Re: What's wrong with WAY

["Brian Cady" <cadyb@home.com>]

> While I find AQO and FD the two worst, I agree with you about the yawning.
> WAY was a top heavy album, probably due to Keith's weakness as a drummer
in
> this session, and it felt a bit contrived. Like it was made because it had
> to be made, not because Pete wanted to make it. It wasn't "comfortable"
and
> a bit erratic if you know what I mean. In that way, perhaps, it might have
> been the most honest Who album...because this reflected Pete's state of
mind
> at the time...not knowing which way to turn, wanting to end The Who but
also
> feeling as if it was his only creative outlet.

My problems were more of a coneptual nature.  Sending The Who our to attack
disco was, even then, like using an atom bomb to kill a rabbit.  After
you've wrestled with identity and the uses of man and God for a few albums,
"The Who survey the 1977 music scene" seems so slight.  Plus the surface
production sounds so slick, even more so than "Who's Next".  Let's take an
okay John song and drown it in strings for no apparent reason.  Let's take
what could have been decent if lesser songs like "Sister Disco" and "Guitar
and Pen" and undercut them with jazzy guitar flourishes at the end that piss
away much of the songs' impact.  "Who Are You" has this in the middle as
well (when I hear Pete's tiny acoustic guitar in the middle of the roar of
WAY I often think of P.D.Q. Bach's Concerto for Lute and Bagpipe) but at
least it doesn't destroy the song's structure and allows it some breathing
room.  "Trick Of The Light" would probably also be great if all those Mac
trucks weren't covering up the sound of the rest of the band.  Oh, sorry
that was John's 8-string bass.  Here I'm going to be controversial and say
that I would like John's later Who songs if he hadn't overkilled them with
excessive, lugubrious sound.  If only Pete's songs of that period had rocked
a little more and John's a little less.  I know that's an unpopular opinion
but I'm sticking with it.

Ultimately "Who Are You" and "Music Must Change" are the only tracks off
that album that stick with me.  The former is better, however, in the video
and the latter in the live versions.  You know, the ones with Kenney
drumming on them.

        -Brian in Atlanta
          The Who This Month!
          http://members.home.net/cadyb/who.htm