THE WHO: Tommy vs Quadrophenia

Man ! You just had to leave the BOTH option off, didn't you.

So be it !

I'm all in on Quadrophenia.

Much more relatable in content and music in my opinion. Plus, the background effects, like the sea, the tea kettle and the TV are simply sublime.

I keep thinking that time has not been kind to "Tommy" ... specially with a movie on it that makes the whole thing seem stupid and overblown ... and bizarre. By comparison, "Quadrophenia" seems more controlled and complete and stands up much better from beginning to the end. As much as I liked "Tommy", and got the album almost immediately, the years have not been kind to it, and that film, pretty much ruins the whole thing for me. Heck, at least Roger Ruskin Spears' take on Pinball Wizard is a compliment, compared to what ended up in the movie.

It's not exactly a surprise, since Ken Russell had (by that time) done many films about music and a few artists, and all in all? ... it followed the standard those days about rock music, not being serious music!

Now you know what Frank Zappa and many others were fighting ... but I think the film helped ruin the "psychedelic" days, and the whole "scene" of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Made the media happy ... putting down another rock this or that to ensure the 60's died with a severe thrashing.

Hi,

Very true, since just using the term rock opera made a lot of folks go .... what? .... no way. Hearing it THEN, I never thought of it as a rock opera at all ... and it would have helped make it a more important work if The Who, had toured the whole thing, instead of just doing parts of it. With a properly designed stage, this could have been done well, and make Genesis look silly years later! I always thought they obviously did not think much of their rock opera, except the idea of making rock/pop folks think that this was better and more important.

I don't find it as good an "opera" these days, but I will accept it as a "concept" album.