"Who' Next" - Classic or Dud?

I think the angle for reconsidering 70s/80s Townshend is in the tensions of his longing for highbrow acceptance (the more experimental stuff of the Scoop demos) and his constant thinly veiled, yet always veiled, bisexual longings. Like, even considering a song as intentionally idiotic as Squeeze Box, when he comes in and sings Mama's part on the bridge, there's a sincerity to his delivery, acting out the feminine role. That same quaking vibe comes fully out in "And I Moved".

I stuck a bunch of his 70/80s stuff on a Spotify playlist along with contemporaneous John Cale and Arthur Russell, 'cuz there's a similarity to their singing styles, but found a similarity of intent and longing as well.

> Maybe 'wanting them to' is part of the fun?

You're totally right. I'm not sure why I wanted to stop wanting, but it hasn't come back.

I had my (inexplicably belated) first listen to Vintage Violence the other day, and definitely got a Townshend vibe from the vocals.

And I dunno if they were in the studio at the time, but Cale played with Townshend and Moon on this:

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

xp

^ boy that's area Who with the Daltryisms excized.

Daltry seems like the nicest guy in a band with some very dark souls, I feel bad for ragging.

Quadrophenia opened up for me in hearing the most recent mixes, fwiw. I don't care for the original mix.

I don't know if that would work for me because I hate the muddy overstuffed sound of "Quadrophenia". I tried listening to "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" once (God help me) and got the same feeling. Love the 70s but sometimes it sucked.

the classicest

getting in tune to the straight and narrow

just banging on my old piano

and nothing in the street

seems so different to me

and if i smile

tell me some bad news

Is that Unterberger book good?

Too late.

The Unterberger book is well-written, and unties the knots of this period of The Who's history about as well as you could hope, but the basic problem is that Townshend never really decided what Lifehouse was. So if you're looking to have that explained lucidly, you may be let down. The making of Quadrophenia is very detailed, and less confused, as well.

Unterberger says that three songs were newly recorded in ‘78/‘79 with Kenney Jones for the Quadrophenia soundtrack album: “Joker James,” “Get Out And Stay Out,” and “Four Faces.” That last one, though, was recorded (for the most part) in 1973 and has Keith on drums. I emailed Unterberger about this, and he said that documentation (wasn’t more specific than that) says it’s Jones on “Four Faces.” But it’s pretty obvious just by listening that it’s Moon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGF2N00K-Ws

https://images2.imgbox.com/10/cb/Axn9cRNZ_o.jpg

gives a new meaning to the album title tbh

or it's almost like the name of the album is asking "who (of the members of the band that recorded me)'s next (to die? after all, two of the original four have already passed away)" - and then roger daltrey (the singer) says "it's probably me, I'm probably next." ba dum tish!