This is the ultimate masterpiece from a band who was never better than at this time. Can you name any better album? Every song is killer and of course, this contains "Baba OReilly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" along with "Goin Moblie", "Bargain" and more. This LP set the bar so high for anyone else. To me, this is about as perfect as it can get. The production, writing, arranging and the timelessness of this makes it about as good as it gets. They could never duplicate this and very few releases have acheived the status or the heights as this one did. A+ across the board. At fifteen, this thing just about knocked me out. How loud did I play this? What?
This release got me through high school. It came out when I was a sohomore and the teenage angst involved with this allowed me to channel my negative energies into a beautiful 12" virgin piece of black vinyl, two of them, actually. Sonically not on par with "Who's Next" but about as important to me as "WN" was. "Love Reign O'er Me" remains as one of my favorite from these guys. Can you see "The Real Me?" is something I asked many years ago. Late nights, under the headphone with Dr, Jimmy, the punk and the godfather, trying catch the 5:15, wondering if I would have classified as a mod or a rocker. As far as importance in my life, this ranks a very close second to "WH". A very fine ending to the trilogy that began with..
This was the make it or break it release from The Who. At this point, the record company wasn't happy with the sales and challenged The Who for something that would define them as a band. They got it. Peter Townshend's tsory of a deaf, dumb and blind kid was one of the very first double albums I ever purchased. After hearing "See Me Feel Me/We're Not Gonna Take It" on late night radio somewhere, I thought this was an interesting concept from the band that gave us "Magic Bus" "My Generation" and others, I knew they had grown up. This became a staple on my turntable over the very hot summer of 1970 I went through two copies and now two different CD forms.
My ranking
1. "Who's Next"
2."Quadrophenia"
3. "Tommy"
3 comments:
You have done well, Young Grasshopper!
As a major Who-ligan, I heartily endorse all three of your choices here, especially the top two. 'Tommy' hasn't aged quite as well with me as the other two have, and I would submit that 'The Who Sell Out' is an underappreciated masterpiece in its own way. Then again, we're talking apples and oranges here--'Who By Numbers' also its moments of great introspection from Pete, and 'Who Are You' doesn't suck either.
Long live Rock, indeed--we need it every night...
Can you name any better album?
I honestly cannot. The Who were at the peak of their powers, and Who's Next has absolutely no soft spots. Rubber Soul and Layla are the only other rock albums deserving mention in the greatest-ever category, as far as I'm concerned.
Quadrophenia is my hands down fave album of all time. I need never hear Tommy again.
((HUGS))
Bonnie
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