Vintage WHO ARE YOU Review

["Scott Schrade" <schrade@akrobiz.com>]

Let's turn back the Who Time Machine & see what Trouser Press magazine had
to say about the WHO ARE YOU album in their October 1978 issue:

*****

THE WHO - WHO ARE YOU
MCA 3050

by Dave Schulps


I don't know.  I've listened to WHO ARE YOU ten, maybe even 15, times now, 
and I'm still nagged by a sort of ambivalent, empty feeling after each playing.  Still, 
it's beginning to grow on me:  I didn't like it much at all after the first listening, now 
I've come to terms with a good deal of it.  

But, for the first Who album in nearly three years, and who knows, maybe their 
last ever, it seems oddly anticlimactic.  If you're expecting the brash power chords
that characterized every Who outing up to and including WHO BY NUMBERS,
there may be some reason for disappointment.  There is no explosion.

Most of the album skirts the fine line between grandiosity and overbloatedness,
with synthesizers, horns, strings and string synthesizers on display almost through-
out.  The effect is sometimes dazzling, as it often was in the past when Townshend 
used them to embellish the basic chordal attack of his guitar, but, often as not, here 
the effects compete with the guitar.

When they win, the power of the slashing guitar chord, always the epicenter of The 
Who's music, is muted, and, well, that just isn't what The Who is about to me.

Easy as it would be to blame it all on overuse of effects, that isn't the only thing 
wrong.  Two of Townshend's songs, "Music Must Change" and the Gilbert and 
Sullivan-esque "Guitar And Pen" sound more as if they were written for some West
End "Rock musical" (later to be made into a feature-length "Rock movie" courtesy
Robert Stigwood) than rock'n'roll music.

With Daltrey singing every word as if his life hinged on it (even when it doesn't),
the synthesizers and strings blaring behind him, and Keith Moon supplying drum-
ming so anonymous and pedestrian that it could be anyone (as he does through-
out the album with few exceptions), the songs sound almost comical in their huge-
ness.  Unfortunately, they're not meant to be funny.  Fortunately, they're the worst
of it.

John Entwistle has contributed three songs - more, it would seem, than his usual
quota and an indication of either his vitality or Townshend's lack of it - and, if none
are classic Who, all are atleast good solid stuff.

"Trick Of The Light," a song about an evening's encounter with a prostitute, is a 
streaming riff rocker which features Townshend's best guitaring on the LP.  Were
it a minute-and-a-half shorter, it'd be great.  "905" sounds like a bit of all of Ent-
wistle's WHISTLE RYMES rolled into one song, its clever "test-tube baby" lyrics
recalling the Stones' "2000 Man," and its double-tracked (Entwistle and Town-
shend) vocal effects delightfully weird in Entwistle's inimitable fashion.  "Had En-
ough," which doesn't work as a single, sounds a lot better on the LP - strings, horns 
and all.

That leaves four Townshend songs, three of which come as close to the classic
Who mold as the LP gets.  With the exception of "Love Is Coming Down," a slow
ballad which sounds like a Daltrey solo album track, "New Song," "Who Are You,"
and "Sister Disco" all have moments that capture The Who in their full glory, but
none quite hit the mark for an entire song.  All three end strangly, as if Townshend
meant all along to diminish the effect of what had come before.

Still, they're good, especially "Sister Disco," which seems to stand out above the 
rest of the LP in terms of sheer gutsiness.

Maybe it's my fault.  Maybe I don't have the right to expect something from a band.
Sure it's all good music, brilliant, maybe, but from The Who I expect that gutsiness,
that feeling of being kicked in the groin by a guitar chord {Horrible analogy!! - Schrade}
bowled over by a wash of frenzied drums, angered by the anger.

They've always done it for me in the past, never let me down, but...as I said, I just
don't know.


 - Trouser Press magazine October 1978

*****