The Who : Classic or Dud

spies they're come and gone
the story travels on
the only quiet place is inside your soul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPC1leh4LI

How I'd rank their hits.

Great list — “Dogs” and “The Relay” never get enough love. (And while I’d rate “You Better, You Bet” slightly higher, I much prefer Townshend’s demo.)

As for By Numbers, I dunno if I can convince you to give it a concentrated listen, but my take on it is that he/they have given up. They tried to bring the audience to this state of interaction that went beyond the usual audience-performer relationship (Lifehouse), it failed, and they witnessed the devolution of concerts (particularly in the US) into celebrations of firecrackers and quaaludes. By Numbers was originally intended to be their final album, signaling defeat. In doing so, they found their feet as an ensemble in the studio for the final time, sounding as confident and focused — arguably moreso — than on Quadrophenia.

Who Are You, on the other hand, feels like a forced last gasp, overstuffed arrangements trying (and failing) to mask the deficiencies of the writing. “905” is one of Entwistle’s best songs, and I’ll rep for the title track, “Sister Disco,” and even “Love Is Coming Down.” But replace “Guitar and Pen” and one of the other Entwistle songs with “No Road Romance” and “Empty Glass” (both recorded in ‘78 by Pete, Keith, and John, but rejected by the band for inclusion on the album), and it’d be a much-improved near-classic.

Good post

I kinda think the Who might have been served by doing some other projects in-between the big rock operas. Never quite understood why Daltrey was not interested in singing some of Entwistle's tunes, which I understand was the case. Tommy kind of overtook everything and then it was trying to one up that record, which was really kinda impossible. Maybe with a more modern sensibility about putting out records, they might have done a bit more low key and just different.

They definitely left a decent LP of tunes behind between Tommy and Who's Next, even beyond some of the other Lifehouse tracks.

Then again, I think the money got so big and it got going so fast, it was probably just hanging on to keep going on.

As for By Numbers, I dunno if I can convince you to give it a concentrated listen, but my take on it is that he/they have given up. They tried to bring the audience to this state of interaction that went beyond the usual audience-performer relationship (Lifehouse), it failed, and they witnessed the devolution of concerts (particularly in the US) into celebrations of firecrackers and quaaludes. By Numbers was originally intended to be their final album, signaling defeat. In doing so, they found their feet as an ensemble in the studio for the final time, sounding as confident and focused — arguably moreso — than on Quadropheni

You're not the first person in the last few days on social media to urge me to listen to By Numbers. I'm surprised -- I loathe "Squeeze Box."

"Squeeze Box" is an outlier.

I bet I haven't listened to By Numbers in 25 years and I still think of "How Ever Much I Booze", "Success Story", and "How Many Friends" as some of my favorite 70s 'Oo tunes

What a great and utterly fucked up band

Or that wonderful Townsend ukulele gem on Numbers, The Blue, the Red and the Grey

i've always kinda looked over by numbers, but slip kid is great and i got new appreciation for imagine a man when i saw em play it in concert a few months back.

slip kid is also very obviously what prince was thinking about when he first played the riff for 'let's go crazy'

Relay and Dogs are fantastic. But while there are obviously more gems to be found in the Who's first six albums as opposed to those that came after, there's still the odd masterpiece - I especially adore Eminence Front (which didn't make Alfred's list).

this revive made me think of how all these huge boomer rock acts - the Who, the Kinks, Pink Floyd - were all on the same page in terms of thinking of what is essentially musical theater as being the future of rock. What a weird idea to take hold, kind of backward-looking rather than forward-looking ie let's incorporate rock into this existing format (which imo is actually kind of lame), and also an idea that turned out to be very wrong.

Well, I think when it starts with, say, "A Quick One (While He's Away)," it's very much in the vein of just general interest in an expanded songwriting artistry. When it evolves into Tommy, I think of it more in terms of just the realization of "Hey, maybe I can do this." I'm not sure the impulse itself to do a full, theatrical-length project as being backward - there are plenty of times throughout history where someone's taken an old idea and done something modern with it.

Though I agree that with something like the Kinks' Soap Opera, it feels like a stale reliance on a very old formula.

sure, and "doing something modern" with an old idea (in this case, a story told in song, onstage, with characters) sure looks like what these guys were trying to do. But at the same time it seems to me that musical theater in general was *not* something that held much appeal to rock audiences. Like, most of these projects were not successful for one reason or another ("The Wall" and "Tommy" being the obvious big exceptions). In my head I wanted to link this resistance to what it turns out audiences actually wanted - which in the modern age has morphed into popular musicians as cult-of-personality avatars, audiences like to think they're following the real life of Taylor Swift (or whoever) and that her career is essentially about granting us voyeuristic insights into her shenanigans.

like, it turns out we didn't want rock stars to tell us a story, we wanted them to LIVE the story

or to put it another way: the story/legend of the weirdos in the Who is more interesting/engaging than the story of Tommy.

For me, the story of Tommy is not so much the point. The point is the artistry. Nevertheless, the appeal of it at its best, things like "1921" and "Go to the Mirror!" and "Sally Simpson," totally relate (for me, anyway) to these songs' relationship to the narrative! I don't care so much about the appeal of the narrative in total - these songs move me anyway.

well, I'm not discussing their relative quality as works, more of how these acts were charting a course that pop/rock didn't really follow

and they *really* tried to make it happen - especially Townsend and Davies, who wrote, what three or four of these kinds of things apiece (at least)?

Boy, The Who By Numbers is tough going for me. I think if I were to sit and listen to the whole thing, I'd find quite a few things that are really well done musically, but I mostly leave it at resignation to the perception that the guy who wrote all that wonderful music on The Who Sell Out had taken an aesthetic path that is less appealing to me.

Well, I think when it starts with, say, "A Quick One (While He's Away)," it's very much in the vein of just general interest in an expanded songwriting artistry.

Before that, "I'm a Boy"...

The song was originally intended to be a part of a rock opera called 'Quads' which was to be set in the future where parents can choose the sex of their children. The idea was later scrapped, but this song survived and was later released as a single

Kit Lambert was the son of a classical composer after all.

Criss-crossing with Tommy and such was Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, which at the time was seen as theatre bending towards rock, and was even more popular. Probably a good bit of audience overlap. I think I even recall Evita being called a rock musical.

it is true that the Who, Floyd and the Kinks seemed to go all in with rock-as-musical-theater in the 70s, and I think it was a shitty development (I strongly dislike Tommy and the Wall, only like Quadrophenia and have never listened to any of Davies' works as such in one sitting, only know individual tunes…and I guess Berlin fits in with this concept as well)…but apart from the fact that I am only now getting over my strong distaste for musical theater, it would seem to me that the problem is that one cannot simply listen to any of these records or others similarly inclined, pay attention to it like you would a book, a show or movie, not do anything else, and follow a story…none of these records individually have all the info you need to know what's going on… you need other ancillary/ adjacent/supplementary sources for that… I'm sure Townshend, Davies and Waters thought, "well this would be stupid to include all these plot points in the songs…" well fellas, maybe this whole idea is not so hot! You guys were supposed to oppose Broadway shit, not emulate it!

one cannot simply listen to any of these records or others similarly inclined, pay attention to it like you would a book, a show or movie, not do anything else, and follow a story

I think you just had to be REALLY high

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Gilbeys-Gin-Vodka-Rock-Opera-Mix/release/3328652

I think Townshend, under the influence of Kit Lambert, was definitely thinking in terms of Opera not Musical Theatre as such.

Am I the only one who likes Endless Wire?

I like it. I seem to recall it getting some measure of appreciation here when it was released.

I like it a lot.

Endless Wire is good-to-great. Easily better than the two ‘80s Who records (granted, not exactly a high bar).

I think Townshend, under the influence of Kit Lambert, was definitely thinking in terms of Opera not Musical Theatre as such.

Hair is bad or doesn’t make sense only if you think it it as a strictly “rock” musical. If you think of it more as, say, a funk musical, then you can begin to recognize its greatness, as did all the Galt MacDermot samplers.

I dunno, I can only think of two or three songs on the cast recording that have a toe dipped in “funk” (the title track, “Walking In Space,” “Colored Spade,” “The Flesh Failures/Let The Sunshine In”). And for me, those don’t approach the level of ‘68 Motown, Stax, Sly, the Impressions, or James Brown (among others).

The issue for me is less the rhythm section (which is great when the arrangements let them be great) and more the frantic and clumsy/cluttered orchestrations. Then there’s the horrible vocals and decidedly on-the-nose (to put it mildly) lyrics. A handful of decent instrumental moments in an otherwise execrable musical isn’t enough to redeem it.

revisiting endless wire - this album really is about ‘Mike Post Theme’ isn’t it

Delightful song

xps there's definitely something with many of these bands (most notably the Who and the Kinks but also the Beatles, Floyd etc.) harking back to pre-pop/rock traditions (music hall, vaudeville etc.) that were mainstays of British culture, and would have been part of most of these musicians' youths. Sergeant Pepper's is steeped in nostalgia for what was already becoming a lost world. I think of those big acts it was only the Stones who didn't do something in that line? Also worth noting that in Hollywood and for film audiences musicals were very popular right up until the end of the 60s. So this wasn't happening in a vacuum. But it's interesting that it now appears a cultural dead-end.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3r4byx
It's all here: The classical pastiche with a music hall delivery, a dirty joke that has become an epic. It's complex, thrilling and so much fun - everything the 60s were supposed to be, before people overreached and took themselves way too seriously.

it's a very long time since i listened to it on record (lol like 50 years or something) but iirc the LP version of e.g. my fair lady (1964) doesn't include much of the talking stuff, it's mostly just the songs --renedering it impossible to follow the story (and if not true of MFL this was p standard for musicals on record)

also every song on the my fair lady is better than any song on tommy or quadrophenia obviously and even sexy rexy in mfl >>> sexy rodge as a singer after c.1970

constant lambert didn't actually write any operas and was not -- if memory serves -- particularly enamoured of that kind of composed music (tho kit may have been, i don't think they saw eye-to-eye on the direction music should be taking)

I think of those big acts it was only the Stones who didn't do something in that line?

hah yes! probably best the Stones didn't continue down that particular path!

and another one from Between the Buttons:

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

good god that is a hideous still

Like, most of these projects were not successful for one reason or another ("The Wall" and "Tommy" being the obvious big exceptions). In my head I wanted to link this resistance to what it turns out audiences actually wanted - which in the modern age has morphed into popular musicians as cult-of-personality

This is a really good thesis. The Sex Pistols ]were an opera, playing out in three acts and ending in murder/suicide and all that. Nirvana, Tupac and Biggie, etc.

ties into audiences valuing perceived authenticity too. they didn't want to witness a performance, they wanted it to *really happen* because they had fully subscribed to notions that privileged authenticity over artifice.

Cincinnati tragedy 40 years ago today.

new album out Friday also, which somehow hasn't leaked yet, even though some retailers got copies two weeks early. The three songs released frankly are the best things they've done in quite some time (certainly the best since Emminence Front) and word is that as an album it's the best since Quadrophenia. We'll see.

A Cincinnati TV station is airing an hour-long documentary about the tragedy tonight. Townshend, Daltrey, and manager Bill Curbishley are interviewed, and I believe this will be the first in-depth interview Townshend has done about Cincinnati since 1980 (when he said some profoundly insensitive things in an RS interview with Greil Marcus).

https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/cincinnati/how-to-watch-wcpos-documentary-the-who-the-night-that-changed-rock

and word is that as an album it's the best since Quadrophenia. We'll see.