CORPORATE LINE: More than four decades after declaring “hope I die before I get old,” The Who released their first studio album in 24 years this week but faced claims from some critics that they are showing their age.
“Endless Wire” features only half of the band’s original line-up — singer Roger Daltrey, 62, and guitarist Pete Townshend, 61 — and concludes with a 20 minute mini rock opera, “Wire And Glass.”
The album attempts to tackle issues including religious identity through songs such as “Black Widow’s Eyes,” which is about a man watching a female suicide bomber during the 2004 Beslan massacre, when 344 people died.
“Wire And Glass” itself is a stylistic leap back to The Who’s heyday and works such as “Tommy,” although this time around the band is singing about a Catholic-Muslim-Jewish trio which tries to unite the world through music.
Much of the notoriously bitchy British music press has been scathing about the new songs — the Independent’s Andy Gill, for example, called “Wire And Glass” a “preposterous fantasy” which “could all be being dreamed by a washed-up old rocker in a sanatorium.”
THE GOOD:
“Mike Post Theme” – An energetic romp that starts slow and erupts into an anthem that can make a stadium come alive.
THE AVERAGE:
“A Man In A Purple Dress” – Skimpy on lyrics as Daltrey does his best to do the Who and lyrics ala Dylan.
“Black Widow’s Eyes” – This sounds like a redux of a past Who hit—I can’t explain.
“Fragments of Fragments” – If anything, this sounds like a fragment of “Baba O’Riley” without the grand anthematic hook.
THE BAD:
“In The Ether” – Daltrey and his deep-throated attempt at Louis Armstrong is as strange as it is bad.
FRANKLY: The Who had 24 years to write Endless Wire and honestly they should have taken a few more years to complete it. The first half of the album entitled “Endless Wire” pales in comparison to the second half called “Wire & Glass” which is an apparent “Mini-opera.”
One of the more annoying aspects is how many of the songs sound like The Who revisiting The Who. Particularly “Fragments” which is a synthed out rock song that steals liberally from “Baba O’Riley”. “Black Widow’s Eyes” is reminiscent of The Who in their youth and that could have gone both ways because it sounds fresh to a non-fan, but fans won’t feel the same. Some of it even has a tinge of Pink Floyd—which isn’t entirely bad.
If Endless Wire is the last album of the great The Who it’s not a bad way to go out considering very few artists release albums past their primes and keep their credibility. The Who never lose credibility—however they lack that urgency and don’t necessarily use their age to their advantage.
+ Rae Gun
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