more than I used to, I still find it kinda pathetic and sad. Let me best explain my feelings about it using a personal analogy: when I was a teenager, my family had a dog, a miniature schnauzer named Chester, who I loved to death. He was the stupidest dog who ever lived (he would bark at snow), but he was a playful, energetic pile of love and fur. I missed much of his life because I was off living in school dormitories, first in high school (at IMSA) and then in college (at UIUC), but when I could come home he was always delighted to see me, and I him. Anyway, in 2003, when he was 10 and I was off in Berkeley for graduate school, I found out that he had been mauled by a pit-bull in the neighborhood, to the point that part of his scalp had been ripped off and there was brain tissue exposed. Well, he was stitched up, but it ended up weakening him considerably. Soon after I graduated in spring of 2004, his health had become so poor that he would need to be put down. I came to visit my parents on his last weekend alive, so I could spend time with him. By this point, his vision was clouding over (his peripheral vision was totally shot), his sense of smell was pretty much gone, his stomach was slightly distended (from the gas building up from putrification, meaning his liver and kidneys had stopped functioning, which was why he was being put down), and he was more lethargic than I'd ever seen him. He was so tired by the end that he couldn't make it up the single step from the garage to the door into the house on his own. I loved him, and he loved me, but he had to be put down.
This album, as far I'm concerned, is the aural equivalent of my dying dog. There was some goodness left, but it was encased in a body that just couldn't function at a top level anymore. After a farewell live tour (ha), Pete had the good sense to break up the band, at least until Roger and John needed money.
Thought09.aol.com
The thing is, the who of face dances and it's hard is a
completely different band, not literally, but pretty much...It's not the
WHO!!! it's the who. Pete's songwriting was 360 degrees from what he was
writing back in the days of tommy and who's next. Instrumentally, these
tracks just don't have the sonic glory of days past, but they are still
better than the other shit that came out around that time. Pete's life
was in a low ebb during this era and the sadness is reflected in the
tunes...I still consider these fairly good albums to listen to....it's
just not THE WHO. ages from live at leeds
Eric B. (sonicdeath10.hotmail.com) (11/09/03)
why don't i hate this album? not sure.it was one of the first who albums
i got (hey it was one of hte only one's available to me). it can be hard
to listen to some times (hehe!) but it's not THAT bad. a 6 or 7 really. i
think the main advantage i have is that roger's voice doesn't annoy me
like it does you on this album. so my enjoyment is helped.
davepas136.comcast.net (03/12/06)
you can't dismaiss the who's last 2 albums as easily as you did...
i've known no war---great
ps i don't remember seeing townsends solo albumn iron man... although
it is a crappy albumn one of his greatest melodys appear on the song
'is their life'... great song
trfesok.aol.com (06/13/10)
I'm another one who disagrees, even if the album is not up to classic Who standards.
Indeed, it was quite a treat to have this and Pete's last album come out in the same
year, especially since both are big improvements over the Who's prior release. For
one thing, they brought back the Next/By Numbers/Who Are You? producer Glyn Johns
back, who gives the album a much tougher sound. In particular, Jones' drums are much
more forward in the mix. They also hired a keyboardist named Tim Gorman to add extra
parts, adding to the fullness of the arrangements.
I do concede that there are a few dogs in the songwriting. "Why Did I Fall For
That?" and "Cooks County" continuing the annoying, meandering style of Face Dances.
Roger's singing on the former's verses is ridiculous, and I agree that the chorus on
the latter is dumb. "Dangerous" and "It's Your Turn" sound like an odd combination
of Pete's Face Dances songs and the generic rock of John's latest solo album, Too
Late the Hero. Roger's singing really can't save these.
But I like the remainder of the songs. "I've Known No War" is clearly supposed to be
this album's "Won't Get Fooled Again", complete with political lyrics and a
cathartic scream from Roger. However, I do agree that the lengthy, boring synth solo
hardly compares with that of "..Fooled..", but the rest of the song is good. "One
Life's Enough" is a nice ballad along the lines of "Love is Coming Down." "Athena"
is very catchy and has some interesting dream imagery in the lyrics. It is difficult
to imagine Keith restraining himself enough to provide the groove to "Eminence
Front" (or to "Cry if You Want"), but it is another goodie from Pete. "A Man is a
Man", "Cry if You Want" and the title track have very good lyrics dealing with the
authentic masculinity vs. machismo theme. Roger provides very convincing vocals
here. Finaly, despite John's rough vocals (this one could have been handed off to
Roger, as well), "One at the Time" is also good, with hilarious lyrics and that
intricate horns intro.
I'd really give the album a high 7/low 8 even if a lot of people (including Roger!)
hate the album. However, the proper Who chemistry still wasn't there without Keith,
despite Johns' attempts to compensate. They probably had carried on too long by
this point.
Best song: Give Blood
It's amazing how some albums can just make you so excited to hear it in the beginning and then bore you to death before it's over, all in the short span of less than 40 minutes. The first three songs are some of Pete's very best post-Quad work, but then the rest ... just isn't. Apparently, it's a concept album based around some film by the same name, but I'd never ever guess that if I hadn't been told this in advance - either way, the conceptual aspects of this album aren't enough to make me care about the last six tracks any more than I do, so whatever.
Those first three tracks, though, wowie. "Give Blood" is a FABULOUS opener, with one of the coolest echoey guitar sounds imaginable climaxing the introduction before going into a terrific, driving pissed-off 80's-style rocker the likes of which Pete had never done before (though to an extent, the cool echoey sound comes from David Gilmour and not Pete, but whatever). Some think the uplifting "Give love, and keep blood between brothers" chorus somewhat ruins it, but I really don't mind it - it gives good contrast to the angry verses and powerful delivery, where Pete bellows out the line, "Give blood, but you may find that blood is not enough" with more conviction than one could possibly imagine his trembling voice managing.
The next two aren't as shockingly good, but I love them nonetheless. "Brilliant Blues" isn't blues by any means, but the name is definitely a half-truth; the melody is clever as can possibly be, the vibe is given an odd manner of coziness thanks to the nice xylophone in the background and Pete's warm backing vocal overdubs, and while it's tough to figure out if it's supposed to be sad or happy, it definitely puts a smile on my face by its end (I just don't know if it's a happy smile or a sad half-smile, you see). And then there's the over-the-top disco-raveup-rap-whatever "Face the Face," with parts from the rhythm section that no half sane person could ever resist (in my opinion) - the lyrics are hilariously odd, the vocal arrangements are clever as hell (by this I don't just mean the actual harmony layering, but rather the non-trivial layout of where the various backing vocals pop up in the song), and the addition of horns to the weird guitar jamming in the fifth minute makes this an experience that you're not likely to forget soon (even if you decide you don't like it, hmmph).
But then? The next track, "Hiding Out" just gets waaaaaaay too wimpily 80's for me, with that dinky synth and drum-machine sound and a melody that doesn't have any particular hook to draw me in. "Secondhand Blues" is a substantial improvement (though still not quite on par with the first three tracks), kinda sounding like what Face Dances would be if the songs were better and if Pete sang instead of Roger, a slightly lumbering piano-based rocker with occasional reprises from "Give Blood," but then the rest of the album just doesn't do much at all. "Crashing by Design" is the same 80's stylistics as before without the ruling melodies of before, "I am Secure" is inoffensive 80's synth/acoustic-balladry but unmemorable to the extreme, "White City Fighting" (which I guess is the "conceptual centerpiece") wastes a beautiful acoustic guitar line in the intro for dullness, and then we crash into "Come to Mama" which sounds like something Yes might have done on Union. Echoey drums, random guitar sounds, generic synths in the background, and no musical substance what-so-friggin'-ever. Sigh.
So you see, then, that this doesn't really have that much to offer as a whole. I give it as high a grade as it gets because I reeeeeally love three tracks and like another, but the amount of low-quality material (especially in contrast to the good stuff) can't help but bring down the rating a LOT. Still, if you see it for five dollars like I did once, think about getting it.
Best song: Love Reign O'er Me
An alarmingly enjoyable late-period reunion live album. By most tenants of logic, this 2-CD set should utterly suck like few things can. Daltrey and Entwistle needed money; Pete didn't really want to do it but decided to take the opportunity to use it to prop up his solo career, not to mention that he was half-deaf by this time (which is why he's mostly relegated to acoustic guitar); there's tons of backing musicians, including two drummers, a horn section, a keyboardist and a small choir (not to mention some random yutz playing electric guitar, contributing metallish lines where once was regular hard-rock crunch). Yup, everything was in place to make this the most excruciating two-hours imaginable, and yet this doesn't happen.
The division of material places a complete Tommy performance on the first CD, with other material from the band's past (as well as some Pete solo cuts) on the second CD. Now, I've never seen video footage of the Tommy shows, so maybe there was something about the visuals that cause people to seriously groan about this (not to mention that the big-band feel makes it more like the musical version than the good ole rock opera), but I have a hard time disliking this performance. I would never say that what we have here is better than Wight, but just because this adaptation of Tommy is worse than in the early 70's doesn't mean it's bad.
Indeed, one may dislike the addition of other players (I believe that Pete jokingly referred to this tour as "The Who on ice" because of this factor) but the fact is the performances are just plain good. Daltrey's vocals have aged slightly, but they're unquestionably still as effective in this performance as they were back in the early 70's (just taking on a slightly different character). One may also gripe about the slightly metallish feel to the guitar work, but hey, Pete's playing on Wight was easily "proto-metallic," so this really just takes the next logical step. Add in that Pete's acoustic playing has seemingly only gotten better with time (have you EVER heard somebody strum as fast as he does during his short spotlight in "Overture"?), and you have a perfectly enjoyable experience. And of course, there's John - the basslines here (as well as during the rest of the album), especially during "Sparks," are utterly MINDBLOWING in their hard-rock-groove intensity. And hey, the drumming isn't Keith, but it's not like it gets in the way or anything.
The second disc is also surprisingly good, mainly because it doesn't even pretend to be a greatest hits package. Sure, sure, "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" make appearances at the end (Pete even plays electric on the last one), and the rousing performance of "Love Reign O'er Me" distinguishes itself as the best track on the whole package, but the rest is hardly predictable. 4 solo tunes ("Face the Face" from White City, "Rough Boys" and "A Little is Enough" from Empty Glass, and an actual Who song from Iron Man in "Dig"), an all-but-solo-tune ("Emminence Front"), and a bunch of tunes otherwise unavailable live. "I Can See For Miles" isn't as impressive as the stunning original, but both "5:15" and "Trick of the Light" work well in this setting (thanks to the big band in the former and the metallish guitar and killer basslines in the latter), while the rare "Join Together" and the clever "You Better You Bet" come across just fine live.
In short, if any major problem can be conjured for this release, it's that it's not really "essential" from the standpoint of being revelatory. Everything here is good, but with some exceptions (like "Sparks" and "Dig") nothing really overshadows what came before. But really, that's fine - this is a good live album, and one that the band shouldn't really be ashamed of. Even if many fans seem to think otherwise.
Best song: Relay
DISAPPOINTING. I wasn't exactly foaming at the mouth to buy
this sucker, but I still was more or less optimistic that it might come
close to the brilliant Led Zeppelin sessions. Alas, no, but in hindsight,
I should have realized this might be the case. You see, it should be
remembered that The Who live and The Who studio were essentially two
different bands (at least, post-'66) - live, they were in-your-face noisy
power rock (albeit
keeping the great melodies in tact) while in the studio the approach was
much softer, with a greater emphasis on vocal harmonizing. Unfortunately,
these sessions present us with the studio Who, and while I greatly
appreciate these songs in their original place, I honestly don't see the
point of including several of these tracks. Why do I need two versions
of "Substitute" that are virtually identical to the original or a
nine-minute "A Quick One" that sounds like a virtual clone of its
original?
I also have issue with some of the song selection. "See My Way" sucks just
as much as it ever did, and the covers are pretty darn weak. The James
Brown number on here, "Just You And Me, Darling," isn't as bad as the covers
that graced the band's debut, but still ... And the run-throughs of "Good
Lovin'", "Leaving Here," and "Dancing In the Street" are all very routine and
unnoteworthy. And even several tracks that were great in the first place,
such as "The Good's Gone," "La La La Lies," "I'm A Boy," "I'm Free" and so forth,
while not bad in any way, are SO similar to the originals that I
often forget that I'm listening to The BBC Sessions instead of,
say, The Very Best of the Who.
Fortunately, there is a nice chunk of more-or-less prime material on here.
I have nothing against "My Generation" and "Boris the Spider" being changed
into Radio 1 jingles (though the latter is among the bonus tracks on
Sell-out). "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" is certainly no worse than the
original, which makes sense - the early Who style really was 'live in the
studio' before the term was ever made popular, and as such they really
seem in their element here. Also, the stuff at the end of the disc, from
the Leeds/Lifehouse era, really comes across well. I have
nothing against the rendition of "Shakin' All Over" here, and doggone it,
"Relay" sounds great! The only other place I knew of for a while to get that song was on the AWFUL
Greatest Hits album, and unfortunately I hadn't been able to hear
the song since I had sold that crap for $3. If you're not familiar with
it, it's a neat little key-song from Lifehouse, with all sorts of
weird synth and feedback noises accompanying a nice guitar-driven rocker.
I like it! They also do a solid version of "Long Live Rock," which, in my
mind at least, really demonstrates the amazing abilities of Pete's
underrated vocals. A good way to close it all out.
Oh, wait, there's more. You see, the version of this album I got has a
bonus disc entitled Live at the BBC attached for free, and
strangely enough the discs without this addition are sold side-by-side
with it at the same price. Hmm. In any case, it's decent enough, but not
particularly breathtaking. "Pinball Wizard," "See Me Feel Me" and "The Seeker,"
as usual for this album, are frighteningly similar to the originals, while
"I Can See For Miles" is different only in that John's bass now becomes the
highest instrument in the mix. And "I Don't Know Myself" is quite inferior
to the Wight version, if you ask me. But, "Heaven and Hell" comes off
well enough, and "Summertime Blues" sounds great. It's much more similar to
the version found amongst the bonus tracks of Odds and Sods than
the version on Leeds, but I really don't have any major
complaints.
So, all in all, extremely underwhelming. If you want to get it, fine, but
brace yourself. Of course, you might get a hoot out of it, who knows.
Best song: Relay or 5:15
There was a period of a couple of years where I absolutely loved the DVD from which this album is taken. I had gotten into The Who just
a couple of years before this concert took place, and given that I didn't really have the time/means to go see the band live in its
final unexpected stretch of performing greatness, I found myself treating this as a proxy on more than a few occasions. The fact that
the issues that had inhibited Pete's ability to operate at full strength as a guitarist for a few years had seemingly disappeared, and
the band's coup in landing Zak Starkey and having him develop into an acceptable Moon proxy (he wasn't exactly a clone but he brought
more life to the band's rhythm section than Kenny Jones had), had given it the opportunity to put on aging British dinosaur rocker
spectacles every bit on par with what The Stones were doing at the time (I mean this as a compliment). Middle-aged Pete bashing his
guitar seemed like the coolest man alive, Roger still had a great roar, John basically answered the question of what it would like if
Elohim played bass, and overall it was heaven for somebody who had a lot of time between classes to listen to music and watch concert
DVDs.
Eventually, I found myself watching this less and less, and when I eventually picked up the CD version of the album, I inevitably found
some things in it to pick at as a live album that I didn't think of when watching. The mix is maybe a little thin and too keyboard-heavy
in spots, Roger's voice still works as a blunt force object but has little delicacy left around the edges, the concert drags out a bit
after "Won't Get Fooled Again" finishes, and most of all, the various guest appearances in this concert aren't always clearly for the
better. This concert was a charity performance in support of The Teenage Cancer Trust, and thus a good number of various others make
appearances to try and spruce things up. Sometimes the effect is great: Nigel Kennedy contributes a great violin part in "Baba O'Riley,"
Paul Weller does a fine acoustic duet of "So Sad About Us" with Pete, and Eddie Vedder (a huge Quadrophenia fan) does a fantastic
vocal on "I'm One" (and a good back-and-forth vocal with Roger on "Getting in Tune"). On the other hand, I get a little tired of Eddie
when he returns near the end with "Let's See Action" and on the closing "See Me, Feel Me," and I can't help but roll my eyes some at the
inclusions of Bryan Adams (who sings lead on "Behind Blue Eyes" and helps on "See Me, Feel Me"), Noel Gallagher (who contributes some
bits of guitar on "Won't Get Fooled Again" but is basically invisible) and Kelly Jones (who kinda sounds terrible on "Substitute"). For
better or worse, this album gives a glimpse into which musicians would have been considered a big enough deal in Britain to be invited
to something like this back in 2000, but I end up kinda wishing this show could have happened without the guests.
Still, there's a lot of The Who by themselves (including John Bundrick on keyboards), and a lot of the performances are pretty great.
The first chunk of the album is actually guest-star-free, right up until when Kennedy starts his "Baba O'Riley" violin playing, and
while the band certainly sounds its age, it also sounds like a band that knows what it can still do well and amplifies those aspects as
much as possible. "I Can't Explain" and "Pinball Wizard" sound a little more sluggish than I'd prefer (they just don't sound quite right
when filtered through the band's arena rock persona), but "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" sounds just fine in this context, providing some
space for the band to work itself into a noisy frenzy. The rest of the first half goes off like a bomb; there are a couple of other
lighter numbers ("The Kids Are Alright" is updated in a touching way to include some musing on Pete's childhood mistakes before building
into its own noisy climax, and "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands" is such a pleasant surprise that I can forgive how much older the band
sounds here than in the original), but the Who's Next-era numbers ("Relay," "My Wife," "Bargain" and "Baba O'Riley") show the
band at their jammy arena-rock best, and both the extended "Magic Bus" (including an excursion into the song "Country Line Special") and
"Who Are You" sound delightful.
The second-half starts with a quick acoustic set from Pete, featuring solo versions of "Drowned" (which might be able to win over
anybody who didn't like arrangement on Quadrophenia) and "Heart to Hang Onto" (recorded in a collaboration with Ronnie Lane back
in the late 70s), before jumping into the "So Sad About Us" duet and Vedder's great "I'm One" performance. The concert then hits a
slight lag with "Getting in Tune" (Vedder) and "Behind Blue Eyes" (Adams), but "You Better You Bet" is a fun listen live, and it's
immediately followed by two of the concert's major highlights in "The Real Me" and "5:15." Daltrey might not have been ideal at this
point for singing the band's 60s material, but Quadrophenia material was still in his wheelhouse, and he sounds fantastic on
both. More striking than Daltrey, though, is Entwistle, whose tone in these two songs is crushing and who has a FANTASTIC lengthy bass
solo in "5:15" that I kinda wish would go forever.
The concert probably would have been better served had it ended after "Won't Get Fooled Again" (immediately after "5:15") and maybe one
encore, but it goes on for another 20 minutes beyond that point, and I start to find myself wilting a bit near the end (though it's nice
to have a little glimpse at the extended jamming of old at the end of "My Generation"). Still, while this certainly isn't a perfect live
album, it does an effective job of showing that what had been one of the greatest live bands ever still had some of its old juice, and
most Who fans should hear it at some point. I should also note that there's a third disc featuring four performances from a couple of
years later (which turned out to be Entwistle's final performance), and these tracks ("I'm Free," "I Don't Even Know Myself,"
"Summertime Blues" and "Young Man Blues") all sound at least 80% as enjoyable as they did on Isle of Wight.
Best song: It's Not Enough, maybe
The obvious question, the 800 lb gorilla in the room, that has to be addressed when reviewing this album is whether or not this should even be considered a Who album, name on the sleeve and fact that I'm including it on a Who page notwithstanding. Truthfully, I would have to say not; even if I don't like Face Dances and It's Hard much at all, I can at least somewhat understand continuing to go by the Who moniker after Moon's death, but keeping it after Entwistle partied his way into the afterlife seems more than a bit disingenuous to me. It definitely doesn't help that, once Zak Starkey took over the role of touring drummer (doing a nearly ideal Keith Moon impression in the process) in the late 90's, the Entwistle-Daltrey-Townshend version of the band was able to pull off more than a slight resemblance sound-wise to the band's glory days; Entwistle's death just reinforced that, yup, they'd reclaimed the past for a short time, and now it was gone. More to the point of the album, the rhythm section sounds totally anonymous (I don't believe Starkey plays at all on this album), and really what is a Who album if there's never any tension built up between at least two of the three of guitar, bass and drums? Townshend's guitar playing is fine, and Roger sounds ... ehn ... good for an old guy, but even when the band is in driving rock mode, it's just not the same.
Yet despite that reservation, and despite the fact that I continue to hate the impression the first fifteen minutes of the album gives, I like this album way way way more than either of the last two Who studio creations. It's not surprising that much of this sounds closer in style to solo Townshend than to classic Who, but one major difference between this and the last two albums is that here it sounds to me like Pete went out of his way to tailor his songs to Roger's singing, whereas the previous results sounded like weak Townshend outtakes thrown into Roger's lap at the last minute. Townshend himself takes a lot of the lead vocals himself, as well, and the end result is a surprisingly ok mix of conventional solo Townshend and a glimpse of classic Who.
I really dislike the first four tracks on the whole, though. The opening "Fragments" may otherwise be a decent song, but I just cannot help wanting to hunt Pete down and slap him for starting this album with such a SHAMELESS rip off of the opening synth line to "Baba O'Riley." "Man in a Purple Dress" and "The Mike Post Theme" each have a clever lyrical stanza or two, but both bore me to death, and "In the Ether," while mildly pretty, has Pete taking on a weirdly disconcerting and seemingly pointless "growl" in his vocal delivery that I still don't like. Believe me, the first time I started listening to this album, my brain was lining up a massive slam of this release, with some thought given to the notion that it might be even worse than It's Hard; my impression based solely on the start of the album has improved slightly over time, but not much.
Starting with track five, though, something happens; I don't know how, but the album all of a sudden finds a groove of decent quality that I had figured could never happen again with Roger and Pete. "Black Widow's Eyes" sounds just like I'd hope aged Who would; a good guitar-driven groove with some vague intensity, a nice delivery from Roger's croaking vocals (to a good vocal melody), and some effective bits of Pete backing vocals that sound just like (again) good solo Townshend. "Two Thousand Years" is an effective attempt at a simplistic, up-tempo anthemic acoustic ballad, "God Speaks of Marty Robbins" is a lovely dose of just Pete and his acoustic singing about God creating the world just to hear good music (including, apparently, the old country singer Marty Robbins), and "It's Not Enough" is exactly what the bulk of Face Dances should have sounded like. A punchy, gruff up-tempo pop song with good Daltrey singing and more great backing vocals from Pete, it also has my favorite electric guitar passages of the album, which remind me one more time how much I love Pete's brand of minimalism.
The next few tracks are kinda unusual, in that almost all of them fall in the range of 1-minute to 2-and-a-half-minutes, and for whatever reason I find this enjoyable and strangely refreshing. It's as if Pete realized he had a bunch of decent ideas, not all of which would really work at full song length, and decided the best course of action would be to keep them all at the shortest reasonable clip. "You Stand by Me," another instance of Pete and his acoustic, probably would have been just fine as a full length song, as would have the catchy-as-hell "Pick up the Peace," and the "extended" (three to four minute) versions of "We Got a Hit" and the title track that are attached as bonus tracks show these songs would be acceptable if fully fleshed out, but the rest are just good ideas that have the good sense to get out of the way before they have a chance to become remotely tedious. "Unholy Trinity" and "Triliby's Piano" seem relatively weak to me, but again: they're gone in two minutes. Even the album opener makes a reappearance in the appropriately titled "Fragments of Fragments," which takes various pieces of that track and rearranges them in assorted ways, and it works very well to my ears.
After the slew of short tracks is passed, we come to a nice mild rocker in "Mirror Door" (which has a decent riff and a weird section of Roger kinda muttering in the last minute), and then to the atmospheric album closer, "Tea & Theatre," whose soft drum machine in the background is really the only glimpse of "modernity" to be found in the album's whole running time. They make a nice capstone to an album that really improves dramatically as it goes on, and which, much to my surprise, I would recommend to any Who fan (or at least one who can also tolerate solo Townshend). Just skip those first four tracks, bleh.
PS: I eventually knocked this down a point from where I initially rated it. While I don't especially disagree with anything I wrote, I also eventually realized that the only songs on here that I ever felt like listening to were "God Speaks of Marty Robbins" and "It's Not Enough," and that's just not enough to sustain a grade of 8.
trfesok.aol.com (04/13/12)
When Page and Plant put out Walking into Clarksdale, they had the good sense and integrity to release it as a Page and Plant album,
rather then as a Led Zeppelin album. Legalities aside, I'm sure they knew that it would not sound like Zeppelin if John Paul Jones
wasn't there (let's ignore the arguments over In Through the Out Door). The same logic applies here - - with Entwistle gone, how
could this now sound like the Who? (and you're right about Zak Starkey -- he was touring with Oasis, so he's only on one track).
They should have definitely released this as a Daltrey and Townshend album, not as the Who. Which is why I resisted getting it for
a long time.
That argument aside, I was pleasantly surprised. I was right about it not sounding like the Who, despite their best attempts in
songs like "It's Not Enough" (as opposed to "Had Enough" or "I've Had Enough" ) or "Mirror Door". Nonetheless, I have to agree that
in terms of songwriting and production, this is tons better than the two 1980's Who albums. Clear gorgeous instrumentation, great
melodies, and really good lyrics. Roger at least seems to understand the songs and the right attitude behind singing them.
I actually like the music behind "Fragments". The idea of opening the album with a repeating synth riff might be a rip-off from
Who's Next, but I don't think it actually sounds like "Baba O'Riley" at all. If anything, the song reminds me of Pete's stuff on
..Chinese Eyes, both melodically and lyrically (especially Pete's spoken recitation in the middle). "Two Thousand Years" is
gorgeous, and very intriguing. Pete obviously gave up on Christianity decades ago, yet he sounds like he's addressing Jesus. Quite
moving. The plot of the "Wire and Glass" "mini-opera" is indiscernible just from listening to it, but it's at least an interesting
and fun listen. "We've Got a Hit" and the stirring "Endless Wire" are clearly the best parts. I'm glad that Pete decided to expand
them to full song length.
Where the album falls down for me is, big surprise, the vocals. Roger was starting to show a bit of gruffness on the last three Who
albums, but Pete sounded fine, so I was not prepared for the level of deterioration in their voices. (Although it could have been
worse -- Sunflower vs. 15 Big Ones, for example). Roger actually sounds somewhat better when he's singing in his higher range
("Mike Post Theme") , but way too hoarse when he goes low. Although I think this actually works really well on "The Man in
a Purple Dress" (even if I don't entirely agree with the lyrical sentiment). Roger's growl matches perfectly with the vitriolic
lyrics and the simple acoustic guitar, giving the song a Dylanesque anger that really works. On the other hand, Pete has lost most
of the sweetness in his high range ("Blue, Red and Grey") as well as the aggression in his low range ("Jools and Jim"), so he
sounds OK, but rather bland. But is that really him on "Into the Ether"? I couldn't tell if it was him or Roger, but I agree, the
vocal is absolutely terrible, ruining a perfectly decent song. The low point.
Otherwise, though, even including the uneven vocals, and the fact that it's not really the Who, it's a strong enough album to
overcome those flaws. However, I would never go see this version of the Who revue, based on what was included in the copy of the
album I got -- a DVD with five songs from a concert in Lyon, France -- "I Can't Explain", "Mike Post Theme" and the three best
known songs from ..Next. The good news is that Pete's guitar abilities seem to be intact. I assume that "I Can't Explain" opened
the show, because Roger sounds OK. But by the time we get to "Behind Blue Eyes" he sounds horribly strained and out of tune. On the finale, he sounds totally hoarse and hideous, as if his voice will give out any second. Stick to the studio from now on, men.
Best song: Break The News
I don't really get why Townshend and Daltrey decided they needed to record another album together under the Who banner, and I also don't really get why the overall reaction to the album was so firmly positive. In fairness, the album sounds good, even if the primary route the album takes to sounding good involves trying to sound as much like a Who album as possible at almost every turn, and there is some interest in hearing this kind of general approach in the context of musicians so close to the end of their lives rather than from musicians in their youthful primes (as they had been in the 70s). On first listen, my initial reaction was primarily one of relief that it didn't completely suck, but on subsequent listens I started to pick up the cribs of classic material that the band was using to trick me into liking it, and while I don't mind allusions to older material on general principle, I do mind when these allusions seem intended to distract me from the lack of much else. From the first line, where the phrasing and meter of "I don't mind other guys ripping off my song" is intended to evoke "I don't mind other guys dancing with my girl" from "The Kids Are Alright," and throughout the album, where there are gobs of half-references to Who's Next, Quadrophenia, and Who Are You, my consistent response is one of wishing I was listening to these ideas in the context of their younger selves.
There are certainly some songs that go beyond this basic general put-down, of course. "Break the News" (actually written by Simon Townshend, Pete's brother) is a fine up-tempo song based around acoustic guitar and piano, with a terrific chorus and a sensitive Daltrey delivery, and while it doesn't really sound like typical Who (apart from arpeggiated synth touches in the middle), that strikes me as a good thing on this album. At the start of the album, both "All This Music Must Fade" and "Ball and Chain" (the latter a rewrite of a solo Townshend track called "Guantanamo") have ample muscle in both the playing and in the singing, with an especially strong vocal hook in the former and some great interplay between keyboards and guitar in the latter, and they put me in a good mood for the album as a whole (even if that mood gradually faded like air slowly leaking from a balloon). And, well, I guess "Street Song" has an interesting atmosphere, even if it doesn't have much of a tune per se, and "I'll Be Back" is a moody number that would have been better as a solo Townshend track (I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the effects on Pete's voice, though).
The rest isn't offensive per se, but I don't find it interesting either, and while I like this album more than the low points of the early 80s (I would rather hear Roger and Pete as grizzled veterans than in a drugged-out mid-life crisis), I just can't rate this album very highly. The Who are one of my favorite bands of all time, but The Who is ultimately more than just Townshend and Daltrey at any arbitrary point in time.
Best song: uh
Indeed, the remastered reissues of Odds and Sods and Sell Out have a couple of tracks that you might want to have otherwise, but for the most part you can satisfy your Who rarities needs here. SIX of the Quick One bonus tracks (all of them good) make it on here, which makes that reissue pretty much superfluous (if you can find this, of course). Elsewhere, in the Vol I. part, you get an alternate version of "Circles (Instant Party)," a damned good cover of "The Last Time," a funny number about betting at a dog track (called, appropriately, "Dogs"), a self-explanatory Entwistle comedy number called "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and some other random crap. Yeah!
And then you turn it over, and there's a bunch of stuff from the "mature" era of the band that you can only get via stuff like the boxset and compilations. "Let's See Action," "Relay" and "Join Together" (only all together on the compilation Hooligans) are buttressed by studio versions of the classic live numbers "I Don't Know Myself," "Heaven and Hell" and "Water," while the presence of more Entwistle stuff like "When I Was a Boy" and ESPECIALLY "Waspman" (bzzzzzzzzz!) show the band hadn't yet lost its sense of humor. Top it all off with a GREAT live cover of the blues standard "Baby Don't You Do It," with some of the best Entwistle basslines this side of Quad and Leeds and Pete's live crrrrrrrrunch, and you have a bunch of tracks that could easily have made their own great album.
Of course, don't even think about trying to find this anywhere but ebay or somewhere like that. I myself only have it because a kind soul was gracious enough to send it to me. It rules to be me.
The band's unofficial official
website
First, please forgive my bad english, my excuse is : I am French (nobody's
perfect).
But even those were forgotten soon.
So what was it? When did I start to think and like the Who?
The Who Sings My Generation - 1965 MCA
C
(Very Good / Great)
A Quick One - 1966 MCA
8
(Good / Mediocre)
The Who Sell Out - 1967 MCA
E
(Great)
Tommy - 1969 MCA
E
(Great)
Overture~Its a Boy
You Didn't Hear It (1921)
Christmas
Cousin Kevin
Underture
Pinball Wizard
There's A Doctor Iv'e Found (My favorite song on the album)
Go To The Mirror, Boy
Smash The Mirror
Miracle Cure
I'm Free
Welcome
We're Not Gonna Take It(~Heaven and Hell)
Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy - 1971 MCA
F
(All-time Great)
Live at Leeds - 1970 MCA
10
(Olympian)
*Live at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival - 1996
Columbia*
10
(Olympian)
Who's Next - 1971 MCA
E
(Great)
"Bargain"
"Love Ain't for Keeping" (Odds and Sods version with Pete on vocals)
"I Don't Know Myself"
"My Wife"
"Water"
"Time is Passing"
"The Song is Over"
"Pure and Easy"
"Naked Eye"
"Long Live Rock"
"Join Together"
"Relay"
"Goin' Mobile"
"Behind Blue Eyes"
"Won't Get Fooled Again"
Hard as it may be to believe, "Naked Eye" and "Water" have nothing to do
with Lifehouse. Neither does "Long Live Rock." Unless you were just talking
about songs that were around at that time, in which case you'd be right.
Quadrophenia - 1973 MCA
10
(Olympian)
Odds and Sods - 1974 MCA
A
(Very Good / Good)
The Who By Numbers - 1975 MCA
8
(Good / Mediocre)
Who Are You - 1978 MCA
C
(Very Good / Great)
Soundtrack To The Film The Kids Are Alright - 1979
MCA
C
(Very Good / Great)
Empty Glass (Pete Townshend) - 1980 Atlantic
D
(Great / Very Good)
There's a gale blowing in my face
The high winds scare me but I need the breeze
And I can't head for any other place
Life would seem so easy on the other track
But even a hurricane won't turn me back
You might be an island
On the distant horizon
But the little I see
Looks like heaven to me
I don't care if the ocean gets rough
Just a little is enough"
Face Dances - 1980 MCA
6
(Mediocre)
All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (Pete Townshend) - 1982 Atlantic
9
(Good)
It's Hard - 1982 MCA
5
(Mediocre / Bad)
cook's county---good
cache cache---good
daily records---fun
why did i fall for that---fun
a man is a man---great, sounds like who by numbers material, it is
great hearing townsend and daltrey singing together
cry if you want---great
how can you do it alone---feel is great, melody is great, vocals a
bit silly but not to bad
White City (Pete Townshend) - 1985 Atco
8
(Good / Mediocre)
Join Together - 1990 MCA
9
(Good)
The BBC Sessions - 2000 MCA
8
(Good / Mediocre)
Live At The Royal Albert Hall - 2003 Steamhammer
A
(Very Good / Good)
Endless Wire - 2006 Universal
7
(Mediocre / Good)
Who - 2019 Polydor
6
(Mediocre)
Rarities 1966-1972 Vol. I & II - 1991 MCA
B
(Very Good)
