The Who - Quadrophenia
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Free Music Notes for Quadrophenia
Free Music Review: The Who's best album....
Hit: 5 Stars
This is my favorite Who album, and their last great album. There were moments of brilliance on later albums (most notably Face Dances, the best of the Who's post-Quadrophenia output), but this is the last album where they really were The Who. This is a grand epic that is much more coherent and far more down to Earth than the rather pretentious Tommy. This is Pete Townshend's masterpiece. He wrote all the material (the only Who album in which he did), and I love the credits on the album where it says Townshend plays "remainder". The CD booklet is now restored, with a series of great photos, and the short story that accompanies it. Townshend is a pretty good prose writer, and I would like to see a book or two by him, if he's ever inclined. The synthesizers here work very well, Daltrey's vocals are some of the best of his career, and this is the last Who album where Keith Moon was Keith Moon. He is on fire throughout the entire album. His playing on The Real Me makes puts all modern drummers to shame. The Who would slowly deteriorate after this (drugs, more drugs, the road). This album rarely gets mentioned in the arena of great rock albums, which is horrible, as it is one of the best albums ever made. It's very underrated, and it's my favorite Who album. Free Music Review: Out of my brain on the 5:15
Hit: 5 Stars
I think that this is my favorite Who alblum/CD. It follows up the Rock opera theme from Tommy with a Mods vs. Rockers thing. My favorite tracks 1. 5:15 2. Dr. Jimmy 3. Love Reign over me. I have to admit that I was pulled in by the use of this music in the Adam Sandler/Don Cheadle movie 'Reign over Me'. But hey, I don't smoke cigarettes (any more) because they smoke -em in the movies. It's ok to buy 40 year old music they include in soundtracks.Free Music Review: Better than Tommy!
Hit: 5 Stars
While Tommy is instantly enjoyable, Quadrophenia is the one you will keep coming back to. The music very much reflects the darkness of the story and gives it a timeless feeling. This is one of those discs that your favorite song constantly changes because there are so many good ones. Townshend at his most introspective and for me his best work.Free Music Review: Mods and Sods ( * * * * 1/3)
Hit: 4 Stars
Writing this review in June 2007, I realize that I became the fan of The Who that I am now just over one year ago. I am not sure how I managed to keep them on the periphery for so long. I think that I always found several of their best-known songs - such as "Magic Bus", "Squeeze Box", and "Who Are You?" - to be skimpy and uninspired, while albums like Tommy and Quadrophenia seemed self-indulgent and overblown. Who's Next seemed perfect to the point of being the exception that proved the rule, so it was pretty much the only Who CD that I kept around (along with a cassette of greatest hits). Although I will probably always feel the same about the previously mentioned singles, I have recently decided that The Who's two rock operas are more ambitious than self-indulgent, and more fully-realized than overblown.
In 1973, The Who was huge, and not just in terms of popularity. Sure, Quadrophenia was their fourth consecutive top five album in the US. More importantly, however, their musical scope had grown immensely since their debut in 1965. Having finally recorded an entirely consistent record in 1967 with The Who Sell Out, Townshend began to think in terms of expanding the limits of rock 'n roll, rather than working within them. Having done so with Tommy - which made the rock opera respectable - and Who's Next - which did the same for synthesizers - he had plenty of momentum. Still, attempting a second rock opera meant taking quite a chance. (Jethro Tull, another one of the most popular English bands of the early 70s, had recently suffered a severe backlash for releasing two LPs in a row consisting of a single album-length piece.) But as with Tommy, if any band could pull it off, then The Who could.
Quadrophenia, like Tommy, told the tale of a young man struggling with psychological problems. In this case, it is Jimmy, who suffers from a four-way split personality. As a young mod, he very well may have run with the type of guys who would become The Who, and subsequently became a fan of them. Thus, the songs on this album serve not only to tell the story of Jimmy, but of the band itself, as the songs "The Punk and the Godfather" and "Helpless Dancer" reference Who songs which were mod anthems. Jimmy tries desperately to keep up with fashion while living in his parents' house ("Cut My Hair) in order to avoid living one of the workaday lives of those he sees around him ("The Dirty Jobs", "Helpless Dancer"). Eventually, he tires of being disappointed by all the things that he hopes will make him happy ("I've Had Enough"), so he takes trip, literally and figuratively, to the beachside town of Brighton ("5:15").
Alas, he discovers that "here by the sea and sand/nothing ever goes as planned". He hits bottom when he encounters a former mod whom he admired so greatly years before who is now working as a bell boy. Thus, he has to spend each day licking the boots and running at the heels of the authority figures he once rebelled against. Despondent over the idea that what happened to the now bell boy could also happen to him, he sinks into the quicksand of drugs and alcohol ("Dr. Jimmy"), and starts to behave without regard to rules and consequences: "What is it? I'll take it/Who is she? I'll rape it". Quadrophenia ends with Jimmy's fate uncertain, as he stands on the beach in the rain, arms stretched upward to the sky, one imagines ("Love Reign O'er Me").
Musically, Quadrophenia and Tommy have similarities and differences. Both include three instrumentals, but none on Quadrophenia is as long as Tommy's 10-minute "Underture". Tommy features the leitmotifs of "See me, feel me..." and the "Pinball Wizard" chords, and Quadrophenia's songs are tied together by the "love reign o'er me" lyric and the beautiful synthesizer that underscores it. One important difference is that Quadrophenia consists entirely of full-length songs, whereas Tommy included several songs that were less than a minute long. This was also the first album in which Pete Townshend wrote every single song. Although John Entwistle's occasional contributions had always been a nice touch, they certainly aren't missed here. Rather, he concentrates on his bass, which bubbles near the surface of each song and sometimes even boils over. Keith Moon clobbers his drums as usual. Roger Daltrey sounds magnificent on the album's more bombastic numbers, while Townshend sings lead on the album's more tender moments, "Cut My Hair" and "I'm One". Who albums were always group efforts, and Who's Next had found the band performing as rock 'n roll musicians rather than simply players. Quadrophenia continued this trend.
Quadrophenia's story isn't developed quite as well as Tommy, and also not quite as entertaininng or interesting. The songs and the music, however, put it just a notch above their first rock opera. It is a downright majestic piece of work, and although it may be tough to take in a single listen, it is well worth doing so. But even if and when one doesn't, s/he will still find several great Who songs to return to regularly. Although Quadrophenia is not their best album, it does show that The Who were still in brilliant form two years after the release of their masterpiece.
Free Music Review: Quadrohenia
Hit: 5 Stars
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST ROCK ALBUMS OF ALL TIME.IN MY BOOK IT IS#1
ALL TIME EVER.THE TITLE SONG PROBABLY ONE OF THE GREATEST SONGS EVER.
IF YOU LOVE TO ROCK OUT AND GET ALITTLE LOSE THIS IS A PERFECT CHOICE.