The Who

Released in 1982, the Who's final studio album sounds haggard and uninspired. Most songs hit the four-minute mark, and the listener quickly gets lost in a twisting forest of synthesizers, guitar solos and rock verbosity. The album is somewhat saved thanks to the opening track, "Athena," and the lively "Eminence Front."

It figures. Just when the Who had ceased to matter much–the band members having
channeled a lot of their power and volatility and commitment into solo careers, employing
the Who chiefly as a vehicle to take a greatest-hits revue on the road – it figures that
they'd make their most vital and coherent album since Who's Next. It's fitting that It's Hard is
a great record because, given the inverted world of Pete Townshend's mind, it's... More >

Tommy's operatic pretensions were so transparent that for years it seemed safe to guess that Townshend's musical ideas would never catch up with his lyrics. And it fact they didn't--both became more prolix at about the same rate. This isn't so grotesque as All the Blind Chinamen Have Western Eyes, but between the synths and the book-club poetry it's the nearest thing to classic awful English art-rock since Genesis discovered funk. Best tune: "Eminence Front," on which Townshend discovers funk. Just in time. Bye. (Grade - C)