Re[2]: Quad/WBN

[James L Jackson <jacksonj@battelle.org>]

Mike wrote:
> I agree that as I get older (I'm 32) WBN becomes more and more relevant. It 
> was really the first Who LP that tried to face up to adulthood.
          
This seems to be a common thread of the posts on WBN, but I don't look at 
this album this way.  It was written for the most part when Townshend was 
approaching 30, and followed on the heels of the really rough Quad tour, 
the middling commercial acceptance of Quad (which I think at the time 
Townshend considered to be his masterpiece), and the exhausting work on the
Tommy movie.  Rather than facing up to adulthood, Townshend is plunging into 
a full fledged "I'm turning 30 and I'm a failure" crisis.  Not only that, 
but he saw himself becoming the person who he spit at in My Generation, and 
it depressed the snot out of him.
          
In some ways WBN is a continuation of The Seeker ("I'm a really desperate 
man") 5 years later.
          
          Dave, YES! YES! You have matched my thinking exactly! You 
          have added support for my point that Townshend saw QUAD as 
          his masterpiece that didn't get the popular acceptance he 
          wanted!  Townshend had ALWAYS sought popularity and 
          acceptance (people who don't believe this should read his 
          interviews from the '70s and '80s).  The "failure of QUAD", 
          the rough QUAD tour, when audiences only wanted the standard 
          Who fare, the difficulty working with backing tapes, the 
          slap-in-the-face of HAVING to come back to TOMMY to stay in 
          the foreground, all of these things hurt Townshend, and WBN 
          is the manifestation of that hurt and anger (and hitting 30, 
          too).  
          
Though there are glimpses of maturity in songs after WBN (Keep On Working, 
Daily Records, Slit Skirts, and a couple of others), I think Pete is still 
grappling with many of the same issues 20 years later at age 50.
          
          I can't argue with that.  But I also think that Pete has 
          changed his musical approach and is now going to experiment 
          more with largescale theatre (a la Broadway) than with RNR.  
          He wants to be Andrew Lloyd Weber (Pete had some nasty 
          things to say about him circa 1993 when PSYCHODER... was 
          coming out).  I still say that we should all watch for 
          QUADROPHENIA and/or LIFEHOUSE being produced for theatre.  
          It just makes sense considering Pete's penchant for trying 
          to resurrect his work--see, he's still after that acceptance 
          for his efforts.
> There's a sense of "owning up" to past failures and trying to move on into 
> uncharted territory.
          
I'd have to disagree here.  WBN always gave me a sense of "I can't deal with 
my life", rather than owning up to past failures.  Has Pete ever "owned up" 
to anything?  To me that's akin to apologizing, and that doesn't seem to be 
in his nature.
          
          Dave, Once again, I can't argue with you on this either.  
          There are no apologies on WBN.  Hell, if you want to see 
          Pete's contempt for apologizing, read his  linear notes for 
          the boxed set.  Sheesh, was I the only Who fan who felt 
          slapped around a little by Pete's diatribe?  
          
          
> (Also, the Who's playing as a whole really clicked on this LP.  I don't think 
> Daltrey's sounded better or Entwistle's played better bass).
          
I agree to some extent, but this album was really where we saw Moon begin to 
weaken.  In fact, I think that they used session drummers for some of the 
songs.  On WBN Moon seemed to be emulating himself, rather than charting new 
territory as he always had before.  It got a lot worse on Who Are You, 
though.
          
All in all, I find WBN to be a very interesting album, and a fine work.  It 
was Pete's first intensely personal writing, and showed a person struggling 
to deal with his life, but with enough courage to admit it to the world.
          
          Dave, I agree (again) that WBN is where we see Moon weaken 
          and stick to his QUAD form of lots of rolls across his kit.  
          I, too, heard they used session drummers.  Can anyone on the 
          list confirm this?  WBN is a great album, but it began the 
          cycle of Pete's personal writing for Who albums, which 
          ultimately did the group in when Empty Glass became a hit 
          and Pete got that acceptance he so desperately sought and 
          realized he no longer needed Daltrey or Entwistle to support 
          his work.  That's why I put WBN a notch below the Who's 
          great plateau of work (Sellout through QUAD).  --Jim
          
Dave Elliott