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Click on this link that'll take you back to the main Who page ... unless you think it's hard ... It's Hard Not to Suck When You're Old
Overall Album Score: 6.1 out of 10 Even bands as mighty as The Who prove that they are susceptible to faltering big time. The general disinterest from Pete Townshend in continuing to stay with the band seems to show here in great form ... these are easily the worst set of songs to appear in a Who album EVER. There are only three good-to-excellent songs in here that have anything that's particularly worth taking away with you. "Athena" is a fairly strong album opener ... "It's Hard" only got a score of an eight, but it's enjoyable nevertheless ... and, easily the best song is "Eminence Front," which more resembles a Security Peter Gabriel ditty than anything else ... but that's a good thing! I gave "Eminence Front" a 10! It's pretty goooooood!!!! Every song on this album except for "Eminence Front" just sounds like The Who trying to write songs of their former glory. For all I know, these songs were discarded songs scrapped from Tommy and Who's Next and Quadrophenia ... but they probably weren't. I somehow doubt that Townshend could have written them that terribly during his peak. He probably only did these, because they were easy. Nevertheless, when it comes right down to it, these are some pretty weird songs. They might not be any good, but at least they're weird. (And Entwistle pens three of these songs ... all of which are bland and pretty awful ...) Even though the songwriting is terrible, I will say a few good things about this. The band's still awesome. Daltry can still sing, and the band can still play their instruments. Unfortunately, their spirit wasn't enough in it. And with this material, there's no reason to expect otherwise. Unfortunately, this great band had to leave on this sour note. As the last Who studio album, this has been a huge letdown. Overall Album Score: 6.1 out of 10 (Yeah, this album is pretty much as bad as everyone tells you it is. Three good songs amidst nine doodie ones.) Average Song Score: 6.2 ("Athena" and "Eminence Front" are both good songs ... "It's Hard" isn't bad ... the rest are just mediocre Entwistle compositions or total bombs.) Album Tilt: 6.0 (Oh, I suppose I will say something nice about this band here. Of all the albums whose 'Average Song Score' came out to be so low, they've rarely fallen as gracefully flat as The Who seem to do.) Artist Rating: 6.0 (This is terrible considering what this band is capable of ... even an album ago! But this thing does seem to show evidence that Townshend was at least one time genuinely interested in this ... he gave up in the end, though, and only really delivered two good moments.) Track Reviews Athena 9/10 Well, freckle my butt! This is a good song! ... From what I read about this album, I thought every single song on It's Hard would be total crap. Well, this song isn't crap! (Most of the other ones are, but ... we will always have Athena.) Indeed, other than this not being as good as, oh say "Baba O'Reilly," I can't really find much to dislike about it. It has a good central melody (albeit, it's pretty much just two good musical ideas repeated a lot ... and then a sort of turgid part in the middle). It's not perfect, but it's enjoyable enough. It's Your Turn 6/10 ...Okay... now I can see where all those critics were coming from ... This song certainly seems to be in the form of something from Tommy, but there's not really much of a melody at its base. Without a melody, the song is only a big fat nothing! (I guess it's not a huge surprise that this composition was written by Entwistle.) Cook's Country 4/10 Now this truly is dismal. Townshend seems to be trying to put a few interesting musical ideas in this song, but the only problem is that none of the ideas are particularly interesting! The melody is non-existent and the whole thing really isn't even listenable. It's Hard 8/10 Not really that bad ... I like this song, but the melody really isn't that great. Who is that singing? Is that Daltry? ... Townshend? ... Not a great vocal performance here, anyway. I like those synth chords in the background more than anything ... surprisingly. Dangerous 6/10 Man ... I wish Entwistle would quit trying to write songs ... and/or the rest of the band refraining from telling him that his songs suck. AGAIN, the general lack of good melody makes this one a big fat NOTHING. Eminence Front 10/10 Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... sexy! You know, I was feeling a little bit down from this album until those nice, xylophone-ish synths of this song started to rapidly play ... and then a fun dance beat struck up ....... and then some great electric guitar noodling by THE MASTER. And then, soon enough, Roger Daltrey's perfect voice starts to sing something. ... This is more of an 80s pop song cum Peter Gabriel and NOT a classic Who rehash, but this thing remains AWESOME. Ohhhh ... I wish this song would last forever (or at least until the rest of the album). I've Known No War 7/10 "Eminence Front" was the second-longest song on the album. The only one longer is this ... big stupid piece of DOO DOO!!!!!!! ... Actually, it's not sooooooo terrible. The melody is ... ummmm ... weak, but it has one just the same. The song seems choppy and sloppy, though. The drumming is terrible. One Life's Enough 3/10 ...Apparently one good song's enough! ... Or two ... There have been two good songs in this album this far. ... "One Life's Enough" is a really BORING sort of ballad thing with no melody whatsoever. Really disappointing. One At a Time 6/10 The opening horn-section thing on this song is SUPER annoying. The quick-paced hard rock song that follows, however, isn't too terrible. Sung with confidence by Daltry and technically played well, I guess ... but this song as a whole just seems too sloppy and spiritless to me in spite of its big front. (ENTWISTLE QUIT WRITING SONGS!!! AT LEAST TOWNSHEND'S CRAP SONGS FALL FLAT ON THEIR FACES IN A WEIRD MANNER!!!!!!) Why Did I Fall For That 4.5/10
v*BARFFFFF!!!!!* This song sounds like it ought to be a great Who song ... but ...
Whoah. I just typed a bunch of I's there. I'm sorry about that. ... Where I was getting at (I think) was that the song has really no melody. NO MELODY. ... It THINKS it has a melody, but I also think I have breasts. A Man is a Man 5/10 ...Should we award Townshend with the philosophical statement of the year for this song title? Oh man!!!! What happened to these guys???? They used to be great! They used to BEEE something!!!! This song is just bleeding terrible. The melody stinks and ... OIHNOEINRHEOEIRNGOEIRNONIOIOIOINOINOINOINOIN... Oh, I don't really think I have breasts. Forget I typed that. Cry If You Want 6/10 Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!! I know that we have Tommy and Who's Next and Quadrophenia and The Who Sell Out and My Generation and A Quick One to go back to, but I WANT SOME MORE CLASSIC WHO DAGNABIT!!!!!!!!! ... WRITE BETTER SONGS!!!!!!! FORINEIHNEROIN!!!!!!!! I FEEL SO SAD!!!!!!! ... What is with this song, anyway? The melody, while improved compared to the previous bunch of songs, it still sucks. The military drumming is truly detestable. And ... I don't like this ... See my breasts here! |
All reviews are copyrighted by Michael Lawrence. He doesn't want anything to do with the Michael Jackson groupies.
