WHO ARE YOU

Supposedly, Who Are You was Pete Townshend's stab at fusing art rock and punk. It didn't really work; the opening track, New Song, is symptomatic of this, consisting of a proggy bit here, a punk-lite bit there, the two flavours never really merging to form a cohesive new sound. It might be a ballsy move to kick off an album with a song about rehashing "the same old song with two new lines", but it's also embarrassing if it turns out you're actually doing that - and not hitting the standards of the old song in question either.

The best track on the album is probably Who Are You, which is most famous these days for being the soundtrack for a cop show. It really does sound like cop show soundtrack material too. If you want hard-edged art rock with raw punkish energy lurking under the surface from The Who, you'll find it on Quadrophenia, not here.