As stated in the above post, the early 80's weren't a great period for The Who and it really shows in this album. They were being held together by Roger and John, with Pete wishing to leave to continue his flourishing solo career. Perhaps most of the blame for this album can be put at their door for forcing him to stay, as this is definitely The Who's worst studio album. The cover almost seems to promise something new and futuristic, but with nods to the past as shown by the funky 80's lettering and the boy playing pinball in the background. In fact what we get can best be describes as a mess. There is the occasionally bright spot - the title song isn't too bad and 'I've Seen No War's is a decent enough effort. The rest is pretty much uniformly rubbish. John Entwistle has clearly lost his songwriting techniques by this point, giving us three lumpy, melody-less songs while the main single 'Athena' doesn't sound like The Who or any other rock band at all. The best song by a country mile also fails to sound like a Who song too, in that it's quite clearly a Pete Townshend solo effort. He even sings 'Eminence Front' but at least it has a pretty cool keyboard introduction and interesting beat, leaving it head and shoulders above anything else. Best Song: 'Eminence Front'- It may be a Pete solo effort but at least it sounds good. Great beat.
I'm Will an 18 year old archaeology student at Durham University. I have a particular interest in the wonderful world of Doctor Who as well as science fiction, fantasy and geekdom in general.
