Less is more; The Ox; More on less; The Rock doesn't rock; Who's surprised?

["Mark R. Leaman" <mleaman@sccoast.net>]

5:15, Music Must Change) but putting horn embellishments on songs like
Pinball Wizard, Won't Get Fooled Again, Join Together, etc. are criminal.
But the same goes for Rabbit's cheesy organ fills. LESS IS MORE!!!

Kent:

Hear hear!

> right now.  It's taken everybody by surprise, all that hard rocking when
the 
> punk and grunge movements are played out.

Keets:

I guess Pete, ever the rouge, is going to go the opposite way. For
instance, WAY should have been a stripped-down early Who sound, since Punk
was the flavor of the day and The Who were after all the first Punk
band...but instead he made a fairly overblown album, with strings and horns
and so on.

>I think he was referring to the _song_ The Ox and not John's nickname?

I was, yes. The song is essentially a jam, and if anything was done on the
spot that would be my guess. You have to remember that at the time they
were performing SOMETHING live, which I assume was an all night sort of
situation like most local bands. Two or three hour-long sets. So most of
the MG songs probably developed in a live forum, and the MG is the studio
album which sounds the most like the live Who. I sincerely believe the
shame of what happened with FD and to some degree IH is they recorded the
songs before doing them live, instead of letting them develop in concert
first. IF I had their ear now, I would STRONGLY suggest they play the songs
for the new album live first, before going into the studio. Hmmm...perhaps
I'll post that on the PT list...

> I think there is something to be said for fans with my sort of opinion

Dr J:

Of course; what makes any discussion group interesting is different POV.

> Can you blame Pete/The Who for adding the extra players to feel more
comfortable

Not perhaps if that was his motive, but I suspect otherwise. I think his
reasoning was twofold: A) he wanted to make the band more Pop, which he
certainly did, and B) he wanted to kill the band off, because he felt
burdened by it. So perhaps sort of killing it, he changed it
significantly...but that wasn't enough for him in the end, and he killed it
anyway after two more albums.

> writer refused to go see The Who in 1997 because of how "wonderful" they
> were in 1980 and I have even seen that night's performance on a bootleg! 
I
> wonder how I'd feel about it now...

Brian:

Sounds like you need to get the bootleg. If I had it, you would.

> Again I turned up a surprise (to me at least) while browsing on
> Amazon.  What's the track list for this?

Phil:

I don't have the list here, but I feel obligated to warn you there's very
few Entwistle songs (two I think) and it's very much a late-70's type of
Rock/Funk album, sort of like Nantucket if you've heard them, or Mother's
Finest, but with lessor performers (save one). Not very good, IMHO. Unless
you like that sort of thing. If I recall correctly, it's the NYC band Rat
Race Choir and JAE. I don't think John sings ANY of the songs, but I
haven't played it in years so I could be wrong. What I recall gives me the
chills..."I'll never marry Mary..." Yeah, that's the level we're talking
about here.

Someone sent me a tidbit from the O&S list, in which a record dealer tells
the writer the Who's BBC CD will NOT be released in Feb, but instead AFTER
the new album is released (slated for April, at the moment, but reportedly
yet not recorded so who knows).

Who's surprised? Not me. The Who is becoming the new Brian Wilson of the
Rock world, that is: more famous for what they didn't release.



       Cheers                  ML