TOMMY

The Who's first fully realised rock opera is a proto-prog classic, as we all know, the story of Tommy, a deaf, dumb and blind kid, who plays a mean pinball and becomes a messiah-like figure to his fans. The story addresses sensitive issues including alienation, child abuse and celebrity/fandom with directness and honesty

The album is certainly imperfect - there are some pretty big cracks in the storyline, in particular - but nevertheless it has pace, tension and emotion and some great rock tracks. 'Pinball Wizard' and 'I'm Free' are well-known classics, but less-renowned songs like '1921' and 'Christmas' are also superb. In the later the pathos of Tommy's isolation from the world is neatly captured by his blissful ignorance of Christmas Day: 'And Tommy doesn't know what day it is/Doesn't know who Jesus was or what praying is/How can he be saved?/From the eternal grave?'

An album that traverses the gap between standard rock and prog and in doing so shows the possibilities of rock music. Highly recommended.