Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The world moves on, and there would be those who see bands such as The Who as an anathema, a curse on the modern day sentiment to which the atmosphere, the standards and the times reflect a new generation’s different belief; and yet we have to surely acknowledge that in many ways the world, its path of political discourse and absurdity, has meant that we are still fighting the same battles that took shape over fifty years ago.
Yes, the war on climate change and plastic is a new front in the ongoing battle, diversity may also seem like an original pin in the map of where borders lay but there seems to be another battle raging, between generations, one perhaps that can trace its origins in the last century to those who saw the rise of a new musical expression dominate the landscape and those to who witnessed at first hand the effects of the daily battle against the evils of Nazism, and whilst there was an uncomfortable truce to keep society from devouring itself, it seems that now we have an open declaration of all that went before.
WHO would care in another time, but the point is that we should care, the older generation should not be abandoned when they still have something musically to offer, after all we don’t live in a world where the Reynold’s Girls greatest wish came true, and the same is to be said for the reverse, that the generation who sees the world as their personal play thing can take more note of the concerns that beset those to whom the music might not be memorable, but is no less important as a form of expression.
For The Who, for the two remaining members of one the great bands that Britain has produced, the generations are interchangeable, they have more in common than the media, that the divisive opinion of social media, would ever suggest exists. We refuse to see that we have been played, that the problems that are beset by one are then in turn experienced by the other, and as songs such as I Don’t Wanna Get Wise, I’ll Be Back, Pete’s brother, Simon, collaboration with the band in Break The News, She Rocked My World and the album opener All This Music Must Fade, offer illumination in the darkness, so to do The Who show that whilst the power of the energetic pomp may have diminished, the strength of their own dominance, anger, angst and call for change have taken on extra responsibility.
There might not be an absolute stand-out song that catches the ear as in years gone past, however, instead the mentality of the album is strength in numbers, each song a fortified wall, a redoubt that has no weak link; and for that it deserves the time and space to be included as a great album by the band.
Who cares, we all should, every issue, every concern, for there can be no further sense in embracing division.
The Who’s Who is out now.
Ian D. Hall