Tommy
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Free Music Notes for Tommy
Free Music Review: One of the most essential rock albums ever
Hit: 5 Stars
This is one of those album you have to have if you listen to the who or rock music it goes right along albums like, Dark Side Of The Moon, Are You Expirenced and Back In Black. It is such a good album it acttullay tells a story the only other album i've ever listened to that tells a story is the wall by pink floyd. Some of the best songs are, Were not gonna take it, acid queen and sparks well really every song on it in my opininon rocks and an album that changed the who's image forever from 3 minute singles to concept rock albums a dramatic change in over 1 year of time buy it now if you still have it today!Free Music Review: One of the most over-rated rock albums of all time
Hit: 3 Stars
Pompous and overblown. It takes two albums to say what could have been said in one. Don't you have anything better to do than listen to this album from beginning to end?
Free Music Review: tommy
Hit: 4 Stars
the who in top form,pinball wizard a classic.a must in any who fans collection.a real rock opera.i seen them play marley park in dublin ireland 2007 ,still magic.Free Music Review: "Sickness Will Surely Take the Mind Where Minds Can't Usually Go" (* * * * 1/4)
Hit: 4 Stars
The Who's Tommy had been foreshadowed lyrically by "A Quick One, While He's Away" - which Pete Townshend referred to as "Tommy's parents" on Live At Leeds - and musically by the two-part "Rael" from The Who Sell Out. (Although I am not sure about the continuity between "A Quick One" and Tommy.) Granted, the foreshadowing was subtle, but clearly Townshend had big things in mind as The Who's stature grew. But as a "rock opera", if we are to use that term, Tommy was not an entirely original creation. It was presaged by The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow in 1968. Moreover, word had apparently leaked to Townshend that Ray Davies was working on Arthur, or: the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. So just as The Kinks had influenced The Who's early sound, eg, "I Can't Explain", so too would they appear to have influenced them in the middle period of their heyday.
The centerpiece of Tommy is "Pinball Wizard", whose strummed chords are among the most recognizable in rock, and which serve as a motif throughout the record. However, I should note - as others have - that it is not too far removed from the chords heard on "Old Man Going" from the previously mentioned S.F. Sorrow. (But hey, even the opening to "Stairway To Heaven" had a precursor in "Taurus" by the band Spirit.) Of the two dozen tracks on the album, this is probably the only one known to a wider audience, and rightfully so. This is an excellent single which stands well on its own, and serves as one of the pillars for an album that also includes three instrumentals ("Overture", "Sparks", "Underture") and several under one-minute adhesive pieces, which are at times reminiscent of the fake commercials on Sell Out. Among the other solid, free-standing songs are "Amazing Journey", "Christmas", "Go To the Mirror!", "Sensation", "Sally Simpson", and "I'm Free". Pete Townshend wrote all of these songs, and most of the others on Tommy. But there is also the smartly chosen cover of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Eyesight To the Blind (The Hawker)". Plus, John Entwistle's two tracks introduce the unsavory characters one would expect from him, in this case the bully "Cousin Kevin" and the alcoholic, sexually abusive Uncle Ernie ("Fiddle About").
Tommy is surely to be praised for its great songs and ambition, but also for the fact that the story holds together quite well. It is easy to criticize it for being sketchy, but no libretto can serve to illustrate every scene of an opera perfectly. Townshend obviously expected it to be presented on stage. I will not go too deeply into the plot, but it is worth pointing out the highlights. Tommy witnesses the murder of his mother's lover by his father, long thought to have been killed in World War I ("1921"). Terrified by his father's insistence that he saw and heard nothing, and that his never to tell anyone about it, he is psychologically struck deaf, dumb, and blind. His parents, bereft of hope, first seek to heal him first through a strange spiritual leader ("Eyesight To the Blind") and then hallucinagens ("The Acid Queen"). Both fail, but in the meantime Tommy discovers he has an uncanny talent for pinball, which catapults him to fame. Soon after this, his parents find a doctor who discovers that Tommy's symptoms are psychosomatic ("There's A Doctor"). The refrain of "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me" comes from Tommy, who is aware of what is happening even though he cannot express himself. Tommy is healed when his mother destroys the mirror into which he perpetually stares, and through which he saw the murder happen ("Smash The Mirror"). Thought by many to have been the recipient of a miracle, he acquires legions of followers, who too hope to have their senses revived figuratively the way Tommy's were literally ("Sally Simpson", "Welcome".) Alas, like most so-called gurus, Tommy insists that his followers gain enlightenment the same way that he did. This, coupled with the fact that Uncle Ernie is heading up the camp, cause his followers to abandon him ("We're Not Gonna Take It"). Fortunately, Tommy does not abandon himself as the latter half of "We're Not Gonna Take It" - released in single form as "See Me, Feel Me" - indicates.
If any band were to make the rock opera legitimate, The Who was surely the big band who could. Although S.F. Sorrow deserves its share of credit, and although Arthur is a better album, Tommy is the one that everyone knows about. Obviously such a large project ran the risk of being overblown, but Townshend's penchant for graceful but powerful singles and longer pieces prevented this from happening. Tommy may not be a Great album, but it is a very good one, and is worthy of its status as a major breakthough in the history of rock.
Free Music Review: The Who Classic Masterpiece AS YOU NEVER HEARD BEFORE
Hit: 5 Stars
The Album is a masterpiece of all time rock n roll, even if this is "the less Who album" of the Who... but nevermind!
The Sound in both Stereo (from the original master tape discovered in the vault of UMG) and 5.1 (mixed by Pete Townshend himself) is great...
As you put the disc in your player you'll hear the great differences from the 1996 reissue even if you have only a "simple" CD player..
If You're a great Who fan and you a have SACD player buy ABSOLUTELY this album and enjoy it 'til the laser of your player won't work anymore...
The second disc is clearly for fans only but the quality of some track even if are demos or outtakes is very very good!!