As I write this review it\u2019s 110 degrees in Sacramento, with high humidity.\u00a0 Just stepping outside and standing in the shade for 60 seconds leaves you drenched.\u00a0 The atmosphere is so thick and oppressive it makes the slightest effort feel like swimming in molasses. <\/p>\n
Which all seems very much on point while listening to The Who\u2019s eighth studio release, 1978\u2019s Who Are You<\/em>.\u00a0 The band at this point in its career is a decade past its heady guitar-smashing heyday, a quartet of wealthy rock stars whose entire musical legacy is now under attack from punk and disco.\u00a0 And the sweat, strain and general discomfort shows in their every move. <\/p>\n There\u2019s no grand concept to Who Are You<\/i>, a la earlier landmark albums like Tommy<\/i> and Quadrophenia<\/i>.\u00a0 If there\u2019s a running theme, it\u2019s one of\u00a0disconcerting self-consciousness, songwriter\/guitarist Pete Townshend realizing the band badly needs\u00a0to find new musical territory to explore before it falls into irrelevance.\u00a0 You hear it said again and again in \u201cNew Song,\u201d \u201cMusic Must Change\u201d and \u201cGuitar And Pen,\u201d but there\u2019s no solution, just a restatement of the problem: \u201cI write the same old song with a few new lines \/ And everybody wants to cheer it.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cNew Song\u201d at least features some of Townshend\u2019s trademark sharp, punchy guitar lines, but Keith Moon\u2019s work behind the drum kit is uncharacteristically subdued and the track is marred by cheesy synthesizer accents.\u00a0 The same basic flaw crops up repeatedly through the rest of the album — the guitars are generally strong, but dated synth tones and overdone strings undercut otherwise entertaining tunes like \u201cSister Disco\u201d and bassist John Entwhistle\u2019s \u201cHad Enough.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n Feeding the sense of artistic dry-mouth on Townshend\u2019s part, Entwhistle contributes not just his usual one or two but three tunes on this nine-track album, pounding out a strong rock number in \u201cTrick Of The Light,\u201d and even taking lead vocals on the rather proggy \u201c905,\u201d a song that actually hints at unexplored musical directions for the band.\u00a0 Townshend does fight back, though, with the energetic, tempo-shifting plea for inspiration, \u201cMusic Must Change\u201d (\u201cDeep in the back of my mind is an unrealized sound\u2026\u201d).\u00a0 While the synth tones are a bit gawky and Daltrey\u2019s vocals a bit overwrought, the song itself is a powerful statement of perseverance.\u00a0 And \u201cLove Is Coming Down,\u201d with its rather Tommy<\/i>-esque sense of space and melodrama, has its moments. <\/p>\n It\u2019s both ironic and appropriate that the strongest tune here is the closing title track, Townshend\u2019s epic tale of personal dissolution.\u00a0 With his guitar taking its rightful place at the forefront, he writes of a falling-down-drunk encounter with the The fact that Who Are You<\/i> was the band\u2019s last hurrah as the original foursome\u00a0— Moon would pass away later the same year\u00a0— leaves us to speculate about what might have been.\u00a0 If The Who had survived intact, would they have been able to regroup artistically and make better follow-up albums than the tepid Face Dances<\/i> and It\u2019s Hard<\/i>?\u00a0 Moon may not have been a driving creative force in the band, but his hyperactive drumming and larger-than-life personality often functioned as the gas tank for this famously explosive unit.\u00a0 Without him, they would never be the same again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5649],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-39850","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-who","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39850","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39850"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}