The first studio album from the “World’s Greatest Rock N Roll Band” – THE WHO for 23 years didn’t let down my impulse buy one little bit. Endless Wire is a slightly confusing, idealogical, album which includes Wire & Glass, an 11 track mini opera.
I say confusing because the title track appears twice in the Wire & Glass mini opera and when that is taken out there are only nine tracks. Each one of them though are really superb, Townshend has not lost one bit of his cutting edge writing and I would say that even his singing, never great and still not, has improved quite considerably. Roger Daltrey is as strong a vocalist as he’s ever been but his voice as matured yet again. Let’s not forget Townshend has been writing songs for Daltrey’s voice for about 43 years and although there appears to be a sea change in their partnership they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can still really work together.
In olden days it was always difficult to seperate individual tracks from previous ‘rock operas’, a term patented by The Who with Tommy and Quadraphenia so it is now with Wire & Glass – but I have to say as a whole it stands up as being iconic eventually as those mentioned. In fact for musical interpretation as opposed to story line Quadraphenia was far superior so it’s really no surprise that this 2006 attempt sounds very Quadraphenish, albeit with titles of tracks sounding somewhat similar to those in Tommy.
The whole thing has the feel of a very much a Pete Townshend project with both his son and daughter ‘helping out’ but tremendous supporting roles played by Roger Daltrey of course. Not forgetting of course, new, regular bassist, Pino Palladino and most times drummer, Zak Starkey. Bear in mind also that John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick has played keyboards with The Who since ‘Who’s Next’ and plays on this album leads to a lot of consistency the whole package of Endless Wire will see it played over and over and I will probably get to like it even more.

The bonus CD is worth a mention as it is a live set from Lyon in July of this year and demonstrates the real strength of the band formerly known as
‘The Greatest Live band……EVER’
The set has changed a little and I guess to more suit Daltrey’s voice now, with Naked Eye and Relay included and the only track from ‘The Sixties’ (!) being The Seeker and not the ubiquitous ‘My Generation’
If I was in to crass scoring I would have to give it eight and a half from ten!

The second CD that I hadn’t heard anything of will be retro in about thirty years time and is Evanescence, Open Door. Brand new exciting, rough, mysterious almost Halloweenish! Every track absolutely brilliantly presented and produced, really stamping this bands authority on good, manageable rock music of the twenty first century. Only real criticism is that it tends to get a bit boring because all the tracks follow the same pattern and they are of course all almost formatted. The impulse didn’t let me down this time either but it may not be the same next time round but that having been said this band are definitely here to stay and Amy Lee is a truly superb modern day female rock vocalist. A true rock chick!
I score this a very credible 8! That of course is still if I was in to that type of thing.

I’m not going to score the back catalogue items because I wouldn’t have brought them if I didn’t like them would I?

We have spoken about the incredibly wonderful Ms Lavigne before and this UK debut album is rock chick with attitude at its very very best. If there was ever an album that demonstrated how important it is to not just rely on music television then it is this. The highly featured tracks from MTV et al really need to be listened to properly on CD because they sound almost completely different, all power to the CD producers I say they are keeping this type of rock music raw, as it should be and not part of the over hyped media images where music takes second place.

Well Alice Cooper….what can be said about the music phenomenon that is Alice? Any album that has on it both Only Women Bleed and Poison on is good – there is no argument about that but when you can also hear, Welcome to my Nightmare, School’s Out and Hello Hooray as well as another 16 tracks all of which you will have heard before then you are listening to a true Definitive Album from a truly iconic, that word again, artist.