Before I get POLLED: the WHO voting and nominations thread (ilm artist poll #25: deadline Friday, September 7)

one of those Zep albums is a double (as is the live album)

random thing - anyone who hasn't seen it, check out VH1's Classic Albums episode of Who's Next. It's flippin' great.

Quadrophenia's a double as well, plus add the Kids Are Alright soundtrack (a double) for 2 live albums. The two bands' outputs are not enormously different in quantity.

in the 70s

Also, the Who put out non-LP singles in the early 70s, something Zeppelin would have never considered doing: "Relay," "Join Together," and "Let's See Action," all with non-LP b-sides.

The Who toured relentlessly in 1970 (almost the whole year), only slightly less so in 1971, and did short tours in '72, '73 and '74. But they toured a lot in '75 and '76, mainly because so much of their money was missing/tied up due to litigation with their former managers. Some of the '76 shows are as amazing as their '70-'71 shows.

Also, there are at least ten Who 70s solo albums.

who could forget Ride a Rock Horse

ENTWISTLE!

Speaking of "the Who's odd output," was there any band of comparable stature who was willing to release completely goofball stuff like "Dogs," "Now I'm a Farmer," even "Magic Bus"? You expected humor from Entwistle songs, or when they threw Moon a bone ("Waspman," "Cobwebs & Strange"), but even Townshend would go happily bonkers from time to time.

I think that sense of humor is one of the cool parts of their music.

There's some parallel universe out there where Empty Glass was The Who album and Face Dances was the Townshend solo one.

Probably the same parallel universe where the other members of the Who made better choices as to which songs should go on their records:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDTVgq62-m4
That's Entwistle and Moon overdubbing a Townshend demo (a fairly regular occurrence with them, as it turns out). The rest of the band pejoratively referred to this song as "Choir Boy," and elected it not be included on Who Are You.
(this is eligible for the poll, btw)

Ha! I had just listened to "Choir Boy" before posting that...

Speaking of "the Who's odd output," was there any band of comparable stature who was willing to release completely goofball stuff like "Dogs," "Now I'm a Farmer," even "Magic Bus"?

Beach Boys surely - there's even some comedy bits on their early albums, plus send-ups of their own songs, a mock-party LP, the general way-out-thereness of the Smile sessions, the offbeat codas throughout 20/20, and more. The Yardbirds had alot of funkyness buried in the dark corners of their albums too - Gregorian chants, country hoedowns, campfire singalongs, weird pop covers like "Ha Ha Said the Clown" or "Ten Little Indians" that no blues-rock band should have gone near.

the Beatles' type of whimsy was different from the Who's but it should go without saying that they apply here

The irony of the Yardbirds' whimsy is that much of it was during the Page era, and none of it transferred over into Led Zeppelin. "The Crunge" is all I can come up with for a Zeppelin track that might be classified as "goofball" (and even then, it was more tribute than send-up).

Maybe "Hot Dog"...., but, yeah.

Pagey wasn't in the producer's chair for the Yardbirds, and their sometimes worked in their advantage, as they were forced to retain whimsical one-take-and-done numbers like "Stealing, Stealing" and "Smile on Me" that never would have survived Page's perfectionist production leanings.

and their that sometimes

Happy Labor Day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP4yP3-I8Tk

Pagey wasn't in the producer's chair for the Yardbirds, and their sometimes worked in their advantage, as they were forced to retain whimsical one-take-and-done numbers like "Stealing, Stealing" and "Smile on Me" that never would have survived Page's perfectionist production leanings.

I always attributed that odd era of the Yardbirds to producer Mickie Most who was brought in when "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" flopped and they needed a pop hit fast. The Yardbirds bio gets into the details, but it's the stereotype story about the producer trying to get a 3 minute pop song from a band that doesn't want to do it. Relf is the only Yardbird on "Ha Ha Said The Clown."

Most's business partner was Peter Grant, and we all know what happened next.

The Yardbirds management move in hindsight would have been to get them the biggest amps on the planet and told them to go out live and try to outdo The Experience and Cream. It seems in that period around the time Beck got kicked out of the group until LZ, they were kind of late on that move. That's eventually what Grant and Page did and so did Deep Purple and others. The Who were already an explosive mix of whimsy and power, so they didn't really have to change.

The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again: just the bass

Ten ballots so far! Let's beat Zeppelin! We only need 42 more ballots!

I will vote, still mulling placement of stuff I've only heard in the last couple weeks

yeah am still grinding gears. soon!

One of my favorite Entwistle songs and the only one to make my ballot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkwa0NELL1Y

That's a great one, especially live; even the '82 versions are scorching.

this is tough, especially when it comes to the big/conceptual albums - for ex. I consider Sell Out the best thing they ever did, but pulling individual tracks from it seems so wrong. Tommy's highlights are a little easier to discern. Feel similarly about Who's Next even tho it's much less of a concept album than those others, I like the whole more than the parts (with one glaringly obvious exception)

yeah, i feel similarly. only one track on who's next i don't think i'd vote for and one is my no. 1, but as a whole i enjoy letting it just wash over me in its entirety. as for sell out it just doesn't seem fair to pull tracks from it but i'll figure out a few to give token votes to i guess

man i am enjoying having an excuse to listen to The Who all day

My own favorite Entwistle track. I've met a few others who adore this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yctom0SrAzM

Working on my ballot tonight...figured out some text-to-table/table-to-text workarounds to get a straight alphabetical list of songs with no other crap.

man Quadrophenia is really not a good album is it

Whut

I was just thinking the opposite!

i think the songs aren't really there w/ quadrophrenia but i love the sound and production, i'm not sure they ever sounded better. it managed two on my ballot, more than tommy as many as who's next.

I discovered Quadrophenia same time the film came out and I loved it--one of my favourite albums for the next year or so. (The Kids Are Alright came out almost simultaneously.) The two or three songs I still hear on the radio today have lost a lot. Haven't gone back to the rest of the album in ages.

The recent documentary is a fascinating look into how/why it came about (and the ending is heartbreaking):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdUPDyFXFkk

i think the songs aren't really there w/ quadrophrenia but i love the sound and production, i'm not sure they ever sounded better. it managed two on my ballot, more than tommy as many as who's next.

Funny, the one stumbling block for me with Quad is the production. The drums don't crack and pop like on Who's Next (and in fact, they do on "Is It In My Head" and "Love, Reign O'er Me," both recorded by Glyn Johns), and there's not much breathing room between the instruments.

Townshend's demos are fairly revelatory; as expected, all of his demo synth tracks are on the finished album intact, but so are things like backing vocals and even a drum roll here and there.

This should get some love. It's a 1973 Quad outtake (so, Moonie on drums), but was one of the three "new" songs on the 1979 soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exm56pNXXUw

Just listening to the demo of Bellboy (always fascinated by that song and Alice Cooper's "Reflected" and "Elected") and struck by what a big deal the voiceovers and the vocal performance are. Townsend doesn't sound manly/working class enough to pull it off. He sounds like an art history major who's working at a hotel to subsidize his indie band that's getting a buzz in Bushwick. Good thing he found someone else to sing it! Still working on tracks, but in general it seems to be Sell Out>My Generation>Quadrophenia and then after that it's kind of random.

i'm pretty interested to see how the albums sub-poll shakes out.

Sorting out my five least-favorite tracks reminded me that there's a lot of Who songs I really don't like. Mostly big muscular stuff, I guess.

least favs is tough for me because there are songs that i've never really cottoned to but kind of know they're good, like "Behind Blue Eyes"

Least favourites would have been really hard had I not decided to sit through the Who Are You album on Spotify a few months back...

lol yeah i love the title track so i'm always dismayed by how bad some of the other songs are

Sorry for being so slow, but I think I can put a finger on it:

"Tommy" is a rock opera
"Quadrophenia" is a concept album.

Hammered out a rough ballot this morning (after getting up at 4, wtf). Will ponder it throughout the day and send it tonight. Thanks to tipsy for the reminder to do albums and least-faves.

lol yeah i love the title track so i'm always dismayed by how bad some of the other songs are

Title track towers above the rest, but I dig "New Song" for how its cynicism contradicts/undercuts its arena-rock cheerleading sound. "905" is Entwistle at his most vulnerable-sounding, and the synth is a nice callback to "Relay." "Music Must Change" is awful, "Guitar And Pen" is the uncanny valley between prog and show tunes, and "Love Is Coming Down" is fucking beautiful (but didn't make my ballot).

Also, the album woulda been helped tremendously by the inclusion of "Empty Glass" and "No Road Romance." They also recorded "Keep On Working" during these sessions, but the full-band version has yet to surface.