The who happy jack full#

Rather, the Who, even in their wildest moments, are a fantastically controlled group that never hesitates in coming straight to the point. They never were proponents of the view that the incomprehensible and the beautiful are synonymous, nor did they ever see it as their purpose to represent the meaninglessness of reality in their instrumental arrangements. Fortunately they continue to avoid the eclectic and esoteric, both lyrically and instrumentally. In contrast to the frenetic Who of the earlier album, the Who of Happy Jack are basically sane. The more extroverted side of the group is, in fact, played down. It emphasizes the groupвЂ™s rare talents in the areas of self-editing (a lost art if there ever was one), humor, lyricism, and other things which one doesnвЂ™t generally expect to find in the wilder groups. Happy Jack is an almost arty and, for the Who, restrained affair. But listening to Happy Jack after being familiar with the WhoвЂ™s live antics, and the first album, one is apt to be surprised.

The first album did much to recreate this state of affairs on a disc. Onstage the group is still famed for its uninhibited exhibitionism and its instrument destruction tactics in which, via various gimmicks, one is led to believe that the world is coming to an end. In fact, the new Who are really a contradiction of the first order. They have metamorphosed with the best of them, and the changes are vast. Happily, it is, although the Who of Happy Jack are clearly not the Who of DL 4664. The release of a new Who album, named after the recent hit, should therefore be reason for celebration. Problems with Decca have been patched up-the label is firmly behind the group, management problems have been resolved by bringing Brian Epstein into the picture, and the icy American audience has begun to melt under the impress of вЂњHappy Jack.вЂќ In the last six months this has all begun to change. Even while the group cranked out English number ones without end, contractual disputes and an indifferent and uninformed audience were burying them in the United States. The schizoid imagery that the instruments create in their interweaving with the vocal justifies, for once, the label of вЂњpsychedelic.вЂќДЄfter such an auspicious beginning for the group, those having the good fortune to have stumbled across their first album eagerly awaited a second.

Its instrumental coda represents the most advanced concept yet recorded of the whole вЂњravingвЂќ style. вЂњMy Generation,вЂќ the lead song of the album, was pure guts.

The who happy jack full#

Nor is there an American guitarist who has shown as full an understanding of the function of rock chording as did the WhoвЂ™s genius-in-residence, Pete Townshend. There isnвЂ™t an American drummer playing with a major group who can touch Keith MoonвЂs hard, staggered, choppy style of playing, running right through the record. The album was revolutionary then and is revolutionary now.

It was a brilliant thing with exceptional vocals, excellent original tunes, and, above all, the WhoвЂ™s wholly original instrumental sound. This article originally appeared in Issue 10 of Crawdaddy in June, 1967ДЄ year and a half ago, the Who put out an album called The Who Sings My Generation (Decca DL 4664).