Let me get the blasphemous statement out of the way early in the
\nreview: The Who should have broken up in 1978 when Keith Moon
\ndied.<\/p>\n
When Moon died, he took with him a creative spark and youthful
\nenergy that Roger Daltrey and company had made a career on for well
\nover a decade. After a period of regrouping, The Who reemerged with
\nformer Faces drummer Kenney Jones and released
\nFace Dances<\/i>, an album that some claimed was not typical Who
\nmaterial.<\/p>\n
After the disappointment of
\nFace Dances<\/i> (which I’ll admit I haven’t listened to in some
\ntime), The Who had a decision to make: try to return to the roots
\nthey came from, or continue in the same vein of
\nFace Dances<\/i> and hope for the best. On
\nIt’s Hard<\/i>, they chose the second road — very bad idea.<\/p>\n
The album opens strongly enough with “Athena,” a gentle number
\nthat puts more emphasis on Daltrey’s vocals and what sound like
\nsynthesizerss bubbling lightly in the background rather than Pete
\nTownshend’s guitar work. It also is one of the few hit singles I
\ncan think of that didn’t feature a guitar solo.<\/p>\n
The only other well-known number on
\nIt’s Hard<\/i> is “Eminence Front,” featuring Townshend as lead
\nthroat. In retrospect, this isn’t a bad song, though it takes a
\nlittle too long to develop into the rocker it eventually becomes.
\nStill, it was a powerful swansong for The Who.<\/p>\n
If only anything else on
\nIt’s Hard<\/i> stood out like these two songs, it would be a
\nbetter album. But the sad fact is that The Who had taken a serious
\nturn for the worse on this one. Daltrey’s singing and Townshend’s
\nplaying often sound like their hearts just aren’t in the music
\nanymore — a criticism that many levelled against the Kenney
\nJones-era Who.<\/p>\n
A lot of the songs seem to talk about the losses of Moon and
\nformer managers Kit Lambert (who died in 1981 after falling down a
\nflight of stairs) and Pete Meaden (who bought the farm three weeks
\nbefore Moon). The title track sings about the difficulties we all
\nface in life (“So I’m thinking about my life now \/ I’m thinking
\nvery hard \/ Deal me another hand Lord, this one’s very hard”),
\nwhile “A Man Is A Man” seems to cry out to their lost bandmate and
\nanswers those who claim to be wilder than “Moon The Loon” was
\n(“Well I met a man who really lives \/ He really does it all \/ But
\nwhat matters is the heart he gives \/ He makes your talk seem
\nsmall”). Despite the power they tried to capture in the lyrics, the
\nbored-sounding performances take all the punch away.<\/p>\n
And by the time The Who does get down to kicking their act into
\ngear on “Cry If You Want,” it’s too late — the chance has been
\nwasted, and the writing can easily be seen on the wall for The Who.
\n(The band would call it a day in 1982, and play their farewell
\nconcert in 1983 — that is, until they were enticed out of
\nretirement.)<\/p>\n
But as much as some people may blame Jones, I refuse to put the
\nblame on him for the late-model Who. Fact was, anybody who took
\nover the drum throne after Moon’s death was in for a tough fight,
\nand to the band members left behind, there simply was no
\nreplacement for Keith Moon.<\/p>\n
Daltrey has reportedly said about
\nIt’s Hard<\/i> that this album should never have seen the light
\nof day. He doesn’t know how right he is, ’cause this is a sad
\npicture of a band’s decline, and should be avoided by even the
\ndiehard Who fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5649],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-35881","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-who","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35881"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35881"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}