The Who – My Generation (1965) UK Album Review

The album’s cover

The Who captured the dirty garage rock/proto-punk sound with their first Pete Townshend written single, “I Can’t Explain”. Not to be out done by himself, Townshend got to work on another teenage-expression rocker. “My Generation” followed. It was a big hit that still rings strong today and the band’s first LP followed. Some bands, due to lack of artistic freedom or lack of confidence in their own songs, make albums with a lot of covers. Someone must’ve believed in Townshend, because My Generation consists of eight Pete-written originals, three covers, and one improvised jam essentially written by the band.

Ignoring the few better known tracks and hidden gems, much of the album feels like they’re covers. Tracks like “The Good’s Gone” and “Much Too Much” have a generic feeling to them. Singer Roger Daltrey and to a lesser extent the band don’t seem to have their hearts here. Maybe they didn’t have that long to rehearse? Actual covers like “Please, Please, Please” and “I’m a Man” feature Daltrey going past breaking point in a misguided attempt to capture the magnificent controlled madness of James Brown and Bo Diddley respectively. He wails like he hasn’t done it before. At his worst, Daltrey is a good enough singer, but he is much better when staying in his own lane.

A few tracks seem designed to follow the footsteps of “I Can’t Explain” and “My Generation”, very heavy-for-the-time tracks with a sense of teenage angst. “Out in the Streets”, “It’s Not True”, and “The Kids Are Alright” have tasty guitar solos and a hard rocking rhythm. Drummer Keith Moon isn’t left without anything to do. Soaring backing vocals and up-tempo energy make these tracks a delight, though also expected. Of course they’d do more songs like these ones. “The Kids Are Alright” does step from that formula a bit with a power-pop and somewhat more lighthearted sound. It drops the proto-punk edge for a more chilled vibe to great effect. It’s a comedic romp about teenage experiences. This would be refined more on later tracks, though this style is present in a lesser extent on Explain and Generation.

“A Legal Matter” is the closest thing here to a ballad. It’s a little more cooled and features the less sultry voice of guitarist Pete Townshend on lead vocals. While it feels like filler, it’s still a nice song with a really good guitar riff at the end. “The Ox” is a track named after bassist John Entwistle, though the bass is not very prominent on the track. The song is a jam session between Entwistle, Moon, Townshend, and session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins. Townshend and Hopkins get their little moments and solos, though the more in-your-face instrument is the drums. There’s such a high energy and movement here that it’s impossible not to love this cut. It feels like it’s constantly trying to impress you and the quartet does so effortlessly. Hopkins has great interplay with Moon and you’d think he was part of the band if you didn’t know better. Ending an album with an instrumental can sometimes seem overly flashy but here it’s done to great effect. This band wants to prove it can rock and that is demonstrated as the record fades out.

That being said, there is one track that forwards the aggression and high muster of “The Ox” even further than “The Ox”. “My Generation” is one of the quintessential rock songs of all time for good reason. The anger and frustration of being a young person is communicated through the various instruments and lyrics. Moon’s high energy is constantly at work with the thrashing bass and guitar as Daltrey despairs on how “people try to put us down”. The lack of confidence in a teenager comes through with his stutter, adding a cool effect to the performance in the process. Townshend and Entwistle’s backing vocals blend well with Daltrey to make an amusing harmony to such a raucous track. The lyrics are soaked in the internal dread of the singer, typified by lines like, “Things they do look awful cold”, “Why don’t you all fade away”, and the famous, “I hope I die before I get old”. The track reaches a crescendo where the instruments begin bashing as hard as they can before boiling over and the song ends. Those in the 60s might find it hard to believe that this song could be out done. It ultimately was with the punk movement that formed around ten years later. The album should’ve ended with “My Generation” and the others tracks moved up in the line.

OVERVIEW

None of the tracks here are even close to bad. While some of it is filler, they still pack a strong rock spirit and very strong playing from this tribe of misfits. The quaintness can turn off some, but even they can’t turn away from the highlights. My personal favorites are, “The Kids Are Alright”, “It’s Not True”, “The Ox”, and of course, “My Generation”.

Colin Blunstone – Is Neil McArthur (1971) Album Edit (Take 2)

For those not in the know, fan albums are the attempts of me and many others to take songs and put them on an album, typically they’re made to improve upon something, such as an existing album or to take non-album tracks and put them on an album.

This album is the last Zombies-related album I wanted to work on. It’s the eighth fan one I did. It’s weird to be done with this project, though one could say I’m done with this stretch of it. It’s not exactly the end as I could make more, but my interests are elsewhere. My goal for this project was to take two box sets and make them redundant. Zombie Heaven at the time had most or all of the known Zombies content and Into The Afterlife had stuff made by the members after The Zombies, but before their solo careers. Everything on those albums and more is on one of the eight fan albums I made or my Archive.org upload of the two official albums. The runtime of the two box sets is 5 hours, 57 minutes, 41 seconds. The runtime of my ten is 8 hours, 35 minutes, 47 seconds!

This one leans on the shorter side. There’s only one bonus track to an already short album. Colin Blunstone at the time had given up on music, before being convinced back under the false name, “Neil McArthur”. This led to four singles being released before he broke from the single’s producer and was picked up by former bandmates, Rod Argent and Chris White, to do an album. While the first Argent album was recorded in 1969 and released in early 1970, the first Blunstone album, One Year, was recorded in 1970 and 1971 and released in late 1971. Thus, anything recorded from Blunstone leaving The Zombies in 1967 to late 1971 can be used here (other than material on his first album). I was afraid that the only available tracks would be the three singles, their b-sides, and the fourth single, which is an italian cover of “She’s Not There”. Fortunately, there’s a handful of other usable material. First, there’s two songs that were unreleased until Into The Afterlife in 2007; “Never My Love” and “Hung Upside Down”. The next find was a b-side to a single that would be on One Year. This totaled 27:55 in runtime. This was to be the length of the album before discovering “Unhappy Girl”. That song was a demo recorded by Rod Argent and is included on my previous Zombies-related fan album. It was rerecorded with Colin, but unused. That pushes this album a little over thirty minutes, which I prefer greatly.

The ordering of these tracks is similar to their order on Into The Afterlife. There were some changes where it seemed appropriate. “Hung Upside Down” was listened to near the beginning, but it’s easily the best album closer here. It was annoying that this album falls into the trope of pop singers not writing their own songs. This album mostly conforms, though there’s one written by Colin. His solo albums feature more of his writing. The cover was a foreign single release that I liked and altered. The title of the album seemed appropriate. Overall, this album isn’t as strong as the previous fan albums. A lot of the songs are typical tunes about a girl. “She’s Not There” does a lot to differentiate itself from the original and the songs about a girl formula and is in turn pretty good. Its b-side “World Of Glass” is another solid one. There’s some gems here and some okays.

If and when I want to return to The Zombies, there are ideas I had. There are various tracks featuring a member or two that are around here or there. A stray single or demo, though not many to my knowledge. There could perhaps be one Rod and Colin album per decade, starting with the 70’s. There’s only a few songs sung by Chris White that I’ve found so far. There could be fan albums that take everything he’s written or produced and then make albums out of that. There is an ongoing series of official albums that focus on little things he’s been involved with. It’s an archivist’s dream as it’s getting everything in one place. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I hope someone takes Colin and Rod material from their 70’s to present careers and makes some box sets, basically including anything you could possibly think of that they did. Seeing as they’re touring and releasing albums as The Zombies, despite being the only two original members, one could maybe take their solo stuff, pair it together, and make “Zombies” albums. I considered taking material from my fan album for a first Rod album and material here and making two collaborative albums instead of two solo ones. The material doesn’t seem to work together. They went in different directions. If I want to be a crazy enough fan, I could take projects where the two members without solo careers were present as basically session men and make an album or two off that, but it would be far removed from The Zombies. I wish the band had stayed together and all five could be represented and heard with the powerful backing band that is The Zombies. Them going solo threw up a lot of question marks.

I hope all The Zombies fans feel things are easier to experience and consume now. This is a passion of mine and if one person likes what I do, I’ll feel honored. I like suggestions on what artist to cover next, so if you know of one you’d like me to look at, feel free to suggest ‘em!

COLIN BLUNSTONE – IS NEIL MCARTHUR

TRACKLISTING

SIDE A

1. “She’s Not There” (Rod Argent)
2. “Don’t Try To Explain” (Billy Vera)
3. “Unhappy Girl” (Rod Argent, Chris White)
4. “I Hope I Didn’t Say Too Much Last Night” (Colin Blunstone)
5. “Twelve Twenty Nine” (Peter Lee Stirling, Chris Sedgewick)

SIDE B

1. “World Of Glass” (Mike Hurst)
2. “Never My Love” (Don Addrisi, Dick Addrisi)
3. “It’s Not Easy” (Barry Mano, Cynthia Weil)
4. “Without Her” (Harry Nilsson)
5. “Hung Upside Down” (Stephen Stills)

BONUS TRACKS

1. “Ma Non E Giusto (She’s Not There in Italian)”
   

PERSONNEL

• Colin Blunstone – lead vocals (tracks 1-10)
• Mike Hurst – acoustic guitar, backing vocals (tracks 1, 6)
• Jim Sullivan – lead guitar (tracks 1, 6)
• John Paul Jones – maybe on bass (tracks 1, 6)
• Andy White or Clem Cattini – drums (tracks 1, 6)
• Harry Stoneham – organ (tracks 2, 9)
• Eric Ford – probably acoustic guitar (tracks 2, 9)
• Ronny Verrell – drums (tracks 5, 8)
• Madeline Bell – backing vocals (tracks 7, 10)
• There’s more, but this is what I could find

LINKS

Is Neil McArthur (1971) – Archive.org (with bonus track)

The Zombies albums:

Begin Here (1965) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks), YouTube, Spotify

Have Returned (1965) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks)

On The Run (1966) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks)

Lighting Up The Saturday Club (1966) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks)

Sunrise (1967) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks)

White & Dandy (1967) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks)

‘Round The World (1968) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks)

Odessey and Oracle (1968) – Archive.org (with the most bonus tracks), YouTube, Spotify

The first few solo albums:

Floral Street (1969) – Archive.org (with bonus tracks)

Argent (1970) – YouTube, Spotify, Archive.org

One Year (1971) – YouTube, Spotify

What’s so great about The Who’s Tattoo (1967)? Review

Irony

The Who Sell Out is a classic album. It’s hard to listen to its superb vocals by the band and not love it. They’re complimented by some of the all time best instrumentalists. One song on the album that is particularly good is the acclaimed track, “Tattoo”. The song is about some young boys who want to get a tattoo without telling their parents. It’s easy to listen to the whole song and not know the plot, because the words blend so well into the background and you’re just carried by the sound of the piece. If you listen to the words a little, they sound like the story of some dumb kids, but if you pay attention, the song rewards you with a real story.

“Me and my brother were talking to each other ’bout what makes a man a man. Was it brain or brawn, or the month you were born?” This line suggests the brothers are going through puberty. They are becoming aware of concepts that those going through puberty would likely just be thinking about. We see them contrast with their father in the line, “He [their father] said that only women wear long hair”. This shows that they are starting to become more rebellious and self interested, by growing long hair. We also learn that their dad is a more traditional person. “So me and my brother borrowed money from Mother… and got our arms tattooed”. It’s revealed a bit later that the boys did not tell their mom they were getting tattoos. This reveals they understand how their parents feel and don’t care. “Welcome to my life, tattoo. I’m a man now, thanks to you.” To the boy, this isn’t just a tattoo. This is adulthood. This is a liberty that they’ve achieved. They may have lied and permanently changed part of their skin, but they’re men, so who cares? There’s a contrast to an actual adult, their father, who doesn’t approve of such an action. Oddly, the next line says “I expect I’ll regret [the tattoo]-”. This somewhat contradicts the song’s message that this is a good thing to the singer. While it should’ve been cut, it does show that the singer has at least a degree of self awareness, which also adds to them growing and learning as they’re leaving the innocence of childhood.

“My dad beat me ’cause mine said “Mother”, but my mother naturally liked it and beat my brother ‘Cause his tattoo was of a lady in the nude and my mother thought that was extremely rude.” This line is very interesting. The parents seem to go mostly by their own values and feelings. It’s not that they were bothered by the kids lying or got tattoos, it’s that they don’t like the tattoos. This gives lots of info into the kind of people they are. It’s ironic that the mother felt it just to beat her son, because the tattoo is rude to her. In reference to the tattoo, the singer says, “We’ve a long time together, me and you”. The line is said optimistically, suggesting that after all that’s happened, the singer in the end regrets nothing. Earlier, the line “You’ll be there when I die [in reference to the tattoo]” was said and it’s repeated here. This line slips the radar the first time, but is more noticeable here. This has such a large impact on the story, especially after the We’ve a long time together one. The singer can and does comprehend that this is essentially permanent and this is the situation they’re in. It’s sung in a way to suggest they aren’t aware of the gravity of the matter, it’s sung innocently. The instruments behind the line are especially good here. It’s simple and ominous. The musicians really want you to feel the implications.

The last verse features, “Now I’m older, I’m tattooed all over”. This could mean the singer continued to feel a need to validate their adulthood and lied for more money and/or got a job. Thus, they’re putting a much more prominent amount of money into getting tattoos. If they did do this again as a child, they’d be risking another and perhaps harsher beating, but it’s still worth it to them. “My wife is tattooed too”. The boy could have been considered lower brow to people and could only date someone like him. The song’s ending confuses as it’s just “rooty-toot-toot” repeated a few times. A Google search shows that there’s an animated short called Rooty Toot Toot. This could suggest that watching TV could play a role in why the boys are thinking the way they do. There’s no reference to other kids that might be influencing the singer and this is the closest to a reference to television. I don’t see any big clues as to why the boys are doing what they’re doing. This song mocks the older, more traditional style of parenting, where beatings and insults were more common. It also criticizes the younger mentality, where people do things without thinking. Though, one could almost admire this song’s protagonist. They did what they wanted and could very well be satisfied by the outcome. They weren’t deterred by those that stood in their way. This could be considered a critique of the government, which, especially in 1967, have been criticized for trying to control people.

Even if one doesn’t like the subject matter, it’s hard to turn away the well crafted instrumentation. The drums and the guitar especially bring “Tattoo” to a new level of expert storytelling in music. This song never turns down elegance and class and it doesn’t turn down the punch of the situation, though that punch is up for interpretation. It’s hard not to appreciate complexity in subtlety.