QUADROPHENIA

Wow, I just found my old Quadrophenia album that had transported me through millions of clouds and trips. I was stuck between an old shelf and the wall, and probably spent some 30 years there, untouched, but very dusty. Once cleaned, I realised that it was still in fine shape and that I hadn't heard the whole concept album in one shot for much longer than it had spent being forgotten about. So I forgot about my house transformation and sat down to descend down memory lane. Sure I'd re-heard bits and parts of the album throughout the years, but had not really sought to completely revisit, even when I wrote my other The Who reviews when the band got its PA entry visa a few years back. OK, the very sober b&w artwork was an all-too discreet showcase for this excellent work, unlike their previous double-album concept "rock-opera" (hate the word) Tommy with that stupendous gatefold. In short, the storyline is about an hyperactive working-class early to mid-60's teenager and his rebellion due to an unbalanced and uncontrolled upper consumption and his Mod adventures. To a certain point, this story sounds somewhat autobiographical of the band's collective youth history, and the main character portrayed in the movie a few years later bears a certain physical resemblance to the three dark-haired band members.

If memory serves, one of the first ideas of this then-nascent project that came to sole composer Townsend was the lengthy instrumental sections that would later evolve into Love Reign Over Me and The Rock, and he immediately knew this would be the grand finale of the story. So when Pete started writing, constructing and recording the music, he obviously but predictably previewed many of the middle and end contents into the intro and the first two songs, so you'll discover some of the album's most ecstatic moments splattered a bit all over the story's duration. Of course past the I Am The Sea intro (which kind of ruins the re-surprise in repeated listenings of this opus), the band launches in a powerful Real Me anthem, where Keith's unrelenting torture of his drum skins accounts for much of the energy, but Entwistle's brass lines are enhancing the depth of the band's soundscape. The 6-mins+ Quadrophenia title track features one of the two dramatic instrumental themes that you'll find in great part in the last two closing pieces The Rock and Reign. So far, the band is just as (if not more) grandiose, and somewhat more mature, than in Tommy. The rather weaker but storyline?important Cut My Hair piece follows, with a few sound-tape effects to wrap it up. The side-A closing Punk and Godfather is often hailed as a classic, but this writer fails to see any genius to it.

Opening the B-side is a short I'm One that starts acoustic, but develops a certain country-rock pace behind the typical Who power chords. Another classic Quad piece is The Dirty Joke, but like it's preceding tracks, the soundscapes are sounding 60-ish and pre-Tommy, rather than much in the line of their recent Who's Next album. I seem to detect some un-credited violin (and think it might have been Rick Grech's then ex-Family and Traffic) in that Joke track. Incidentally, the only instrument played by a guest is Stainton on piano (outside Townsend's own note-ticklings), mainly on this track and on two more on the C-side. One of the teaching in this album is that Townsend's guitar playing offers a different facet to his usual windmill-poser power chords, with some brilliantly-written lead guitar lines and some acoustic arpeggios at one point. Again we are presented with the two final themes on this side as a "fil conducteur", but I can't help wondering if their over-exploitations is not compensating a lack of ideas in an all-too long and ambitious project that Peter attacked alone (Tommy was more of a group involvement, IMHO)

Opening the second disc is one of the most over-rated Who tunes ever, the brass-laden 5:15 (lasting less than that), though the album version is better than the single version. After a better than average Sea And Sand (with a cool guitar solo), the following Drowned is an impressive romp though, where Stainton's piano enhances brilliantly the rest of the band's instrumental prowess with Moon's relentless skin-pounding, Entwistle's excellent bass and brass arrangements. Easily side B & C's highlight. The sometimes goofy Bell Boy starts as a remake of Going Mobile, but goes grotesque and overstays its welcome already halfway though.

Contrary to many double disc concept albums, who are generally running out of steam by the start of side D, Quad really starts to soar over the South England cliffs, with the almost 9-mins Doctor Jimmy, where the song-proper is over quickly, but the middle and end sections are really taking off and there is no stopping the band until the needle finally lifts from the black wax. Indeed between Entwistle's brass and Grech's violin (still guessing), the band just wails wildly, but allowing some calmer spine-tingling moments for Daltrey's superb vocals. As the track slowly segues into the awesome and ever-changing instrumental The Rock, one realizes that The Who was never better than now, and Townsend's superb guitar lines (hardly flawlessly played, though) are elevating the debate sky-high. Moon's ever-intuitive drumming with his never-ending tom rolls is simply awesome. And just when you think it can't get better, the piano reappears (probably not Townsend's though) and opens one of the grandest finale ever played in centuries of western music. The hypnotising synth lines that have been haunting the album since its start are now reigning supreme, and Daltrey's wild wails are blood-curdling. Of course it does help that this track's music is indelibly engraved in my brains with the movie's fantastic but terrifying end scene over the chalk cliffs.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Townsend was somewhat depressed during the making of this album (well the subject is not exactly an ode to joy and happiness), after his Lifehouse project had fallen apart. Apparently, the band was bordering implosion as well, and in that light, it's a miracle that this album is so successful, and might have given more impetus to the band for a few more years, even though Moon's descent into an infernal spiral of substance abuse and self-destruction (that ultimately provoked the band's slow death in successive steps) had probably begun already. One of the major technical production feat of the album is that it was recorded in quad sound hence the title), and one could indeed make the full extent of this "performance" are in the sound montage bits that occur in intros and outros of songs. So whether Quad is superior to Tommy is rather subjective, since the many of the average songs written for the later opus are purposely sounding pre-Tommy, and the fantastic two instrumental themes are a bit over-exploited throughout the duration of the two vinyl slabs. Of yeah, outside these two extraordinary instrumental themes, Quad does not feature any ultra-huge hits ala Pinball Wizzard that could've attracted it a much bigger mainstream recognition.

BTW, I learned that there is a recent boxset about this album, but apparently, it's mostly in-progress works, alternate takes (nothing exciting as you can see, though I suppose there are surprises) and a few 5.1 remix track versions, but since the original album was quad, is enhancement gain really worthy? Too bad it doesn't contain the movie that came a few years later and that an indispensable complement to the original concept album, instead of the few "copies or original memorabilia" that such sets usually shower you with. Soooo, in all likelihood, unless an über-fan of Quadrophenia, you'd better stick with the "standard set" or in my case, I'll just keep the vinyl.

Keith's last moments of sublime and The Who's last glory