One of the greatest rock albums of all time? Well that has been said about The Who’s “Who’s Next” which came out July 15th 1971.
Mrs. FMF is quite a big fan, she saw them several times in her (undocumented) mis-spent youth. Me? I’m not a big fan because I thought Keith Moon was a <rude word> and more, Pete Townsend was a <rude word>, no make that a total and complete <rude word> <rude word> <rude word>
However, despite that they have produced a number of songs which I like whilst producing a lot of so-so stuff. The early mod stuff is quite jolly and we have Who’s Next. I had a detailed listen last night (Mrs. FMF has it on vinyl and CD) but I listened online and the two famous tracks from this album Baba O’Riley and Won’t Get Fooled Again just don’t sound 50 years old to me. Or maybe I have been listening to them for so long they are fundamentally part of me.
Anyway for your pleasure…
Baba O’Riley
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Worth checking out is the video where Pete Townsend describes how he got the sound used in Baba O’Riley with an early ARP synthesiser.
(I don’t why there’s no graphic for those links today.)
Were you doing your best Bernard Edwards impersonation then Tom?
ABBA, the only reason to allow anyone to listen to ABBA is to watch the cat dress video.
Yes, Andy, I recently watched on Sky Arts, The Who performing Tommy live at the Albert Hall. Zak Starkie on drums - as powerful a drummer as Keith Moon but probably a lot better kit these days. Zak was coached by Keith Moon as a boy. I prefer the rock opera and subject theme of Quadraphenia but I still enjoyed watching the live Tommy gig with the sound through the HiFi turned up loud when the XYL wasn’t in. They recorded that show in 2017. Townshend’s guitar playing arm doesn’t wizz round quite so often and as fast these days.
As a still proud European who wants to belong I’ve been put off the band latterly due to Roger Daltrey’s outspoken support for Brexit - didn’t he do well for the live music industry in the UK? NOT - he won’t get fooled again! I have also boycotted sticky carpeted Weatherspoons and will continue to do so, but that is another matter.
Phil, I really think you should listen to the music without thinking about the political opinions (or for that matter, the skin colour) of the musicians. As far as I’m concerned an F#maj7 chord does not wear a coloured rosette or a MAGA hat, it has no position on LGBTQ or abortion rights, it has no skin to have or not have pigment, it is only influenced by the chords preceding and following it. Of course this does not fully apply if the music carries an overt political or social message, but even then I will judge it primarily as music. I, too, am a proud European, and I’ve supped too much stale ale in Weatherspoons to rate it highly, but I don’t give a tinker’s cuss for the opinions of musicians or pub chain owners when I’m waiting to see where that F#maj7 chord is going to next!
Where am I now? Still sailing randomly around the English Channel, although it looks like we could be now heading back into Portsmouth.
Yep got to play Bernard Edwards solo groove in the middle of “Le Freak” last night. But I also got to play Mamma Mia which, love it or loathe it, has an excellent bassline.
As for Roger Daltrey - he can probably still tour Europe if he wishes, but it’s extremely difficult for me now. And I don’t recall a Maj7 chord in any Who song!
Far from it, Andrew. Without the framework of diatonic harmony chromatic chords would lose all sense of direction. When I was studying harmony I had to look deeply into the chorales of J S Bach, and it was amazing how chromatic his harmonies could get. Late 19th and early 20th century composers are said to have strained diatonic harmony to breaking point, but all they did was follow where Bach led. Looking back to what was happening 50 years ago, one of the characteristics of progressive rock then was its harmonic freedom, particularly the use of false relation (cross relation in the USA) and added note harmony to make easy permanent or temporary key changes. The straight jacket that ruled (amongst other things) that a song should finish in the key that it started in was gone, each piece of music became a journey. Similarly the prog composers embraced rhythmic fluidity, eventually to the later point where Dream Theatre’s “Dance of Eternity” had 118 time signature changes, though I think it likely that they picked up that idea from late Stravinsky! That, really, is the joy that progressive rock gave me 50 years ago (and I still feel it to this day) that bands could use intelligent and advanced procedures and have loads of fun doing so!
They didn’t use it very frequently but you can find examples, for instance in Acid Queen or Another Trick Day. More often they would use something like F#maj7/G, but overall I don’t think they were too adventurous in their harmonies, compared with, say Genesis.
I find more great stuff on this album in addition to Baba O’Riley and Won’t Get Fooled Again. Admittedly, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” really is timeless. It should be required listening for all the electors who vote for candidates whose rallying cry is “vote for me because you want to send a message to tear down the established order.” Meet the new boss…
I occasionally sing excerpts from “Bargain” to the XYL, who seems to appreciate the sentiment even as she tolerates the rendition.
As an amateur radio operator I always thought “Going Mobile” was about us. Perhaps that’s a bit monomaniacal.
Actually, forcing myself to watch that video, it sounds like a stripped down bog standard up tempo eight bar blues, so it only needs three chords, and Heaven only knows how many other songs use just the same three chord sequence. There are other versions of that song using four, five and even six chords, I mean, fair do’s, even drunk, high and sleep-deprived musicians get bored (don’t they, Tom!)
Calling it great is a real super-elastic stretch, at best it is a workmanlike use of a routine musical scaffold that any musician can play with his eyes shut while planning his next party and fancying the suicide blonde third from the left in the front row!
There is some serious rubbish being spouted on this thread today.
The Quo are one of the tightest bands in history and never successfully effectively recreated by anyone. And I challenge anyone here to offer up a Quo track that’s limited to three chords - whatever the urban myth!
Several different sources give just three chords, F7, Bb and C7. I started with ultimate-guitar.com, I don’t know which performance this refers to, I believe that later in their career they added some passing chords as listed in chordu.com. Yes, they were tight, but to me lacked flavour, YMMV!
Absolutely Tom. I saw them around 2009 and they were really rather special live. Everybody knew what to do and they played off each other perfectly. It was a very, very good show, one of the best I’ve been to and I am not a Quo fan, I just like the odd song and seeing Quo live was a bucket list thing. They opened the show with a belting version of Caroline with Francis Rossi say “Right that’s that out of the way and if you’re all good we might play it again later.” Which ISTR they did.
It all sounds delightfully simple stuff till you see another band try to do it and then it turns out it’s not as simple as it seems.
