{"id":47764,"date":"2015-11-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/ill-sing-my-song-to-the-infinite-sea\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:37:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:37:53","slug":"ill-sing-my-song-to-the-infinite-sea","status":"publish","type":"feature","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/ill-sing-my-song-to-the-infinite-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ll Sing My Song To The Infinite Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"


11. Endless Wire<\/i> (2006)<\/b>\"thewho_endless_150\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

This is not a Who album, but because Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey are here, it gets the Who name. Two discs without Keith Moon was bad enough, but without John Entwistle, the magic is gone. This may sound like parts of the latter-day Who, but it is not, nor is it really a worthwhile effort even on its own merits.<\/p>\n

\"thewho_face_205\"9b. Face Dances<\/i> (1981)<\/b><\/p>\n

The first album post-Moon had a lot to live up to. Signs of fatigue were already showing on Who Are You<\/i>, and this continues the downward spiral. There\u2019s almost no heart and no spark left here, especially when compared to Townshend\u2019s solo work from this time. Daltrey sounds bored, and the album\u2019s lone hit, \u201cYou Better You Bet,\u201d is repetitive and has very little to say. \u201cAnother Tricky Day\u201d is decent, at least.<\/p>\n

9a. It\u2019s Hard<\/i> (1982)\"thewho_itshard_200\"<\/b><\/p>\n

This and\u00a0Face Dances <\/i>are tied for 9th, with this one being worthwhile mainly for \u201cEminence Front,\u201d a chilled synth-rocker that bookends the band\u2019s career and is one of their best songs post-1975. The rest is forgettable and lackluster, and without Moon the other three didn\u2019t really want to be doing this band thing anymore, so they went their separate ways. Good thing. <\/p>\n

\"thewho_areyou_200\"<\/b>8. Who Are You<\/i> (1978)<\/b><\/p>\n

Keith Moon\u2019s final album and home of the band\u2019s last great song, \u201cWho Are You,\u201d which tells a story with both bravado and vulnerability, the way the greatest Who songs always do. The rest of the disc is hit or miss; \u201cNew Song\u201d chugs nicely with self-loathing lyrics, \u201cMusic Must Change\u201d has no drums at all and is better for it, and \u201cTrick Of The Light\u201d is a solid Entwistle number. \u201cSister Disco\u201d is not great by any means, a lame attempt by the band to stay relevant, but as a whole the disc is a fine send-off for the band\u2019s drummer, one of rock\u2019s greatest.<\/p>\n

7. A Quick One<\/i> (1966)\"thewho_aquick\"<\/b><\/p>\n

The first appearance of a song cycle, which the band would of course use to greater effect on its next four albums, A Quick One <\/i>tries to do many things and doesn\u2019t always succeed. The Townshend originals are mundane, the title track is more interesting for what it suggests than what it actually accomplishes, and the Motown covers are perfunctory; by this point, the band\u2019s contemporaries had moved past covers and were writing their own killer originals. <\/p>\n

\"thewho_bynumbers_200\"6. The Who By Numbers<\/i> (1975)<\/b><\/p>\n

In what was a smart and necessary move after Quadrophen<\/i>ia<\/i>, the band completely downscaled its approach and expectations and released a short album with no theme or unity, just some fun rock and plaintive pop songs. Townshend offers no shortage of self-loathing (the chugging \u201cHowever Much I Booze\u201d), but the propulsive \u201cSlip Kid\u201d and the accordion sex stomp \u201cSqueeze Box\u201d are both fun and spirited. The back half of the disc gets tiresome, though, and the band would take a deserved break before recording their next album three years later.<\/p>\n

5. The Who Sings My Generation<\/i> (1965)<\/b>\"thewho_mygeneration_200\"<\/p>\n

Although not too different from any other British Invasion debut you\u2019d care to name, the Who\u2019s unique, immediate voice stands out instantly. It\u2019s not often that a band can write its calling card and one of the songs of a generation on its debut, but \u201cMy Generation\u201d did just that for a number of kids finding their voice and questioning their parents\u2019 values at the same time in 1965. Some people swear that this album, along with the non-album singles of the same time like \u201cSubstitute,\u201d constitute the real Who, and their argument has merit.<\/p>\n

\"thewho_sellout\"4. The Who Sell Out<\/i> (1967)<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps the band\u2019s most underrated album, Sell Out <\/i>is basically one big joke that obscures some very good songs and sets the stage for the major stardom that followed. The crashing, swirling cheating anthem \u201cI Can See For Miles\u201d is one of the band\u2019s top three songs of all time, Moon\u2019s ferocious yet restrained drums employed to great effect, especially in the introduction. The sense of experimentation is rampant too, as it was for everyone in 1967, on songs like \u201cArmenia City In The Sky\u201d and the band\u2019s second mini-opera, \u201cRael,\u201d while fake and hilarious commercials recorded by the band and actual Radio London snippets are mixed in between songs, giving the whole thing the feel of a pirated radio broadcast. It\u2019s a cool conceit that mostly works, although on the second side it\u2019s mostly forgotten for more serious songs like \u201cSunrise\u201d and \u201cRael,\u201d the latter from which Townshend would outright steal the midsection for \u201cSparks\u201d and \u201cUnderture\u201d on Tommy<\/i>.<\/p>\n

3. Tommy<\/i> (1969)\"thewho_tommy\"<\/b><\/p>\n

The big one, the first \u201crock opera\u201d (more of a song cycle, really) and the one that busted this band through to superstardom. The story is a bit goofy but makes sense, which is more than you can say for a lot of concept albums, and some of the songs function only to push forward the narrative. Take those out and you are left with some great rock and roll that rarely sounds dated, save maybe for \u201cPinball Wizard,\u201d which has been run into the ground by rock radio. Far better is the instrumental \u201cSparks,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m Free,\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re Not Gonna Take It\u201d (which encompasses the \u201cSee Me, Feel Me\u201d part that will sometimes get released as a standalone song), \u201cThe Acid Queen,\u201d \u201cOverture\u201d and even \u201cWelcome.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"thewho_quad\"2. Quadrophenia<\/i> (1973)<\/b><\/p>\n

Why the band attempted to write a second rock opera after playing the first one to death and seeing the Lifehouse <\/i>project fall apart is beyond me, but we are all glad they did. Quad <\/i>rumbles through many themes that Townshend perfected \u2013 teenage angst, loneliness, questioning one\u2019s identity and place, the culture at large \u2013 and sets it to a backdrop of Mod subculture that gave the band its rise in the first place. The emphasis on the personal and the stellar performances throughout make this one uniformly excellent; other than \u201cDr. Jimmy\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m One,\u201d there isn\u2019t a bad song in the bunch. Musical themes are repeated throughout, much like Tommy<\/i>, and certainly the story is a bit bleak, ending with the main character stranded on a big rock in the sea wailing to the heavens, but damn if Daltrey doesn\u2019t inhabit Jimmy just as much as he did Tommy. From \u201cDrowned\u201d to \u201c5:15\u201d to the plaintive \u201cSea And Sand\u201d to the solid \u201cBell Boy,\u201d the third side (or first half of the second disc) is near perfect, while the instrumental title song has an energy that ties all the themes together and follows the killer opener \u201cThe Real Me\u201d perfectly. And then it all ties together on \u201cLove, Reign O\u2019er Me,\u201d which marries synthesizers and guitars as effectively as anything on Who\u2019s Next <\/i>and ends with Daltrey\u2019s scream over crashing, pounding drums meant to simulate waves. It will send a chill down your spine. Fantastic album.<\/p>\n

1. Who\u2019s Next<\/i> (1971)\"thewho_next\"<\/b><\/p>\n

Ranking just above Quadrophenia <\/i>as the band\u2019s finest hour, and certainly their most self-assured, this is everything right about the Who. Built from an abandoned rock opera meant to be even more epic than Tommy<\/i>, the resulting album shows traces of that original in certain spots but mostly retains a unique identity…in that it\u2019s simply a BS-free, near-flawless set of rock songs. Townshend started using the synthesizer but used it sparingly and for color, as a complement to his guitar, resulting in a set of nonstop classics like \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley,\u201d \u201cBargain,\u201d \u201cThe Song Is Over,\u201d \u201cGoin\u2019 Mobile\u201d and \u201cGetting In Tune.\u201d The stunning final track \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u201d is a stone cold classic, of course, inverting the \u201cMy Generation\u201d rally into a tired defeat, that the hippie dream of change was all for naught, and that all we can do is hope our elected leaders will serve the people and not the donors, corporate backers and personal greed. It\u2019s as relevant in 2015 as it was in 1971, and it is undercut with slashing guitar, Daltrey\u2019s primal screams and an unrelenting energy. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Who Albums Worst To Best<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":49657,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"feature_type":[32],"class_list":["post-47764","feature","type-feature","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","feature_type-feature"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature\/47764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/feature"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"feature_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature_type?post=47764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}