To me, the musical quality here seems like a bit of a mixed bag. What do I mean by this? Well let's take a look at the songs in order so we can really see what I'm talking about. Baba o' Riley; in my opinion, is one of the best opening tracks to an album ever produced; right up there with In The Flesh off The Wall (Pink Floyd) and Hells Bells off Back in Black (AC/DC), with it's giddy synthesizer line, a powerful vocal melody, a simple but effective guitar and bass line, and Keith Moon pounding away on the drums, and it's closing violin led 'jam', it is definitely to me one of the best ways to get you excited for what the rest of the album has to offer. Bargain is a good way to follow up, with kickass guitar lines, Keith still pounding away on the drums, and Entwistle giving a good backing bassline, but is also a bit of a weird follow up track, with Daltrey screaming away with what to me is quite an odd sounding and mediocre vocal line, but that 'BEST I EVER HAAAAD!' at the end of every chorus makes listening to that mediocre vocal line for me all the worthwhile. Love Ain't For Keepin' to me is just a song that was thrown into the album just so they could say they have an all acoustic song, and it in all honesty isn't really that good. It sounds like it was just slapped together in a wood shop at one in the morning in under a minute and then they recorded it. My Wife has more mediocre sounding vocal melodies, Moon still smashing on the drums (which is still quite enjoyable), a very quiet bass line, Townshend abandoning his guitar in favor of a piano, and just random brass blares in some parts of the song. The Song is Over; while actually being quite good during my first few listens of this album, has now dried out it's quality and is just boring now, and kinda shitty. With Townshend manning the lead vocal duties for the verses while he plays some depressing sounding piano chords, and Daltrey coming in with the rest of the band with more Moon smashing the drums, more Entwistle quietly playing bass, and more Daltrey still screaming his head off while Pete switches the depressing chords for some more uplifting ones. After that shitty borefest we get to Gettin' In Tune, a charming little song that doesn't really mean anything with some actually pretty vocal melodies, Keith finally calming down on the drum work, and just overall nice instrumentation. Going Mobile is a track that doesn't exactly to seem to be a favorite of many, and I can't see why. It's a really likeable song, with it's energetic acoustic part, enjoyable vocal melodies, a drum part on overdrive again, and just a really fun and charming nature. Then we finally get to Behind Blue Eyes, which can be accurately described as The Who's Yesterday, which is musically speaking, an actually really good and sad sounding acoustic song (not entirely acoustic in this case with the energetic part at the climax of the song, but it's a good section, so whatever), and the closing track, Won't Get Fooled Again, which is the longest and second best song on the album, with it's kickass hooks, it's nice guitar parts, more Keith Moon smashing away on the drums, Entwistle still kicking ass on the bass; albeit quietly, and just a really good coercion of all these musical elements. So what exactly do I think of the musical quality of this album? Eh...it's good, but a little bit mediocre with the 3rd to to the 5th tracks being sounding a lot like filler and just being kinda crappy. So in other words, yes I like this album, but as soon as I get to the 3rd track, I typically just stop my venture into that album and look for something else to listen to, which is a shame, because the tracks after that are so good, but because of that musical 'pothole'...well... you get the idea. 12/20
Moving on from that, we go on to the lyrical content. Does it fare better? Eh...not really, but let's look at this in more detail again. Baba o' Riley is not only powerful in terms of the music, but it's also quite powerful in the lyric department as well, with roaring anger at how things have seemingly changed for the worse, which a teenager can easily relate to. Most of the other lyrics don't really do anything and are just typically mediocre and boring, good examples of this mediocrity being Love Ain't for Keepin' and My Wife. While there are other songs with actually good and sometimes charming lyrics like Gettin' In Tune, Behind Blue Eyes and Won't Get Fooled Again, the rest of the songs on the album don't really have any lyrics that you can really respect and understand. While the lyrics are clearly not the most important factor when creating an album, when you have music that isn't that great, you should try to make up for it with some wonderful poetry, which this album really does lack. So overall, while the lyrics aren't terrible, they're also not that great, albeit a few exceptions as mentioned above. 3/5
Well, this album really isn't doing that well as evidenced by the above categories, but will it possibly be able to finally redeem itself a little bit with the coercion of the album in general? Yes! This album finally redeems itself a little bit with how actually well done the quality of the coercion of this album works!...but it may not be for the reason you expect. The reason that this album does so well in coercing the music and the lyrics together is that the lyrics barely catch your attention at all so it's easy for the lyrics to coerce with the music, and this seems to work in pretty much every song on the album except when one of the lyrics is actually screamed. Baba o' Riley? The lyrics only sort of catch your attention. Bargain? Didn't catch my attention at all except for BEST I EVER HAAAAAAD. Love Ain't for Keeping? Didn't catch my attention. My Wife? Didn't catch my attention. Song Is Over? Didn't catch my attention. Getting In Tune? Didn't catch my attention. Going Mobile? Didn't catch my attention except for the shouts of GOING MOBILE. Behind Blue Eyes? Didn't catch my attention. Won't Get Fooled Again? Didn't catch my attention except for the obvious YEEEEEEAAAAAAAH. So overall, this album does a terrific job of coercing the music and the lyrics, and even when the reason above isn't true and you actually notice and pay attention to the lyrics existance, they still fit in well with whatever song they happen to be in. 4/5
So how well does this album fare overall? Well, I think it's clear to see why this album was left under the huge shadow cast over it by Tommy and Quadrophenia. With a huge and bland musical pothole along with lyrics that barely catch your attention, no wonder people left this album behind in favor of the seemingly great Tommy and Quadrophenia (which I actually haven't listened to yet, but will in due time). With that being said though, the shadow cast over it may be a little bit too big, as this album still has it's great moments with songs like Baba o' Riley, Getting In Tune, Behind Blue Eyes, and Won't Get Fooled Again, but alas, even those songs aren't enough to get this album a total mark that is only a little bit over mediocre. So in conclusion, while this album is mediocre, during my first few listens of it, that was not the case, as mentioned above, and was actually quite good during those first few listens. However, as also mentioned above, that quality dried out pretty quickly and ended in my opinion of the album as of the time of this reviews release. I would only recommend it to anyone that really wants to complete their Who album collection in all honesty. So with that out of the way, it's time for me to bow out for this week and give you my final points review. 19/30
Favorite Song:
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