1975 will see a single of the famous rock band The Who. In this single called "Squeeze Box" is a simple song with country-Touch, the refrain of which was loosely translated: 'Mommy's got a squeeze box, Dad can sleep at night never'. My then 16-year-old I can this song from the beginning, do not suffer, and so I'm interested in the album The Who By Numbers not of origin of the song.
Many years later I get the vinyl record collection of a friend paid. Among his records there is also The Who By Numbers, which I put on the shelf and forget unheard.
Once again many years later I sort a gazillion decades of collected magazines, but not without first cut out the best articles and record reviews. And I also find quite a bit of material to, yes, you guessed it: The Who By Numbers, which I find oddly pretty interesting. So I fish during my activities the LP off the shelf, put it on, listen to the plate literally for the first time - and find them so well that I even the remastered version downloading me a few days later.
The Who from London were at the same time with the Beatles about to become the Stones and the Kinks fame. Until 1969 they shone mainly by countless hit singles before they managed with the elaborate concept double album TOMMY breakthrough for 'serious' rock band with claim. Your songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend then planned an even larger work called LIFEHOUSE, but it fell through and ultimately with the highly successful song collection WHO'S NEXT (1971) ended up being simple LP. 1973 Townshend made with the new double album Who QUADROPHENIA its reputation as a genius mind all the glory.
Tommy was the story (s) of a tormented childhood, QUADROPHENIA the (s) of a wild youth, The Who By Numbers that of a 30-year-old disillusioned and drug- and alcohol-dependent rock stars at the edge of exhaustion - and thus virtually the last third of an impressive trilogy ,
'I wrote the songs totally stoned in my living room and cried my eyes out while the head, estranged from my work and of the whole project The Who. I felt empty ', Townshend confessed later. There to his credit, that while still an overall very solid album was born with some really great titles.
"How Many Friends" the first thing, a fantastic number with a sad refrain: 'How many friends have I really got? / You can count 'em on one hand / How many friends have I really got? / That love me, did want me, that'll take me as I am? '.
Here, as in one, two other songs on the album, Townshend made his ambivalent sexuality on without that time anyone cared about: 'I'm feelin' so good right now / There's a handsome boy tells me how I changed His past / He buys me a brandy / but could it be he's really just after my ass? / Being He likes the clothes I wear / He says he likes a man who's dressed in season / But no-one else ever stares, he's so kind / What's the reason? '.
The great opener "Slip Kid" (slightly proggy) which drinkers confession "however much I Booze" ('How much do I always booze'), the cheerfully sounding, nevertheless deeply sad lumbar Dramolett "From the Waist Down" with his unforgettable ' I'm dreaming' bridges, the magnificent (and in turn immensely sad) ballad "Imagine a Man" and "They Are All in Love" - oh, so many wonderful songs!
Great produced by Glyn Johns (Steve Miller Band, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Eric Clapton and many others) led the quartet, amplified by the pianist and longtime Stones Sidekick Nicky Hopkins, here a remarkable ensemble performance from. And that was absolutely not self-evident, because Pete Townshend fought, as mentioned, violently with himself; the mistaken, but still brilliant drummer Keith Moon also walked on the road to self-destruction, the proletarian lead singer Roger Daltrey ('If I had not become a rock singer, I would have become factory workers or ended up in jail') had long been a successful solo career started and was with the self-referential texts of his intellectual reflection Parts Townshend little or not at all identify, and bassist John Entwistle appeared to be disgusted by his existence as a nouveau riche Rockstar so that he made fun in his song "Success Story" about themselves and to was shoot a video, in which he took a few gold records from the walls of his living room in his huge luxury villa in the garden and they gleefully destroyed out with ax and gun.
But even then they did still continue. 'It was mainly my fault that The Who continued to work, even though the band was long at the end,' said Pete Townshend 1994. 'The work of WHO ARE YOU (the last album with Keith Moon, who died in 1978 coinciding with the publication) was painful and cruel '.
1975, however, they delivered with The Who By Numbers from one last great album that in England (No. 7) and the USA (8th place) was also highly successful. In this country it came, however, at a mega flop, even though the record company Polydor made a lot of advertising for it. So raffled a German youth magazine on the occasion of the publication of a destroyed electric guitar of Pete Townshend, signed drumsticks from Keith Moon, an autographed tambourine by John Entwistle, a harmonica by Roger Daltrey, twelve signed The Who T-shirts and twenty LPs THE WHO BY NUMBERS. It was no use.
'I see myself on TV, I'm a faker, a paper clown / It's clear to all my friends That I habitually lie, I just bring them down' (The Who, "however much I Booze").
I love this record. Despite "Squeeze Box", which, incidentally, comes as a live bonus track of the remastered edition rocking a lot.
