Re: The Who Mailing List Digest V5 #238

["Michael J. Pecoraro" <pecoraro_michael@jpmorgan.com>]

Brian wrote:
>There's an interesting article in today's The Times of London where a
music
>critic reflects on Ray Davies' commission for an oratorio and again
decries
>rock stars feeling they have to write beyond the three-minute single.  One
>of his statements is that "Tommy" will soon be forgotten while "My
>Generation" will live forever.


Ray Davies has made quite a few statements over the last fifteen years
which show to be a bitter old man.  He went as far as to state publicly
that he was angry that other "big name groups" of the Kinks' era were
playing stadium tours (this was in the late eighties), while the Kinks were
playing 3000 seat shows (and not selling out).  I know many Who fans that
appreciate the Kinks, but they also recognize that they are several worlds
away from the Who.  Ray Davies is probably bitter that the Who can pull off
a stadium tour of Tommy almost 20 years after its release.  Obviously, it
was not soon forgotten.

Then came the 96-97 Quadrophenia tour.  I was at 3 of the first 4
Quadrophenia shows at MSG in 1996, and that "theme album" was not soon
forgotten either.  Sure, there was some fans who would have rather seen a
greatest hits show.  I even bet there were people there who had only heard
2 or 3 songs from Quadrophenia, ever.  However, the overwhelming majority
of people at the shows were Who fans whose favorite album was Quadrophnia
(isn't that the favorite of 4 out of 5 of us), and this tour was like a
dream come true - did you ever think you would get the chance to hear Quad
played end to end?

I first started listening to the Who because of songs off of Who's Next.  I
was actually disappointed the first time I heard Quadrophenia, expecting to
here another Who's next; but over the following few months, it became my
favorite ( 16 years later, it still is).  In college, I lived in a house
with 40 guys from all backgrounds and from all over the country.
Quadrophenia was the favorite album of more than a dozen of us.  There is
and will always be a demand for more than 3 minute singles.

The reason why the Kinks never built a large core audience which would fill
stadiums for 30 years is because they did not have much success with
anything  but 3-minute singles.   3 minute singles stick in your head for a
little while, but there rarely cause you to reflect upon them, and they
certainly do not cause me to pull out a CD that I haven't listened to in a
long time.  Ray Davies is not a Rock icon with tremendous incite.  He is a
bitter, jealous old man.

"You can cover up your guts, but when you cover up your nuts; your
admitting that their must be something wrong"