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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
The Who impersonated and alchemised, 14 Jun 2001
By A Customer
No other group has ever crackled with quite the vim and vigour of The Who. So, on first listen you find yourself missing them, appreciating them; Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle and Moon the irreplaceable 'oo'.A listen or two later, and you begin to hear this album for itself. Take Paul Weller's Circles - sure his vocal falls short of Daltrey, but his guitar playing has a fire that we've not heard from him since the Jam. It is straight Townshend worship, but Weller is well up to the task. And then there's Fastball, and a really energetic take at one of the best, most neglected, teen anthems 'The Real Me.' Bowie, meanwhile, turns Pictures of Lily into a suitably seedy, theatrical romp. But it falls to Sheryl Crow to produce the album's outstanding track. The Who made 'Behind Blue Eyes' into the most masculine tale of anger, conscience, and repression. Switching the gender, but not the lyric, works startlingly well. It is still a personal song. Whilst Crow's version has little of the venom of the original, neither does she bottle out. The energy is still there. But Crow, has alchemised the song. We hear not the earthly torment of the original, but a spiritual torment. Personally, I hope that The Who never record another album. Townshend's songwriting has been off-colour for two decades. Better for them to stand on the many peaks they conquered in the 60s and 70s. And to cap that career, the odd tour and the odd tribute album should do fine.
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