TOMMY

I've never been that fond of the concepts behind concept albums; TOMMY is no exception. Most of the story specifics flew over my head even if the main idea of Tommy not being able to speak, see or hear did make some sense. The Sally Simpson, Cousin Kevin and the holiday camp seem tacked on to compensate for time.

The over care for the story and lyrical content hurts the music. I will admit that there is some instrumental work here (moreso than THE WALL), and ''Sparks'' is one of The Who's better showcasings, but ''Underture'' loses its purpose about five minutes in becoming more annoyingly repetitive than musically stimulating. Short filler tracks like ''Miracle Cure'' are also here for story fluff, not so much for musical purposes, although I have a perverse liking of ''Tommy's Holiday Camp'' (so bad it's good).

Most people are familiar with ''Pinball Wizard'', and it is one of the few musical highlights as it very much sounds like The Who. However, most of the music is too sedated. Daltrey's voice sounds terribly pathetic on ''I'm Free'' in contrast to his performance for the movie, and Entwistle and Moon don't really give us anything to remember. The story is so grandiose that the music just trips over itself again and again, and that's not really that pleasant.