who-by-numbers

[redmann@ix.netcom.com (michael mishura)]

out of left field- found this on compuserve- dig it

RECORDS: From "The Who by Numbers," by Dave Marsh, RS 200 (Nov. 20, 
1975).

===============

By now, a nonopera by the Who is its own kind of concept album. While 
"The Who by Numbers" pretends to be a series of ten unconnected songs, 
it's really only a pose; there's not a story line here, but there are 
more important unities -- the lyrical themes, musical and production 
style, a sense of time and place.

"The Who by Numbers" isn't what it seems. Without broadcasting it, in 
fact while denying it, Pete Townshend has written a series of songs 
which hang together as well as separately. The time is somewhere in the 
middle of the night, the setting a disheveled room with a TV set that 
seems to show only rock programs. The protagonist is an aging, still 
successful rock star, staring drunkenly at the tube with a bottle of 
gin perched on his head, contemplating his career, his love for the 
music and his fear that it's all slipping away.

Always a sort of musical practical joker, Townshend has now pulled the 
fastest one of all, disguising his best concept album as a mere 
ten-track throwaway.

The disguise is effective partly because it is mostly musical. Along 
with the story line, Townshend has thrown out the Arp synthesizer-which 
is supposed to be his instrument -- after his success with it on "Who's 
Next" and the "Tommy" soundtrack. It's a great diversion; he keeps us 
busy noticing its absence so that the story sinks in subtly, rather 
than batting us over the head with it, as he did with his operas.

"The real truth as I see it is that rock music as it was is not really 
contemporary to these times," Townshend recently told an interviewer. 
"It's really the music of yesteryear. The only things that continue to 
keep abreast of the times are those songs that stand out due to their 
simplicity."

There is no better summary of what "The Who by Numbers" is about: 
Townshend has always been his own best critic.