Re: The Sound Of Blood And Thunder

[btm805@btrtx9.hrz.uni-bayreuth.de (B. Gramlich)]

Mark, Re:

> The songs of The Who vary
> across the board from soft, melodic tunes to the sound of blood and thunder
> and the end of the world. I thought it might be interesting to investigate
> that aspect of their music...who likes what best?

To me, it's the ability of The Who to cover both ends of the range - soft tunes
as well as `blood and thunder' - with great songs and convincing performances
what makes them the greatest-ever rock band.  Compare live versions of `Tommy
Can You Hear Me' with `Won't Get Fooled Again' to see their competence for
doing both.

Maybe one can see the difference to other bands with respect to this more
clearly if one attempts to compare `Behind Blue Eyes' with Zep's `Stairway To
Heaven':  Both songs try to melt melodic parts with blood and thunder.  BBE
succeeds whereas STH fails.  Why?  Because BBE features a sweet tune powerfully
performed by a honest band whereas STH is just a masquerade:  a rock & blues
band hiding behind a slushy melody.  Ok, RP's vocals might still be a little
convincing, but JP playing slooow acoustic and JPJ & JB lurking till nearly the
end of the song is just ridiculous.  Zep should not have tried to get any
softer than `Tangerine'... (though I must admit that STH was probably one of
the commercially most successful masquerades in rock history).

Yes, it's honesty that counts.  A band being able to honestly play both melodic
and merely rocking songs really is a great band.

Of course most of us are more attracted by The Who's blood and thunder than by
their melodic repertoire.  No one will claim that he/she got into them right
after listening to `Blue, Red and Grey' (although this is really a great song -
I should have mentioned it in my list...).  But it's fascinating to start as a
Who fan from the hard rock point of view only to detect how far they can reach
into the melodic range without making fools of themselves (like Zep did).

That's exactly the way how I became a Who fan.  I mentioned the story quite a
while ago, but I will repeat it here because it fits very well here:  For about
seven years, WAY was the only Who record I owned - I liked it, but I wasn't too
excited about it.  Then, one day, I bought rather by accident Pete's CE.  My
wife immediately got hooked and wanted to have more:  She went and bought WN
and played it.  I enjoyed the strange sounding `Baba O'Riley' because it
rocked, but I still had no idea what time the album was from and whether I
liked the band or not.  Then came the first stanza of `Bargein', and my first
impression was - early 70s, but:  WHAT A SOUND!  What a thunder!  (I always
wish I could repeat this initiating experience as a Who fan...)  My wife and I
continued to buy Who records:  FD, IH, WBN - all of them very good and
progressive albums, but nothing that really surprised us.  But then, listening
to each of the albums SO, Quad, Tommy, AQO, Rarities for the first time was a
sensation - still the same band, still the same honesty, but totally different
approach to rock music, totally different balance between melodic and blood &
thunder parts...

Enough for now...

Bernd   ---   `Long live rock...'