CD Reviews

The Who | Quadrophenia: The Director's Cut

UMC (2011)

By ZETH LUNDY | November 22, 2011

3.0 Stars

Pete Townshend's working demos for the Who have long been sought in bootleg circles, often for the simple reason that the songwriter's vulnerable vocals offer relief from the barbaric yawp of lead singer Roger Daltrey. This new reissue of the band's 1973 masterpiece — a more confident "rock opera" than its famous predecessor, Tommy — offers up oodles of killer solo Pete, but the exact amount of Pete depends on how much you're willing to spend. On the basic two-disc version, there's eight demo versions of album tracks, including a lo-fi funk take on "The Real Me." (The Who's rhythm section, meanwhile, wasn't exactly known for its loose, funky playing.) If you're willing to shell out $130 for the "super deluxe edition" (4 CDs, 1DVD, 7-inch single, and big book — a fittingly operatic experience, perhaps), you can have 25 demo tracks, featuring songs that didn't make it onto the original release. Highlights include the power-pop nugget "Joker James" and the airy "Get Inside," which forecasts Townshend's immediate post-Who output. The album itself — melodically inventive, melodramatic, and incredibly rocking — sounds about the same as it did when it was first reissued in the '90s.

Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008
Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.
Various Artists | Where the Action Is: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965 - 1968
More than three years in the making, the most recent installment of Rhino's legendary archival garage-rock series offers an amazingly comprehensive excavation of an absurdly fertile scene.
Various Artists | Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966–1970
Girl-group records are great and everything, yet the countless compilations out there were becoming a little hit-or-miss until 2005, when the great Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found box set finally gave this diverse genre a proper taxonomy.
Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010
The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.
Bearstronaut | Broken Handclaps
There's a distinct absence of wildlife or astronauts on Lowell electronica quartet Bearstronaut's latest release.
Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo
Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.
Review: Brandon Flowers | Flamingo
Brandon Flowers has gone on record saying he brought the songs on Flamingo to his fellow bandmates for the next Killers album and was given the brush-off.
Review: Kevin Dunn | No Great Lost: Songs 1979–1985
Casa Nueva Industries (2010)
Review: Crocodiles | Sleep Forever
With remarkable swiftness, Crocodiles tick off all the key characteristics of a band in the thriving lo-fi indie/punk/garage scene.
Review: Teengirl Fantasy | 7AM
If the demise of traditional record making is designed to foster any band’s fruitful existence, it’s that of Teengirl Fantasy.
Review: Screaming Females | Castle Talk
Screaming Females are one of those rare examples of a band who fester so long in the dark — in this case, the teeming basements of New Brunswick, New Jersey — that they sour into something great by the time anyone’s heard of them.
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Topics: CD Reviews , Music, The Who, The Who, More

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