QUADROPHENIA

Being their proggiest release, it should be no surprise that Quadrophenia is the most popular Who album on ProgArchives. The symphonic structure of many tracks obviously does the trick, and indeed Quadrophenia is a very well constructed suite, at least from a solely musical point of view. The album as a whole feels like a cohesive musical journey, and it may be one of their strongest efforts in that respect.

However, an album is the sum of all its parts, and - unfortunately for a concept album - the concept just isn't very interesting. For one thing, the story is set in the mid 60's mod culture in Britain, and that harmonizes very badly with the synth-driven and symphonic nature of the music. In fact, the only mod-like sound is the short glimpse of "The Kids Are Alright" at the beginning of "Is It In My Head?". Moreover, the story itself is a rather banal piece of social realism: Jimmy is the stereotype mod kid who tries to balance himself between the social norms of his parents and the group pressure of the mod environment. As I have never been a mod myself, and as I have never truly been able to relate to the macho ideals of such cultures, I can not really identify with the story, but of course this is a highly personal and subjective thing. Others might have different experiences.

Once you are familiar with the story, there is not much left to uncover. This is especially sad, because the concept of Tommy was much more universal, and it was more open to interpretation. I still uncover layers in Tommy, but I have never had that experience with Quadrophenia.

One aspect of the concept, however, is very strong, and that is the idea of Jimmy's four-sided personality (hence the album title), each side reflecting the personality of the four members of The Who. They each have their own theme: Roger Daltrey as the tough guy ("Helpless Dancer"), John Entwistle as the quiet romantic guy ("Is It Me For A Moment?"), Keith Moon as the lunatic ("Bell Boy"), and Pete Townshend as a self-declared hypocrite ("Love Reign O'er Me"). The themes each pop up on several occasions during the album, like Wagnerian "leitmotifs", and, with the exception of "Is It Me?", they all have their own song.

And this leads me to the music itself which is by far the strongest part of the album. The symphonic element is of course very dominant, for instance in the instrumental tracks "Quadrophenia" and "The Rock" (both containing variations of the four themes), as well as in a song like "Doctor Jimmy", but overall there is a fine balance between these complex compositions and some more straight forward tracks like "I'm One", "Is It In My Head?" or "Cut My Hair". The tracks I enjoy the most are often the more emotionally intense ones. These include the two instrumentals as well as "I'm One", "The Punk and the Godfather" and especially "Is It In My Head?" - the latter is probably my favourite song on the album, especially as it also has a romantic sentiment to it.

Overall I think I enjoy The Who's 1960's recordings better. After Tommy, they moved towards stadium rock, and their sound became heavier. Whether one likes that or not, is of course a matter of taste, but I always felt that their 60's sound was a bit more subtle - the combination between, on one side, the aggressive playing, and on the other side a pop sensibility in the compositions, is a fascinating one, and that aspect somehow faded away as they turned the amps up to 11 and Daltrey became a hard rock screamer. Thus, I often find his singing rather tiresome, especially in the more macho-driven numbers, for instance "The Real Me", "Helpless Dancer", "5:15" and "Doctor Jimmy". The playing on the album is, as always, excellent, and for instance I think there's a lot of poetry in Keith Moon's drumming - he is not just showing off, he is actually communicating through his drums. And then of course there is a very creative use of synthesizers, even though they can become a bit too bombastic at times.

All in all, Quadrophenia is a strong album, at least musically, but it is not one that truly grips me anymore. I was crazy about it, when I first heard it as a teenager, but in recent years I have found myself listening to it less and less - whereas Tommy continues to fascinate me. I will give Quadrophenia 3,5 stars for its musical brilliance, but the other aspects prevent me from giving it a full house.