Tommy [Original recording remastered]

It's well known that the phenomenal success of Pete Townshend's classic 'rock opera' "Tommy" became a bit of an albatross for the group, in that they could never play another live set again without playing 'Pinball Wizard' or atleast half of this album. That is as maybe, and seasoned Who veterans may be well sick of it by now as well, but the only reason you CAN get sick of this album is because you just can't stop listening to it.

From the first listen I knew I was on to something great... the album is essentially a storyboard, and the songs are interspersed with small 'links' which can't really be called songs, but add to the album's 'concept' of being a so-called 'rock opera'. But it is not just the wild variety in the music that made this album so successful. The range of issues that the narrative of "Tommy" tackles is uniquely broad, challenging and (especially at the time) hugely controversial. Tommy, a deaf, dumb and blind boy, we discover is not physically dysfunctional in any way. Rather, he has become conditioned to be 'deaf, dumb and blind' through the manipulation, mistreatment and abuse of those around him, particularly his family. The way that Townshend addresses these issues in song is really quite remarkable. The lyrics lend the album a disturbing overtone which gives the music an extra cutting edge.

The musicianship throughout the album is of the highest order as well. Townshend's guitar is unerringly brilliant, from his carefully crafted finger picks, to his characteristically fierce rhythm and powerful electric riffs. He also has his lion's share of lead vocals ('Sensation' being an outstanding example), although it is Daltrey once again who steals the show with some powerhouse performances, including 'I'm Free', 'Pinball Wizard' and 'Amazing Journey'. John Entwistle is furiously inventive on bass, as is Keith Moon on drums, who enjoyed a much more free role than we would hear on 'Who's Next'.

This album impresses from the first listen, but then grows and grows until it becomes a behemoth within any rock collection. Far from being typical of The Who, this is still (and always was) a 'concept' album that has aged slightly, but contains so many timeless classics that it is sure to live on for many years to come.

In 1969 with little money remaining from the previous four years of rampant destruction, mutilation,explosions,energy and orgies, The Who aimed at breaking the traditional structure of album containing song after song by releasing what many condsider to be the first proper concept album. Of course it wasn't actualy the first, See the faces 'Odgen's nut gone flake' or The Beatles 'Pepper',but what it did was set the presidence taking an idea for a story line and streching it out over the whole album instead of just a few songs ( as pepper did), or on one side of an L.P (Odgen's...). Townshend had previously experimented with the idea of a longer song with an ongoing narrative in the compositions 'A Quick one while he's away' and 'Rael' with varing success. It was in Tommy however that Townshend would finally bring together his tallent for the three minute pop song and his desire to provide the fans with a little more to digest (lyrically and musicaly) than the usual radio friendly ditties of his contempories. This was after all the period in music history when musicians would begin using the term Rock rather than Pop. Townshend would not disapoint. Tommy contains of not only a collection of Townshends finest moments as a songwriter, but also of a band at their creative height. From the rumbling bass lines of Entwhistle (then as now one of the finest bass players in this country), to the orchestrated precision of Keith's drumming, the ever present block chords of Pete and Daltrey, well, he had never sounded better. Tommy mixed the Who's tendency for loud power pop with their fondness for vocal harmonies, lyrical originality, heavy riffs, striking melodies and their unique tallent for creating so much variation out of just the basic rock set up of guitars and drums. The songs themselves dealt with everything from drug use, abandonment,childhood innocence and insequrities, sexual abuse,religious fanaticism,obsession with the self,transendental philosophy,destuction, society and of course, a healthy intrest in Pin Ball. The mere fact that the narrative makes sense at all merits its five stars and the music itself often leaves one astounded. The timing and interaction between the three musicians on songs like underture and Amazing Journey have to be heard to be believed. Not only that Tommy also has abilities to excite and repulse in equal measures such as the opening lines of Pinball Wizard and the 'see me feel me' theme which send shivers down any music lover heart, to the dread of songs such as Fiddle about, Cousin Kevin and 1921. It is not often that a album is so well put together to exist as a self contained piece of music and narrative. Not even Floyd's 'The Wall' quite managed to hold itself together as well as Tommy.There is also the raw sound that is so appealing (and refreshing to hear in a rock record) in Tommy, largely due to the fact that the Who were not the Beatles and so could not afford to spend months in the studio without financing it with endless tours which involved the constant removal and resetting of instruments. As a result Tommy has all the depth of a progressive rock masterpiece, but with the untamed edge of an works such as Hendrix or the White Album and this combination of raw attitude and complex structure make it a very intresting listen. In short Tommy is the best 'grower' album ever and it will go down in history as one of the great lost masterpieces of rock.

Rock music really doesn't get much better than this. Whilst the media nowadays is manifesting something of a "Tommy" blackout, the album remains a definitive article of post-war British pop, waiting for future generations to discover. The concepts may be slightly cheesy but here are some of the best pop tunes ever written. (And I liked the tommy pinball machine too)