WHO - ENDLESS WIRE (IMPORT) CD

SKU/Barcode: 602517126558

The Who retired following their 1982 farewell tour but like Frank Sinatra's frequent retreats from the stage, it was not a permanent goodbye. Seven years later, the band -- Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle; that is, Keith Moon's replacement Kenny Jones wasn't invited back -- embarked on a reunion tour, and ever since then the band was a going concern. Perhaps not really active -- they did not tour on a regular basis, they did not record outside of a version of 'Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting' for the 1991 Elton John and Bernie Taupin tribute album Two Rooms -- but they were always around, playing tribute gigs and reviving old projects, such as a mid-'90s stab at Quadrophenia, before truly reuniting as an active touring band after the turn of the century. Just as they were reaching cruising altitude in 2002, bad luck and tragedy intervened, as Entwistle died from a heart attack on the eve of a summer tour, leaving Townshend and Daltrey the only surviving original members. Their decision to continue performing as the Who rankled some longtime fans -- many of whom thought they should have packed it in after Moon's death in 1978 -- but the ensuing tours helped them work through their grief, not only over Entwistle's death but during the fallout surrounding Pete Townshend's arrest for accessing child porn on the internet. Townshend was cleared of all charges, and throughout the turmoil of the scandal he had no stronger defender than Daltrey. According to several interviews with both men, the process brought them closer together and they began seriously talking about recording a new Who studio album -- something that had not happened since It's Hard in 1982. They tentatively dipped their toes in the water with a couple of strong new songs on the 2004 hits comp Then and Now, and two years later, they followed through with the long-promised, long-awaited Endless Wire. Opening with a synth riff that strongly recalls, if not directly quotes, the famed loop underpinning 'Baba O'Reilly,' Endless Wire often hearkens back to previous Who albums in its themes, structure, and sound. The 'Baba O'Reilly' riff pops up in 'Fragments,' the pummeling triplets of 'The Punk Meets the Godfather' resurface in 'Mike Post Theme.' Like The Who by Numbers, it has its fair share of stark acoustic introspection. Like The Who Sell Out and A Quick One, it closes with a mini-rock opera, this one called 'Wire & Glass.' This closing suite also shares a lineage with Townshend's 1993 solo album Psychoderelict, a record that's not well loved but one that is connected thematically to Lifehouse Chronicles, his often-muddled yet often-intriguing futuristic rock opera that seemed to suggest portions of a technologically saturated internet age. Such ideas bubble up throughout Endless Wire and not just on 'Wire & Glass,' yet that opera specifically shares a character with Psychoderelict in Ray High, a rock star who was the central figure in that 1993 opus and functions as a semi-autobiographical distancing device for Townshend, particularly on this record where the narrative ebbs and flows and sometimes disappears completely. Since the whole of Townshend's rock operas always were overshadowed by the strength of their individual parts -- musically and emotionally, 'Pinball Wizard,' 'Bargain,' 'Behind Blue Eyes,' 'The Real Me' and 'Love Reign O'er Me' carried as great a weight, if not greater, on their own as they did as part of a larger theme -- this is not unusual or unwelcome, because the focus turns away from the specifics of the narrative and to the merits of the songs and the Who's performances, and how they connect at a gut level. And, like much of the best of the Who's work, the best of Endless Wire does indeed connect at a gut level, even if it's in a considerably different way than it was in the past: instead of being visceral and immediate, this is musi

1. Fragments
2. A Man In A Purple Dress
3. Mike Post Theme
4. In The Ether
5. Black Widows Eyes
6. Two Thousand Years
7. God Speaks Of Marty Robbins
8. Its Not Enough
9. You Stand By Me
10. Sound Round
11. Pick Up The Peace
12. Unholy Trinity
13. Trilbys Piano
14. Endless Wire
15. Fragments Of Fragments
16. We Got A Hit
17. They Made My Dream Come True
18. Mirror Door
19. Tea & Theatre