Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
143 of 150 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE Rock Opera. Seminal Storytelling Album, August 7, 2004
Pete Townshend possibly feels a lot like David O. Selznick, the producer of the movie `Gone With The Wind' in fearing that he will only be remembered in his obituary by his creating that one work, as Townshend, like Selznick, seems to have been spending his time after completing their most important work in trying to top it.
To my mind, Townshend should have no regrets about not topping `Tommy', as it is easily one of the two or three most important albums and works in the entire Rock canon, similar in importance and possibly superior in quality to `Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' and `Blond on Blond', to name just two others high in the ranks of great Rock albums.
One thing which surprises me about writing on `Tommy' is how little deep analysis has been essayed about the story behind the songs. In a nutshell, the story is this:
Tommy Walker is born while his father is off on some journey (`It's a boy') from which he becomes several years late in returning. Tommy's mother takes up with a lover, father returns, mother and lover kill father with Tommy as a witness, and mother and lover tell Tommy he saw and heard nothing (`You didn't hear it'). Tommy becomes functionally blind, deaf, and dumb to all outside appearances, however, it is evident that within his own head, he can see and hear everything (`There's a doctor I've found'). He is tormented by various malicious relatives (`Cousin Kevin' and `Fiddle About') and `treated' by various attempts, including hallucinogens (`Acid Queen'). As he grows up, the only outside experience to which he responds is a pinball machine, at which he becomes expert (`Pinball Wizard'). Tommy is finally cured by watching his image in a mirror smashed by, I believe, his mother's lover (`Smash the Mirror'). Being released from his isolation for Tommy is like being released from a practically lifelong mystical experience heightened by pinball. The charisma with which Tommy is imbued by this experience leads him to become a `New Messiah' (`Sally Simpson') creating a movement which expands beyond local resources (`Welcome') and becomes institutionalized into a ritual modeled after playing pinball while deaf dumb and blind (`Tommy's holiday camp'). The story ends with a revolt of Tommy's disciples against his new religion (`We're not gonna take it').
The theme of being oppressed runs throughout practically all of Townshend's work, although in `Tommy', it takes a back seat to mysticism. The people who dote on the philosophical background of `The Matrix' should sink their teeth into the `Tommy' story and ruminate on that a while. The major musical theme of the work seems to be Townsend's search for a magical chord. And, anyone who, like myself, has seen `Tommy' performed live by the original Who will have no trouble believing Townsend has found his chord as he hits that first great whirlwind chord in `Pinball Wizard'. Talk about a rush! In general, a lot of the music echoes earlier Who works. Townshend seems to constantly cut and paste phrasings from one work to another and I have no problem with this except in the most tedious of the three instrumental pieces (`Underture') in the album.
Some writers have said that 'Tommy' is more like an Oratorio or a Song Cycle than it is an Opera, but I disagree. Neither of these other two genres requires a plot, and an Opera does, and Tommy has a plot. I prefer to think of it as a selection of arias and instrumental passages from which some bridging dialogue has been left out. My biggest problem with this plot is that the actual event that triggers Tommy's autism is only hinted at in the most vague of terms. It is easy to believe that it was a murder, but the lyrics of `You Didn't Hear It' never come even close to saying exactly what the event was. On the other side of the coin, the great majority of the songs on the album `Tommy' directly support carrying the story forward. Practically the only exception is the Sonny Boy Williamson classic `Eyesight to the Blind'. It is probably symptomatic that only `Pinball Wizard', `I'm Free', and `Sensation' out of the 24 cuts in `Tommy' really work for the Who outside the context of the whole work. That's why I'm especially happy to have seen The Who perform virtually the whole album live, four days after it was initially released. It is also interesting to see that the two cuts describing episodes of sadism were written by Entwistle and not Townshend.
This CD contains exactly what was on my original vinyl two record album bought in 1969, suitably enhanced with modern electronics. My greatest respect for Townshend is for creating a classic musical form, the Opera, using an entirely ROCK instrument, with the slightest classical leavening from John Entwistle's French horn on a few early numbers. So many `rock' versions of traditional forms simply overlay rock performances on classical arrangements or make classical arrangements of rock melodies. Aside from `Quadrophenia', the only other work which succeeds at doing this is Spooky Tooth/Pierre Henry work `Ceremony An Electronic Mass'.
Listening to this album and every other early Who album reminds one just how much their performances were a collaborative effort between the original four, and how much we miss Keith Moon and John Entwistle today. We can only say that with `Tommy' and numerous other works and recorded performances, the memory of The Who will live forever.
Seminal work in the history of Rock.
|
|
|
39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Improvement On a Classic, October 31, 2003
As a Who fan owning the last remaster of Tommy from '96, I was a bit hesitant about buying this reissue because I didn't know if it'd be worth the price of almost 30 bucks. I was also a bit hesitant about buying the Deluxe Edition of Who's Next previously, but was pleasantly surprised by what I heard as a bit of improvement in sound quality, plus an excellent live bonus disc. Since Tommy was issued in Super Audio (which have made some of the Rolling Stones' cds sound extraordinarily improved), I decided to go for this Deluxe Edition; I am thrilled I did.Since Tommy is a very textured album with a lot of instrumentation going on throughout most of it, the quality of the music (on my standard cd player) sounds much improved because the sounds are all seperated and are ergo much more clear. Because of the improved clarity in the sound, I find Tommy much more enjoyable than before. Tommy I feel was meant for Super Audio. The quality was outstanding on the previous remaster, but again, this new edition, to my ears, trumps the '96 edition. Even though it is minorly hilarious that Pete Townshend remastered and remixed this, despite being nearly all deaf, he has done his masterpiece well. Songs such as "Do You Think It's Alright", "The Acid Queen", "Sparks", "I'm Free" and "We're Not Gonna Take It"(finally being seperated from "See Me Feel Me" have new energy to me with the Super Audio work they've done. Granted, I accept that these Deluxe Editions are sort of a cash cow for record companies, but as long as the labels legitimately improve the records, and add some nice extras, I'm learning to accept that such upgrades aren't really risks but renew my excitement for old classics.
|
|
|
43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reason alone to buy a SACD capable player, November 16, 2003
Just get it. I have been enjoying DVD-Audio for the last year yet there were many titles I wanted in the SACD catalog so I recently purchased the Pioneer DV-563AS, a DVD player that will play back both DVD-Audio and SACD yet costs under 200.00. The Deluxe edition of Tommy simply sounds fantastic when playing the SACD 5.1 mix, the difference between it and the regular layer using a normal CD player is quite significant. Although I will admit to being prejudiced as Tommy is one of my all time favotite albums, this new version is simply superb, I am such a believer in the new high bit rate/sampling rate and 5.1 formats. It is amazing how good a near 35 year old recording can sound. Even if you don't have an SACD player this disc is very much worth getting, the stereo mix is excellent, you get a bonus disc with 17 additional tracks and the packaging is excellent, very high quality.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
![Live At Leeds [Deluxe Edition]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jFBPqRXmL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
by The Who 
