THE WHO

"The Who By Numbers" is absolutely the most deep and reflective album by The Who. Sadly, at the time, the audience reaction to the album was pretty cold, due to its expectations for something more aggressive and nearer to what "Who's Next" had been.

The release is not apparently a concept album, anyway the evident theme behind it all is the deep sort of personal desolation, felt by Pete Townshend at the time, an undeniable sense of frustration for having been the spokesman of a generation since 1965, now finding himself as a middle aged man, torned between the need to grow up personally and artistically and carrying on with the tipical rock n roll adolescential clichè to please his audience.

Signs of this problem are evident in tracks like "However Much I Booze", in which Townshend's lyrics deals with how his usual habit to drown his problem in gin and brandy doesn't work help him no more in hiding from the world; musically it's very interesting the contrast between the happy music and the desperate lyrics.

The difficulty in trusting other people once a person is sucked into the showbiz machine emerges in "How Many Friends", one of the most sincerely poignant tracks ever by The Who, in which Pete asks himself "How Many Friends have I really got? / well you can count them on one hand", structuring the plot of the song as an analysys of three figures who approach him: a fan, a woman and his manager.

There is little uplifting in this work: other sad songs are "Red Blue And Grey" and "Imagine a man", while "Success Story", written by John Entwistle, deals with the same middle-age crisis in the life of a musician, as I told before, but in a ironic way, with cynicism and sarcasm. The most recognizable song is the funny song called "Squeeze Box", the only relaxed and truly positive number on the album.

Musically speaking "The Who By Numbers" is not a masterpiece as "Who's Next" or "Quadrophenia", but it's surely a great album, now powerful, now poignant, now desperate, now powerful, now fragile.

A great album.

Many fans sadly missed the boat

While I'm not crazy enough to call Face Dances the best Who album, I will say it is one of the ones I most appreciate these days. Unlike Zeppelin's horrid "In Through the Out Door" from around the same time, the Who delivered a classy and vibrant album of good rock songwriting basics in an updated package. Yes Keith Moon was gone, like Bonham, both men losing their lives to immaturity and alcohol excess. While talents like these are irreplaceable and many fans wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt, The Who chose to keep going and somehow Townshend managed to pull out a rabbit. What immediately struck me upon returning to this old friend is the Pretenders' and Joe Jackson influence. It would be logical to guess The Who at some point influenced the Pretenders (and Jackson) but I swore I was hearing Pretenders in some of these Face Dances tracks--I really believe that. So I did some research and the Pretenders debut came out approximately 7 months before The Who went into the studio for Face Dances. I dug a bit further and found this line in an article about the Pretenders debut:

The Who's Pete Townshend described the effect of its provocative, sexually candid lyrics and hard-driving beat as being "like a drug." [guitar player, april 1981]

Bingo, he did like them! The Boston Globe also made waves by calling Face Dances "The Who's best album since 1973's Quadrophenia." Looking for a slightly refreshed sheen for the first post-Moon album they incorporated the swagger and edge of punk/new wave into a base of quality "pop and roll" songs. A calculated gamble for a band with a large number of entrenched heavier-loving fans but in this case it worked, at least for some of us. Production was handed to legendary producer Bill Szymczyk who believes his status as a non-musician gives him the ability to help bands presents themselves anew, noting "I'm a professional listener. I listen and I react. I never was a musician, so I don't bring any preconceived prejudices to the table; I don't favour the guitar over the keyboard, and so forth. I just listen and try to figure out if I have anything I can bring to a song." He did.

Beginning with a marvelous (if once again, overplayed) single, "You Better You Bet" trounces the stagnation of the previous album's telling "Who Are You." With its catchy hooks and sassy lyrics the single was the freshest the band had managed in some time, with fantastic piano runs coloring the background, a very nice touch. "Don't Let Go Of The Coat" showed Townshend capable of crafting a light and sentimental pop track even if the lyrics were anything but light. The contrast is brilliant and the album is full of such inspired lyrical and musical trysts. "Cache Cache" continues the fun with one part Pretenders punky vibe alternating with a mellow vocal section. Entwistle's "The Quiet One" delivers a defiant vocal from the one people assumed was innocent, yet he claimed when Moon was blowing up hotel toilets with live explosives, it was he standing behind Keith with the matches. (Moon is said to have caused hundreds of thousands of dollars damages to hotel bathrooms, without even getting into furniture that went out the windows.) "Did You Steal My Money" delves into art-pop with some cool guitar shading from Townshend and a quirky feeling that would leave the faithful with their noses up, but it's pretty cool and a lot of fun. "Daily Records" has a 60s rock throwback feel to it and really nice drum work by Jones--obviously no Keith Moon but that isn't what the material here requires anyway. Only Entwistle's second number "You" stumbles a bit into faceless hard rock territory, a real shame they didn't choose the later-mentioned bonus track to slide into this location. The album closes with a flat-out Who classic rocker that was a middle finger to anyone who might suggest the band impotent or the cause unworthy. The not-so-subtle lyrics and raucous musical shove of "Another Tricky Day" would have in some ways been a perfect farewell for a band which never quite made another album this interesting. There are three unreleased bonus tracks from the sessions, "Somebody Saved Me" being a poignant, personal track that would have given this album more weight--it should have been included. Of the two live bonus tracks, it is "The Quiet One" from the '82 tour which jumps to another level of rowdiness in the live arena.

So while I may have judged this album more harshly at the time of its release, I am able to see now it was one of the more successful releases by a "dinosaur" group to come from this era. Time's Jay Cocks said The Who had "outpaced, outlasted, outlived and outclassed" all of their contemporaries and at least in this period there was truth to that. Face Dances managed to maintain the dignity of the group's sound amidst the catastrophic loss of the band's 2nd most important member, while injecting a bit of fresh energy into their hide via new band appreciation and pop music recollection. All of this during a period of intense personal struggle for the band's lead songwriter. So while acknowledging the raw power of youth cannot be replaced and that many fans would never accept the new Who, looking back I would assert Face Dances a clear success. I think many people missed the boat on this one. Even our site Bio essentially ignores it which is a shame in my view. 3 ½ stars.

— First review of this album —

A gorgeous two-DVD set which shows the somewhat disconcerting evolution of The Who from garage band to The Greatest Rock Band in the World (rivalled only by the Stones), and on to burnt-out money-spinners. As an overview of the band's history, it is in many respects superior to THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT. It also has a clear advantage over the more recent AMAZING JOURNEY DVD in that only complete and uninterrupted song material is used. (And lots of it, too!) The interviews with (mainly) Messrs. Townshend, Daltrey and Entwistle are illuminating, but the set really only covers the first thirty years of the band's history. As a consequence it ends on their late 1980s decline, and it says nothing about their 21st century resurrection. It could also be pointed out in favour of AMAZING JOURNEY that there the surviving band members sound even more wistful and self-critical than here.

The SECOND DVD included here is a fine registration of a 1981 German gig by the Kenney Jones incarnation of the band, which I (like so many other Europeans) experienced live on TV when it was originally broadcast. No matter what you think of the FACE DANCES era, the band are in great form and give first-rate performances of "You Better You Bet", "Drowned", "Behind Blue Eyes" and many other classic tracks.

But most people will be buying this set for the first DVD. This originally appeared on video in the 1990s, but sound and image have now been cleaned up (as far as possible), and you are left with probably the most varied archive of the Who's concert material so far compiled. I particularly enjoyed the mid-1970s stuff, especially "Dreaming from the Waist" (although the images here are VERY grainy) and "Bell Boy" with Keith Moon on drums AND vocal. It's also delightful to have "Music Must Change" from 1979 (a mind-blowing, even proggy, performance this is) and "Behind Blue Eyes" performed very movingly at the Concert for Kampuchea. Even "Love Reign O'er Me" from Shea Stadium (1982) brings a tear to my eye. But the 1989 tracks from Giants Stadium (with Townshend on acoustic guitar throughout) are a real downer; did I see Daltrey ending this particular concert with a gesture of despair?

When MAXIMUM R&B LIVE originally appeared on video, it had some first rate 1970 live material on it from Tanglewood (especially "Water" and "I Don't Even Know Myself"). This has now been left out. Let's hope the entire Tanglewood concert will be released some day, as I really don't enjoy only the Isle of Wight material from the same year, which has Moon using double bass drum throughout.

If you're a true Who fan, you will of course also need THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, since that particular DVD includes not only The Who at Woodstock, but also a superior version of the astonishing "Young Man Blues", and last but not least, the best ever version of A QUICK ONE (probably the band's most exhilerating live performance ever).

When this album came out it was universally applauded, and since I remembered Pete Townhend praising this particular gig in the 30 YEARS OF MAXIMUM R&B video ("We did the odd gig where we actually played well", or words to that extent), I thought: "I must get a copy forthwith! I'll finally get to hear TOMMY the way you were meant to hear it, performed live by the Who in their heyday!"

But when I actually bought my copy, it sounded dead W-R-O-N-G!!! I couldn't actually put a name to it, but it had something to do with Keith Moon's drums. All through the gig, he produced an awful clatter. Since Moon was probably the most exciting musician in the band at this time, and since I love his performances on LIVE AT LEEDS and WHO'S NEXT, I thought this was plain unforgivable. No matter how energetic his band mates might have been, down there at the Isle of Wight, classic Who without a proper Moon, in my view, was no performance at all.

Just the other day I finally discovered what had gone wrong. I watched the excerpts from that same concert in the brand-new 30 YEARS OF MAXIMUM R&B DVD, and I could clearly see that, for this particular concert, Mr. Moon was using TWO BASS DRUMS! Which ruined everything!!! I believe Moon must have reverted to his original manner of playing soon after, as there's no trace of such foolish and sacriligeous behaviour in the many live performances strewn through the (excellent) 30 YEARS OF MAXIMUM R&B (CD) box set.

So if you love the Who as I do, and if you treasure them for (among other things) Keith Moon's gorgeous drumming, stick to those recently expanded editions of LIVE AT LEEDS, where you can now hear most of TOMMY anyway, marvellously clear and properly played.

Talking about "Who's Next" means having to deal with one of the best records in Rock n Roll history. It's well balanced, well produced, brilliantly played and the song contained in it are simply immortal, true anthems not only of that particular generation that lived between the 60's and the 70's, for which, of course the meaning of songs like "Won't get Fooled Again" will forever make more sense than to anyone else, dealing with the end of utopistic-beliefs of the hippy years.

"Who's next" is an album made up of songs derived from Pete Townshend's project for a concept album, called "Lifehouse", which never saw the light. The album is so great because it captures the essence of the band message: reaction to sorrow and negativity in life, through the power of music, which is seen as an absolute soul-freeing experience: this was in the end, the idea behind "Lifehouse", and it still resonates on the definitive album, which is this masterpiece.

A touching search for balance through anger (Baba O'Riley, Won't get Fooled Again), desperation in loneliness(Behind Blue Eyes, Getting In Tune,The Song Is Over), but not lacking a bit of irony, brought in by John Entwistle's "My Wife".

From a sheer musical point of view, it's flawless, the band is in perfect shape: Daltrey's vocals are raging, Townshend's guitar work is majestic, Entwistle gives proof of why, later on through the years, he would have been nominated "Bassist of the millenium", while Keith Moon could be considered the Hendrix of the drums.

A masterpiece.

This one is a true classic but surprisingly I've actually heard Who's Next long after discovering Tommy and Quadrophenia. With this album Pete Townshend was going for another concept album but those plans fell through and what we were left with are its intro and the outro with some great stand alone tracks in the middle. The highlights besides Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again are My Wife, which is once again a great tune written by John Entwistle, and Behind Blue Eyes which starts off as a ballad but has a bridge section in a true The Who-fashion.

Who's Next is an essential album for fans of rock music but the same cannot be said about its prog merits, so I'll go with an excellent addition to any rock music collection.

***** star songs: Baba O'Riley (5:08) My Wife (3:40) Behind Blue Eyes (3:41) Won't Get Fooled Again (8:32)

**** star songs: Bargain (5:32) Love Ain't For Keeping (2:10) The Song Is Over (6:13) Getting In Tune (4:50) Going Mobile (3:42)

This was actually my first The Who album and it was my favorite for quite some time. But eventually I got my hands on Quadrophenia and undeservingly forgot about Tommy.

The original CD version of this album is all on one CD which can feel quite misleading for a 1969-release. This is definitely a double album and in a way I feel that it's unfair that Quadrophenia got a much better treatment although it's length is merely 7 minutes longer (total running time of 81:33).

This rock opera features many highlights where some of the favorites feature the instrumental sections like Overture and the 10 minute long Undertune. My personal favorite is Go To The Mirror! which features the essence of this great work of art.

I should definitely try to revisit Tommy some time soon! Could that be my New Years resolution or is it too late for that already?

***** star songs: Overture (5:20) Sparks (2:05) Christmas (4:32) Underture (10:04) Go To The Mirror! (3:47) I'm Free (2:39) We're Not Gonna Take It (3:28)

**** star songs: It's A Boy (0:38) 1921 (2:48) Amazing Journey (5:04) Eyesight To The Blind (The Hawker) (2:14) Cousin Kevin (4:06) Do You Think It's Alright? (0:24) Fiddle About (1:31) Pinball Wizard (3:01) There's A Doctor (0:23) Tommy Can You Hear Me? (1:35) Smash The Mirror (1:34) Sensation (2:28) Miracle Cure (0:12) Sally Simpson (4:10) Welcome (4:32) Tommy's Holiday Camp (0:57)

*** star songs: The Acid Queen (3:34)

I actually bought this album only for the track A Quick One, While He's Away but found it less entertaining compared to the excellent live version performed at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. The whole idea of letting all the members write their own original material has never really worked in a band setting especially since Pete Townshend is a genius who never needed competition in that area from the rest of the band. That said I still consider John Entwistle's penned Boris The Spider to be a quite enjoyable little tune. So Sad About Us is also a very nice track that I enjoy although it's obvious Beatlesque sound might have felt dated even by 1966-standards.

This album has basically a couple of fun tracks but the overall experience is not essential.

**** star songs: Run Run Run (2:42) Boris The Spider (2:28) So Sad About Us (3:01) A Quick One, While He's Away (9:10)

*** star songs: I Need You (2:24) Whiskey Man (2:57) Heatwave (1:54) Cobwebs And Strange (2:29) Don't Look Away (2:51) See My Way (1:52)

Built on the remains of what was planned to be another attempt at realising the Lifehouse project, Who Are You is an interesting album (which, as I will point out, is not necesssarily a good thing).

"New Song", the album's opener, is a standard Who rock tune which gets a bit repetitive after a while, but still holds an enjoyble middle section. It is followed by two Entwistle- penned tunes, most probably his contributions to the 'revived' Lifehouse, "Had Enough" and "905". While the former is a very good tune reminiscent of the band's sound on Quadrophenia, the latter, with the same synth sample as on an older Lifehouse-related single ("Relay"), is nothing but a filler. Next is "Sister Disco", propelled by frantic synths and with a sinister obituary to the dreaded music genre of the Seventies. It flows really nice into "Music Must Change", my favourite track off the album, which again summons the musical moods of Quadrophenia. "Trick Of The Light" appears to be the only song not related to Lifehouse and it's a decent (but again repetitive) hard rock tune with typical Entwistle's lyrics and some impressive 8-string bass sounds. "Guitar and Pen", although one of the most 'prog' songs Pete Townshed ever wrote, doesn't do much for me (maybe it'd have more of an impact if put in a context of a concept album as it was planned to be), and "Love Is Coming Down" sounds a bit like The Who's attempt at composing a song for the Eurovision contest. The title track went to be one of the group's most recognisable songs, and it is a good one as it progresses nicely and tastefuly (even the cheesy 'f-word' nod to the punk movement and [probably non-deliberate] lifting a couple of notes in the piano solo from Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter" can be overlooked).

For me, the main problem with this album is that it generally doesn't sound like The Who. The songs are simply overloaded with syntheseisers and, while it works on some, it just sounds pretetntious on other ones, as if the flashy arrangement was supposed to cover up the author's lack of creativity. Not that their instrumental skills (except Keith Moon's) have deteriorated, but some of the songs ("New Song", "905", "Guitar and Pen" and even the fine "Had Enough") really have that restrained feeling, which doesn't work with The Who. All in all, much like The Who By Numbers, Who Are You is an enjoyable, but not very memorable record. Three stars.

— First review of this album —

You've got to be crazy to buy this. Seeing as there are at least seventeen other Who compilations out there, you owe it to yourself to get one that consists of TWO discs or more. Or better still, get yourself some nice remastered copies (with bonus tracks, hurray!) of THE WHO SELL OUT, LIVE AT LEEDS, WHO'S NEXT or QUADROPHENIA. Then you will hear the Who at their best.

The Who may have tried hard, but they never were an incredibly succesful singles band. "My Generation" was one of the defining hit singles of the 1960s, and that was about it. I don't even think the track did a lot outside the U.K. "Pinball Wizard", one of the band's best-known tunes, probably sold more copies in the emasculated cover version by the New Seekers. Some of the songs included in this album (e.g. "Baba O'Riley" and "Love Reign O'er Me") are among the most exhilerating rock ever recorded, but it's far better to hear them in their proper context, i.e. the albums I mentioned above. Others are strictly second-rate (e.g. "Magic Bus", "Squeeze Box", "Eminence Front"); they were obviously included here because they sound easy and commercial, and people might recognise them from the radio. The final two pieces I'm not familiar with; they might be from the Who's most recent studio album, which I've never bothered checking out. And they were definitely not "hits". In fact, you'd do well to consider this entire album a huge lie. I wonder who's hoping to make money from it. Just don't let it be YOUR money!