Rating: 9/10

Top Track: ‘Baba O’Riley’

Who’s next? Why, The Who course. Time to cover my favorite album of one of my favorite bands. From the ages of 10-12, if I was asked who my favorite band was, I would enthusiastically exclaim, “The Who!” All of my dad’s friends were thoroughly impressed. In fifth grade, I played the CD of this album over and over again in my bedroom, dancing and singing along with every lyric. I would sit on my bed and try to keep up with Keith Moon playing air drums. I absolutely loved everything about this album as a kid. Even the album cover, I thought it was hilarious that the whole band had peed on a cement pillar in the middle of nowhere. It’s pretty evident that my dad bought this album used. the record itself doesn’t have a sleeve and the front cover has a penned cursive inscription of, “To the House, Best wishes, Lloyd.” So, sorry Lloyd. Whoever “the House” is doesn’t have the album anymore. The good news is that, despite some light crackling, the album still plays relatively well. This album seamlessly transitions between a heavy classic rock sound and a light progressive rock sound that was starting to explode at that time. Plus, it was revolutionary in terms of incorporating the new A.R.P. Synthesizer into rock music. Man, this album is just great.

Like most of the albums I cover, the choice for Top Track is fairly obvious. ‘Baba O’Riley’ is so instantly recognizable and a fantastic way to start off an album. This song is so popular that it’s nearly impossible to find someone who hasn’t at least heard it. Admittedly, most non-Who fans would probably mistake the song title for ‘Teenage Wasteland’. But it doesn’t really matter. From the introductory synthesizer to the pretty epic piano chord progression, this song has to be one of The Who’s absolute best. It was nothing like anyone in popular music else was doing at the time. The combination of modern electronics and that classic rock sound blended together so well to create one of the most iconic sounds of that generation. Oh, and don’t get me started on Pete Townshend’s entrance with his guitar. I remember trying to recreate his patented windmill move playing air guitar. I also love the band slows it down and breaks the song up by giving Townshend the mic and letting him sing a verse with his soft voice. Next comes the violin solo. What? A violin solo in a classic rock song? Huh? Yeah, that’s right. Dave Arbus, the featured violinist on the track takes us home with a great solo and wraps the sing with a nice bow. I could’ve picked any other song on this album to be my top track, but c’mon you can’t beat a song like this.

This album is actually the result of a failed science-fiction rock opera project called “Lifehouse” as a follow-up to the band’s previous album “Tommy”. Eight of the nine songs on this album are actually from the project, the lone exception being ‘My Wife’ written and sung by bassist John Entwistle; all the other songs were written by Townshend. The remaining tracks from “Lifehouse” would eventually be released on the band’s future albums throughout the 1970s. Any science-fiction influence that I could find one the album would be from the cover, which was supposed to imitate the monolith from the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the synthesizer used on certain tracks on the album. I can’t but notice the levels within each song. A lot of hard and soft sounds used in each song makes each song very dynamic and extremely unique. For example, ‘Getting in Tune’ starts off sounding like a nice soft ballad about being in a relationship but turns into something more with heavy drums provided by Keith Moon and some easy shredding from Townshend; not to mention an under-appreciated bass line from Entwistle. I feel like it’s easy for an artist to stick with one, maybe two levels within one song, but The Who really like to play with it. Speeding it up, slowing it down, going louder, getting softer, I think it’s clear why most critics view this as The Who’s best album ever. I certainly do.

One of the first CDs I ever bought with my own money was a Who best of album. I think I was around eight years old. Around that time, my favorite Who song was probably ‘Who Are You’ because it was on the classic rock station on the radio and Roger Daltrey uses the f-word once which I thought was pretty freakin’ rock ‘n’ roll dude. Other than that, maybe ‘Substitute’ because it was the movie “School of Rock” starring Jack Black. All of that changed, however when I became obsessed with ‘Going Mobile’. Holy shit. I could not get enough I remember spending long periods of time jumping and dancing on my bed to that song and running over to my CD player to play it over and over and over. It even made the cut onto one of my end-of-the-year-mixtapes in elementary school. Let me explain. At the end of every school year, while I attended good ol’ Wilson Elementary, I created CDs filled with my favorite songs from that year and passed them out to each of my classmates. So I was passing out mixtapes for six years before I even knew what I mixtape was. I believe this song made the final CD during my fifth grade year, impressing my teacher Mr. P. I distinctly remember him playing the CD on the final day of school and his exclamation of, “Oh, we’re going mobile!” when the song came on. I remember thinking to myself, “Finally, someone gets it.”

Well, that’s it for this post. My sincerest apologies for the prolonged hiatus. I will be posting double this next week to catch up and from there it will be our regularly-scheduled programming. I promised I ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ wink wink.