Monday, April 16, 2012

Greatest Rock Albums of all Times Part. 7

                                         THE WHO: 
          WHO'S NEXT (1971) & QUADROPHENIA (1973)
    Again two albums in this series of posts, this time by The Who.
Who's Next was released on August 1971. After the Rock opera  'Tommy' (1969), Pete Townsend had in mind to record one more Rock opera called 'Lighthouse'. It was a very ambitious concept, but after big fights with their producer the project collapsed, giving Pete Townsend a nervous breakdown.
After that incident, the band changed producer, joined the studio with many unfinished songs and scraps, and started to record new songs or finishing a few older ideas.
   It was the years that synthesizers were something rather new, so they decided to use them in this album. (In the intro part of Baba O' Riley for example).
  The result of all these, was a very powerful album, that upon its release received very good critics and entered the charts instantly. (No.4 in the US Billboard charts, and No.1 in the U.K album charts).
Many songs from this album gained massive air-play in the radio stations, and some of them you can listen from the radios even in our days, almost 45 years later. Songs like 'Baba O' Riley', 'Behind Blue Eyes', and 'Won't Get Fooled Again' among others in this album, left their mark in Rock History and increased The band's fame all around the world.
In 2006 TİME Magazine chose 'Who's Next' as one of the best albums of all time.
  Because the idea of another Rock opera had been always in their minds, after Who's Next they decided to give it another shot, and this time they made it. The result was Quadrophenia, which was released on 19 October 1973, as a double album.
   The story is about  the 'Mod movement' and it's taking place mostly in London and Brighton in the years 1964 & 1965.
  During the recordings, Pete Townsend spend many hours in the countryside with a small portable recording machine, trying to capture sounds from the nature and outdoors environments. Many of these sounds were used in the album such as the sounds of the sea, the rain etc..
Quadrophenia reached No.2 in the United States  (that's the highest position that any album by The Who ever reached in America), and No.2 in U.K as well.
   In 2011 Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend received the 'Classic album award' for Quadrophenia from the Rock n' Roll Honour Awards.
  By clicking on the following YT links you will be able to listen to the  song Behind Blue Eyes, taken from the album Who's Next, and to Love Reign O'er Me taken from Quadrophenia.
THE WHO: Behind Blue Eyes
THE WHO: Love Reign O'er Me




  










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