The Who – Who Are You Review

A nest of electrical wires, a chair marked by its need to remain on site, and The Who have themselves an album which is defined by the title track. Where the band had certainly found themselves dealing more with radio-friendly rock than they had before, Who Are You offers a still-beating, exciting run-through of what makes The Who such a staggering band. It is this sound, irrespective of the detailed read on the world around them or the sense of tragedy which now casts a shadow over the album, that perseveres. Keith Moon’s death soon after the recording of Who Are You seeps it in tragedy, and that takes the place of whatever emotional confidence Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey can offer. It is the absence of a consistent tone which leaves Who Are You open to this change in feeling, in tone.  

Where else could the album go, to be fair? Opener New Song is a drag, a macho-adjacent song which has the whiff of contractual obligation, rather than anything to say. Daltrey suggests that even he is tired of the nature of his style. He sings the same old song, gauges those usual experiences, and has little else to show for it. Follow-up Had Enough also suggests Daltrey and the band were running on fumes. It was a feeling kicked up on their preceding album, The Who by Numbers. A no-frills experience with the band using nothing but the new sounds of a decade slowly encroaching on the rock fundamentals. Who Are You is a definite example of this. Rod Argent of The Zombies fills in on synthesizer for Had Enough, an instrument which at the time spelled out the future but now, it feels stagnant along with Townshend’s dull guitar strumming. Had Enough is a song without heart, another stock stop-off before the title track closer, which is all that is remembered from Who Are You.  

This should not be the case, though. Where Ted Astley may provide some overwrought and typical string sections, it does well to back the hang-ups and heartbreak Daltrey delivers throughout. 905 hints at that malaise. Daltrey does not have creative block but suggests everything he has to offer here has been done before, and better, elsewhere. He has opened himself too much to the public and, as such, has no more surprises for us. Who Are You is an assessment of openness, of what it means for the musicians who wish to work in privacy or on elusive topics. The Who find themselves with some neat and slick instrumental rises, but it is Daltrey who, even when stepping up to the plate, figures there is little more to say. It would be a theme that was featured on their follow-up albums, Face Dances and It’s Hard.  

Slow bursts of confidence on Music Must Change precede The Who making good on the A-side ender. The music does change. A heavier instrumental sound and a chase of ecstasy from Daltrey’s lyrics. A vast improvement, but a little too late to leave a mark on Who Are You. Scenes of intimate disaster on Trick of the Light feel like a step in the right direction for the band, as does the inevitable high of album closer, Who Are You. Where Love is Coming Down strikes for the hardship once more, it all unravels. In part because of the strings, which sound very forced in their inclusion, but also because The Who is back to their rocking ways by the end of the album. Nothing is learned along the way. But Who Are You, an album defined by its title track and nothing more, has a few moments of interest for the dedicated Daltrey listener.