The Who Album: “Who Are You”

Who Are You was the final album made by the original Who quartet. The album is the least consistent of the original lineup's career, but the high quality of several of the songs make up for the lackluster ones. The title track as legend would have it was inspired by a situation where a drunken Pete Townshend got into a fight with some punks and they uttered the line who the f*** are you to him. The song is an instant classic with it's pulsating beat and first rate vocal performance by Roger Daltry. "New Song" is a catchy song about artists recycling their material and "Sister Disco" is a strong rocker in a "Baba O'Reilly" vein. Other songs like "Guitar & The Pen", "Trick Of The Light" & "Music Must Change" fall short. The reissue contains some nice outtakes including an early version of "Empty Glass" and a version of the title track with a lost verse. Sadly, Keith Moon would pass away shortly after the album's release thus extinguishing one of the brightest drumming flames in rock history and ending one of the greatest bands of all-time. The Who would go on, but without Keith Moon, they were never the same.

Who Are You (1978.), the Who's eighth studio album

'Who Are You' by far gets the most unfair treatment of all of the Who works. Why it does so always perplexes me - I get sick and tired of seeing this album get called 'a failed attempt'. I'll say first though, that this is not at the levels of 'Who's Next' or the Who's live masterpiece, 'Live at Leeds', but it is a solid, sometimes catchy effort which sees the Who at their most personal and expressive. The fact this album is so revealing in its style and lyrics is probably the reason why many people like to bash this album about and give it a hard time. With this album you are getting a much different perspective of the Who. Gone are the days of the Who singing anthems on a 'Teenage Wasteland' theme but now, with 'Who are You' and the previous album, 'The Who By Numbers' we see a pouring of emotion based around the troubles of mid-life. At the centre of this transition is Townshend, who by this stage was getting pissed of with life in general. Going through very much a mid-life crisis, Townshend was determined to keep the Who up to date, against the tide of up an coming punk rockers who were emerging at the time - as a result with this album, the songs he wrote try to consolidate the punk ethos with the Who's normal rock R+B style and I would not say that it is a totally failed attempt at that either.

However, Townshend and the Who at the time were not in the greatest shape. Townshend had a drink and drugs problem and this was taking its toll on him and the band. The 'Who Are You' studio album took more than 6 months to record - with Townshend often sporadically turning up to recording sessions. Keith Moon was also not faring in the greatest fashion. His weight had increased dramatically since the last album was released in 1975 and the greatest drummer of all times work in this album are very much more low key and in some parts slightly sloppy - a mile away from the breathtaking stuff we witness in 'Who's Next' and countless other earlier Who albums. Furthermore, this was to be the last album on which Keith Moon played drums, as he died of an overdose on a prescription drug two weeks after 'Who Are You' was released. In many respects, this makes the front cover of the album extremely ironic as Moon, pictured with the rest of the band, is sat on a seat which says on the back of it 'Not to be taken away' - was this some kind of premonition with the album. That aside, you can therefore see the problems which were centred around the making of this album - in fact, it was a blessing that John Entwhistle was the only one who held the whole thing together - he went to every recording session and when the others didn't turn up would just practise his baselines. The often abrupt absense of Townshend also allowed a bit more of a contribution from the Ox, in this album, he contributes 3 songs as opposed to his usual allowance of 1 on previous albums.

So who do the songs on this the last album with the full Who line up we all know fare. I personally do not dislike any of the songs on the album, true some are unspectacular but there is nothing that marrs the work's overall standing, even if it isn't a classic. I quite like the very much 'I'm through with life' attitude of the album, this is not to everyones taste I suppose, but then I can be a bit of a pessimist.

The whole thing kicks off with 'New Song' a great track with that classic Who beat to it and a catchy riff. 'Had Enough' follows this, a John Entwhistle with very much negative lyrics but it works well with the keyboard backing and heavy baseline. Daltrey's vocals are very good here and actually stand out an awful lot on this album, purely because we see much less singing from Townshend and Entwhistle - he certainly shows why he is one of the great rock voaclists on this album. '905' is an intersting track, again by John Entwhistle with a theme about a test-tube baby. 'Sister Disco', 'Music Must Change' and 'Trick of the Light' are all good tracks, though they will never give you the urge to get up and press the repeat button to replay them. 'Guitar and Pen' is very much a Townshend work, with lyrics relevant to what he was going through in life at time. 'Love is Coming Down' is a very good track, a slower beat which works very well. 'Who Are You' the album title track is though an excellent finish to the album, a song well deserving of a place on any Who 'best of' album - Daltrey's vocals are again particularly powerful on this track as he sings, this time about the aftermath of Townshend's encounter with the Sex Pistols. These were the 9 original album tracks. 'No Road Romance' and 'Empty Glass' are both good extras as do the welcome remixes of the last 3 tracks on the original album.

A solid effort overall with some good material which works very well in context of where the Who were going at the time. This album does not deserve a lot of the criticism it gets. 'Who Are You' proved actually to be a good success in the UK, reaching #6 but in the US it did phenominally well, reaching #2 (partly due to a massive sales increase after Moon's death). It would have gone to #1 any other time, but Grease was out at the time and prevented it reaching the top slot.

This is no ultra definitive Who album but is certainly a work any person who is really starting to enjoy listening to the Who should invest in as it is another capture of the band's colourful career.

Add "Guitar & Pen" to the list of songs, which includes "Who Are You," that appears in a different version from its original. Fans who've never heard the original LP of "Who Are You" may not care that "G&P" and "Music Must Change" are remixed differently, but some of us do, and my question is "Why! " It's tough enough to find the original "naughty lyric" version of the title cut in its entirety, and the "box set" has been rightly criticized for butchering and rearranging classic Who cuts.

The songs are certainly below the par of "Who's Next" or "Quadrophenia," but they hold together pretty well. Why Entwistle gets 3 cuts (none of which are that great) is a mystery, but it may indicate that Townshend was in the midst of a block and/or was holding back some goodies for his solo album. Too bad the boys didn't join together as a band and make this as listenable as it could've been. Consider it the Who's equivalent of Led Zeppelin's "In Through the Out Door."

The recent remastering of the Who CDs for the most part I think has been done well, and I'm glad to see the live and unreleased tracks getting to the light of day. I just wish there were more of this from the back catalog, than the constant reissuing of the "Greatest Hits."

Oh, well I digress.

The Who were at a pivotal time as they regrouped for what would become the "Who Are You" album. For the most part, they were hitting on three cylinders, as Keith Moon returned from LA, overweight, out of shape and out of practice.

His problems were well-documented by many, but his weren't the only ones. Studio problems, injuries to Townshend and "Rabbit" Bundrick, a fight between Daltrey and producer Glyn Johns and a bunch more marred and slowed the work. Eventually Johns left and Jon Astley took over producing the album.

Moon got the ship righted and the result is an album that paid homage to rock, but also noted the punk explosion, with the Who trying to find a space amidst that and disco.

"New Song" cuts right to the chase at the beginning, Townshend's clever track talking about the treadmill he and band were on (he felt). "Sister Disco" thunders along, and the 6/8 timed "Music Must Change" is a textural dream, with some nice guitar work from Pete. Keith couldn't handle the drumming for this, but added good minimal cymbal and percussion.

John Entwistle continued with strong bass work, and three songs, "905," "Guitar and Pen" and "Trick of the Light." All good, and there's a different version of the second on the remaster.

Daltrey was consistantly strong, especially on the title track, and really all the way through.

The swan song for Moon was a decent one, and the band showed that even at their dark periods, they could still get it together.

This album is flat out UNDERRATED. Every track on here is brilliance. I'm a hardcore Who fan. I love Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia... And this album is right up there with them. "No Road Romance" and "Empty Glass", the two previously unreleased tracks, are reason enough to buy this album. I don't see why they didn't release them... They would of been sure classics.

This is an ESSENTIAL rock album.

"I know there's a place you walk where love falls from the trees..."