-- Who - The Who by Numbers | (Audio CD) MSRP $ 18.98 Amazon Price $ 14.99 Savings $ 3.99 | |  Release Date: 19 November, 1996, Mca
TRACK LISTING - Slip Kid
- However Much I Booze
- Squeeze Box
- Dreaming From The Waist
- Imagine A Man
- Success Story
- They Are All In Love
- Blue, Red, And Grey
- How Many Friends
- In A Hand Or A Face
- Squeeze Box (Live)
- Behind Blue Eyes (Live)
- Dreaming From The Waist (Live)
Usually ships in 24 hours | | | Desperation and melancholy set to music | | There`s always one album by a great rock band that you buy last, and "The Who By Numbers" was it for me. The songs felt distant, as if the whole steamrolling, take-no-prisoners stance the group had built up was finally winding down. It hadn`t - not yet. Pete Townshend jumps right into his vision of middle-aged despair with "Slip Kid", and keeps up the gloom in "However Much I Booze". Things let up in "Squeeze Box", with its jaunty banjo; then the poignant "Dreaming From the Waist". The lyrics reach the ultimate in self-pity on "Imagine A Man", but Roger Daltrey interprets them beautifully, and the gentle build-up to the chorus "and you will see the end..." is a change from The Who`s usual crescendos. "Success Story" is John Entwistle`s answer to Townshend`s angst: a tale of a successful yet morose rock star. What happened to the fun of being famous? Townshend then lets in a tiny beam of light with "Blue, Red and Grey"... but after "In a Hand or Face" spirals to an end, you get the idea that outside it`s raining, and getting darker. It`s a chilly note to end on, and since The Who would only record one more album with Moon (three years later, in `78), "By Numbers" stands out as the group`s bleakest and most spare effort, mirroring the dissolution Townshend felt at the time. Even Entwistle`s connect-the-dots cover art was a downer - black ink on plain gray. No synthesizers, no double-fold-out sleeves, none of the humor that The Who always managed to tap into. Just a stark, frank testament to the emptiness of superstardom. | | | | Remastering? | | Sorry, this isn`t a review but rather a request. Can someone who has it please write a review about the quality of the remastering. Also, did they mess with the mixes at all on this one like they did on "Quadrophenia"? | | | | Pete Townshend`s dark night of the soul | | This underrated album has been consigned to something of a footnote status in The Who`s history: it broke no new ground for the band, neither was it another of Townshend`s ambitious "rock operas". Instead the songs started life as possible demos for his 2nd solo LP, only for Pete to find that the group, in desperate need of new material, were snapping up these painfully personal confessionals for their first album of new stuff for some 2 years. What is it about albums like this one, Dylan`s "Blood On The Tracks" or Lennon`s "Plastic Ono Band" that is so compelling? Dylan himself expressed surprise that anyone could listen to "Blood..." for pleasure, and yet whenever I reach a crisis point in my life it`s records like these that bring me the most comfort because they speak to me, THEY UNDERSTAND! It`s clear from the likes of However Much I Booze, How Many Friends, They Are All In Love, In A Hand Or A Face and Imagine A Man that Pete was having an emotional/spiritual crisis during this period. He lays his tortured soul out naked for all to see (so much so that Daltrey refused to sing However Much...) - and the results are both harrowing and first class songwriting at the same time. But if it all gets you down, there`s always Squeeze Box and Blue Red & Grey (or is this one ironic?) to show the lighter side of life. It may not be The Who`s greatest CD (choose between "Who`s Next", "Sell Out" and "Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy" for that honour), but often it`s the only one I want to play because it makes such a connection. | | |
-- zzzz
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