forgive my pent up emotions

[Toby Elwin <taelwin@bigfoot.com>]

Random observations from my psych couch:

I would rather listen to "Face Dances", "It's Hard", and/or 
"Psychoderelict" than that sham, Grammy-award-winning disc by Carlos 
Santana OR the top 100 Billboard list from '81 or '82 when those last two 
Who albums came out.

I will happily buy Pete Townshend's music, which continues to stylistically 
challenge musical boundaries, as a member of The Who or solo.  Can you 
imagine another pointless Rolling Stones album or worse yet the continual 
drivel that Paul McCartney produces and has produced since the wonderful 
"Band On the Run" album?

What I get from The Who, including the Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, and 
Roger Daltrey solo albums will always be a welcome respite from the Mammy 
or Grammy's (as in grandmother) Award Winners and the Britney 
Spears/N'Sync/Limp Bizkit fly-by-nights each year.

Also, the Dave Marsh', Chris Charlesworth, John Astlely Who commentators 
and documentors of Who histories bother me greatly with the way that they 
all discount any project after "Who Are You", with little more than a 
paragraph of how crap "Face Dances" or "It's Hard" are.  Well to these 
over-the-hill and relive-the-glory-of-their-piss-and-vinegar-youth's should 
look at the Billboard or Rolling Stone top 100 during the time those albums 
came out, who would prefer?  These commentators are so wrapped up in the 
glory of The Who they want a magnum opus at each turn - it won't happen - 
and only perspective will help put these projects in their place -- they 
are good albums, better than most of the albums from that year.  Well when 
I was a teenager "Face Dances" and "It's Hard" came out and I have the 
press clippings from newspapers and magazines stating how brilliant these 
albums are.  AND They are better than average, I enjoy listening to them, 
repeatedly, do I compare them to "Quadrophenia" - good God no, but I listen 
to them more than I ever revisit Katrina and the Waves, The Fixx, A Flock 
of Seagulls, or Big Country.

And like a good parent, Pete Townshend's diary to us, essentially kicking 
us in the ass should not be a shock.  He has already been more brutally 
honest and open with us for too long, perhaps this is why we feel we can 
converse with him and he is one of us.

All hail the majesty of The Who.  Is it not good to be a Who fan? consider 
the alternatives...

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