Customer Reviews

All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
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This is Townshend's best solo album (in my not so humble opinion), and it's so good that it can sit alongside several of Pete's classic Who recordings. It came out right around 1982 or so, and it's a vast improvement over The Who's It's Hard, which came out right around the same time. It's like Pete saved all his best material and passion for his solo album here. There are only one or two throwaway songs (Exquisitely Bored and Communication), but they're still good. The rest of the material is absolutely first rate. The opener, Stop Hurting People, is beautiful and majestic even, with a great synthesizer line (Townshend really knew how to use that machine. He never had any cheesy synthesizer lines). The Sea Refuses No River is a great Pete epic. I also love Stardom in Action and Uniforms, and the album's single, Slit Skirts, is a great closer to a great album. The lyrics here are some of the best that Townshend ever came up with. And the obtuse, verbose, somewhat obsfucating title is very cool too. Townshend managed to make up for the mediocrity of It's Hard here. Perhaps he was subconsciously trying to break The Who up. Who knows? Regardless, we have this great album we can enjoy over and over again....

I have nothing more to say about this album--I love it.

I swear--they took this straight off vinyl. This reissue is not off the tapes at all! There is nothing wrong with that unless you already own a few copies on vinyl and want to hear it "remastered" -- unless this album was recorded poorly or the tapes weren't taken good care of, save your money if you have the vinyl. I know cos I burned a copy straight off my vinyl before I finally found this and it sounds just like this minus noise. "remastered" my a$$!

First up audiophiles beware this album is louder than previous editions making the sound of the album a bit different. Also remastering engineer Jon Astley has remastered compressing it more than previous editions.

Should yo upgrade? Well the bonus tracks certainly make this worthwhile although it is missing stuff I would have liked to see included and the sound is crummy compared to the original CD. The hits from the album included "Face Dances" (which had an amusing MTV video)and Pete's observations about growing older in the marvelous "Slit Skirts" (another MTV video which had an extended harmonica solo which curiously is missing as a bonus track here). We now have them supplemented by the rocking "Vivienne" which was a contender for the album. "Man Watching" sounds like a glorified demo but is compelling. "Dance It Away" has a nice rocking groove.

Unlike the remaster of "Who Came First" there aren't any notes discussing the production, inspiration or reception of the album when it was released. We do get the original lyrics for all 12 of the original album tracks (and credits) but none for the bonus tracks. Compared to "Face Dances" Townshend's "ATBCHCE" is the better release with sharper songs overall and sterling production from Chris Thomas.

Overall the sound is good but it could have been great if this had received a "flat" (i.e., no compression)transfer but sounds good enough to listen to in your car stereo.

This is a good album. Probably not for the casual Pete Townshend fan or Who fan for that matter. Pete does capture some great guitar tones and some really hooky songs, and then some are just plain weird, it would be a good addition to a music fans collection

For those who only know Townsend as the guitarist/writer from the who, his solo material may at first come across as less accessible. However after a few listens most acknowledge that his solo efforts (at least the first three lps of all original music) are his best music. Empty Glass was a good transition album for Townsend, taking some the dynamics of the Who sound but focusing on his own style. ATBCHCE is an album that clearly marks his break from the Who. It is a much more mature album that Empty Glass. Each song is solid as far as the writing goes and the performances are excellent. The album has great musicians backing up Townsend and the engineering is good (I am referring to the vinyl). I remember really digging the mixture of the emotional and the intelligent in the lyrics when I first heard the lp...ahem...several years ago.

If you like good singer/songwriter albums, give this a listen, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

With all the attention Townshend's other band The Who got and still gets, it seems that much of his solo work has been both overlooked and underappreciated. I heard All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes back when it was originally released and liked it but never got around to buying it. Subsequently, I forgot all about it until I saw it recently on sale at a local big box book and music store.
The low price, the remastering, the extra tracks, and pleasant recollections made buying it easy. Am I glad I did! This is the second of a trio of pretty good albums Townshend issued in the late seventies and early eighties that for some reason never really caught on. And though its not my favorite of the three, there are some classic tracks here that are well worth hearing over and over.
As a singer, I have always preferred Townshend to Roger Daltrey anyway. His delivery is more expressive and nuanced, just perfectly suited for the material here. The bonus tracks are OK, I'm always glad to have them, but the original core of this album remains the best part. The following are the tracks that make this a keeper: Stop Hurting People, The Sea Refuses No River, Exquisitely Bored (the last two lines remain so true!), the jaunty, stirring Uniforms, and the bittersweet Slit Skirts.
If you are a Pete Townshend or Who fan who missed this when it was first issued, give this a listen. I highly recommend it!

Why is this CD almost $30 when most CD's on Amazon are around $11? I'm not paying that even though I love this album. What's going on here?

when i die this cd is going with me !
pete totally rules in this masterpiece.
every cut flows with beautiful music and lyrics.
anyone who loves this cd can easily argue what their favorite cut is.
can't hear it enough , a MUST for any quality music collector.

We'll never know how Pete Townshend's solo albums would have fared had he not served as the main songwriter of The Who. Though really an irrelevant consideration now, these same solo albums for a while lived under the shadow and expectations of his former legendary band. He once said that leaving The Who was a good move for him artistically. Given the Who's less than stellar final two releases, he seems indubitably right after some three decades. But more was going on than met the eye at the time.

The distended title of Townshend's 1982 solo album (depending on how one counts), "All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes," probably evoked double takes and may have led to suspicions that Townshend had "gone artsy." Though The Who's 1981 "Face Dances" sold well, fans still seem divided between calling it a mediocre or a brilliant album. Most would nonetheless consider it far from their best. What people thought was The Who's final album, "It's Hard," would appear later the same year, and would meet with the same mixed reaction (another Who album appeared what seemed like eons later in 2006 when half of the original band were no longer amongst the living). In fact, Townshend was dividing time between the band and his solo work, which put a strain on his musical output. Arguably, and in retrospect, The Who suffered more than his solo work. Both "Empty Glass" and "Chinese Eyes" seem to stand up better today than either of The Who's 1980s releases.

At the time, some of the more experimental tracks on "Chinese Eyes" probably confused fans of Townshend's previous and relatively rocking "Empty Glass." Critics seemed to think "Chinese Eyes" was a mash-up of styles that, though listenable, didn't quite hold together. Some didn't like the new wave influence. Now, with all of the tension around the breakup of The Who buried in history, the album can finally breathe on its own. It may even sound better today than it did in 1982.

The show opens with an experimental track, "Stop Hurting People," with Townshend half talking and half singing poetic passages about beauty and love with a sythesizer-laden background. Lines such as "My 'beauty' needs an understanding and a knowledge of what I am / Hers is enough earned thru eons; for that is what true beauty is / Time's gift to perfect humility" may still cause eyeballs to roll today, but this song, though fine, is arguably the album's weakest. Just wait.

Things pick up considerably with the classic Townshend ballad "The Sea Refuses No River." Wailing harmonica, some incredible lyrics, hooks and crescendos make this an unforgettable track. Maybe lyrics such as "But now I'm like a sewer channel running lime and scag" kept it off the charts? Townshend had always put a personal touch to his lyrics, and this album continues, and maybe emphasizes, that trend. "Slit Skirts," one of his best solo compositions and the album's amazing closer, addresses the listener directly and seems to relate a general autobiographical confusion with humankind: "I was just thirty-four years old and I was still wandering in a haze I was wondering why everyone I met seemed like they were Lost in a maze." Here's yet another song that should have climbed the 1980s charts but didn't. Hints of the Who burst forth in the driving "Stardom In Acton" (often misprinted as "Stardom in Action"), perhaps to emphasize the song's satire on fame and Townshend's drifting from the band.

"Face Dances, Pt. 2" provides a bit of a puzzle since the Who album (presumably Part 1?) didn't appear for some two to three months after the release of "Chinese Eyes." It turns out that Townshend wrote "Part 2" after the Who's album was written and recorded, hence the "Part 2" and the confusion. Regardless, it remains one of the album's strongest and quirkiest songs. The video, which seemed almost sci-fi at the time, featured creepy robotic faces lip synching the words (similar to those in Herbie Hancock's 1983 "Rockit" video).

Other notable songs pour forth from the track listing, the ebullient and self-explanatory "Communication," "Exquisitely Bored" about the paradox in the "California lifestyle" and "Somebody Saved Me" in which the narrator (presumably Townshend himself, who was going through a rough time personally) gets saved from nightmare relationships: "Somebody saved me from a fate worse than heaven." And though some riffs of "Uniform" now sound right off a cheap Casio keyboard, the song eloquently presents the tension between conformity and uniformity. Really, a solid album. Only "Stop Hurting People" even comes close to wavering on the so-so fence.

As we all know now, The Who kept touring but stopped recording original material until 2006 while Townshend's solo career continued nearly unabated. His later solo work seemed to build more on "Chinese Eyes" than on "Empty Glass" and would continue in new directions that not everyone would appreciate, especially when compared to the legend of The Who. Townshend seemed unfazed and went forward in his own direction anyway. "Chinese Eyes" now seems like a turning point in his career, when his solo work began to trump his famous and very profitable band. Some thirty years later the incredible music matters most.

In 1981, John Entwistle expressed his disillusion at the overemphasis on keyboards and synthesizers on the Face Dances album stating, "We tended to use the keyboard whether the song needed it or not. The guitar was the instrument that suffered." While synthesizers and keyboards serve an equal presence on All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (most notably on "Uniforms (Corp d'esprit)"--my personal favorite on the entire record), Townshend experiences with the semi-successful overlap of recited poetry and background band-style music. While this approach does not work so well on the opening "Stop Hurting People", on the other hand "The Sea Refuses No River" is a Townshend classic from beginning to end! "Prelude" predates the melody of "One Life's Enough" from The Who's ensuing album, It's Hard--also produced in 1982, a few months after ATBCHCE. "Face Dances, Part II" is a real charmer; interesting how and why Pete chose it for himself and not The Who. "Exquisitely Bored" does the dark poetry and musical background justice, while "Communication" rocks out most charmingly! "Stardom In Acton" alludes to "I've Known No War" from It's Hard, with its own specialties. "Uniforms" and "North Country Girl" (the latter of which was not penned by Pete) are back-to-back gems with brilliantly blended music and lyrics. "Somebody Saved Me" rescued itself musically from the rather drab version included in the bonus tracks from the reissued Face Dances. As for "Slit Skirts", it's a good closing to the original album, though not one of my own favorites on the record. The three bonus tracks are quite impressive. It was great that Pete and the record company added previously unreleased material to make for a total of 14 original tracks on the reissued CD.
All in all, well worth the purchase and repeated listening. You know the drill with Pete Townshend--gather your wits and hold on fast, your mind must learn to roam. You may as well start with the album's title. How can you beat a metaphor like that?