Taut, spacey and funky, Eminence Front gained an afterlife as a Balearic DJ favourite. Eminence Front (1982)Ī song that realised Townshend’s promise of a new-sounding post-Keith Moon Who. Its stagey Cockney vocals and blokey, anthemic chorus – “There was nothing in my life bigger than beer” – seem to presage Britpop-era Blur. The power chords of You Really Got Me inspired the Who’s early sound, and the influence of Ray Davies in English character-study mode is audible on this charming, beautifully written if inessential tale of love blossoming at a greyhound track. Note the pampered artiste who finds “the distance to the stage too far”.
Recorded in 1972, but not released as UK single until eight years later – prompted by its appearance in the Who documentary The Kids Are Alright – Long Live Rock sounds like another of Townshend’s attempts to come up with a latterday Who anthem, although its view of rock-star excess is more jaundiced and nuanced than the title suggests. The version released as such renamed it and lopped off the opening section, changing the track from a story of rejection into something more straightforwardly euphoric. Tommy’s episodic seven-minute grand finale We’re Not Gonna Take It was fantastic, but not the ideal candidate for a single. Its examination of why “marrying’s no fun” is more subtle than it first appears, but why it was chosen over its brilliant, previously unreleased B-side Instant Party is a mystery. There was a certain irony about the title of A Legal Matter, an old album track unofficially released by producer Shel Talmy to sabotage the release of the band’s chosen single Substitute. Released in the wake of Substitute and I’m a Boy, however, it sounded pleasantly insignificant and failed to chart. Yet another track awkwardly promoted to single status in an attempt to milk debut album My Generation for all it was worth, La-La-La-Lies made clear the influence of Moon favourites the Beach Boys on the Who.
The sentiment of Let’s See Action – equal parts post-60s free-your-mind idealism and proto-punk get-off-your-arse agitating – is pretty inarguable, but there is something plodding and hoary about its brand of blues-rock boogie – with session man Nicky Hopkins’s piano to the fore – that works against the lyrics and makes it sound less urgent, more complacent. It’s Not Enough (2006)Įndless Wire, the Who’s first album in 24 years, was a remarkably strong effort, but it was better taken as whole – replete with another Townshend mini-opera, Wire and Glass – rather than sampled via It’s Not Enough, a decent enough song that made for an unspectacular single. The vaguely country rock-influenced sound was oddly bloodless by the Who standards, but lyrically Don’t Let Go the Coat unsparingly depicted guitarist Pete Townshend, utterly shattered by Moon’s death despite breezy public pronouncements to the contrary, thrashing around in a desperate haze of drugs and booze, pleading with someone – spiritual leader Meher Baba? His bandmates? – not to forsake him.