The Who  - Tommy

The Who: Tommy (Part 1)

Album #99 - May 1969

Episode date - December 13, 2017

The Top 500 of The Top 40
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    Few albums caused as much of a sensation – as well as consternation – as The Who’s “Tommy”.

    The idea of creating a ‘rock opera’ was a new concept, and critics tripped over themselves in their attempts to take this as seriously as the word  ‘opera’ implied. What was overlooked, though, was that the story itself made very little sense, and the album’s pacing was almost ludicrously lopsided, with half of the storyline taking place in the first five or six minutes.

    Pete Townshend already displayed his penchant for conceptualism, having already written a mini-storyboard song with “A Quick One While He’s Away” and the commercially themed album ”The Who Sell Out.” “Tommy” was simply an enlargement of his proclivity to work within a theme, and it became a method that applied to almost all of Townshend’s future projects, including “Quadrophenia”, “Lifehouse”, “Iron Man” and many, many others.

    This show covers Part One of “Tommy”. Next week we will cover Part Two.

    Songs featured inthis show:

    Overature

    It's a Boy

    1921

    Amazing Journey

    Sparks

    The Hawker

    Christmas

    Cousin Kevin

    The Acid Queen

    Underture

    May 1969  - Billboard Charted #4

     

               

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