Who #12: The trilogy problem
I crashed my scooter into the bridge. I DON'T CARE.
Last week I was telling someone about an experiment I had done. Nothing elaborate: I simply decided, on one of my Hot Girl Walks a while back, to listen to Quadrophenia and see how it sounded in headphones versus through computer speakers, which was how I had originally heard it. Not only did I like it even less this way, I found it downright annoying. It’s aggressively self-referential. The sound is big, and pretty unrelentingly so. Everyone is doing things they are categorically good at, and everyone is doing too much. I stopped about halfway because I was getting a headache.
At this juncture, my interlocutor pointed out a possible pattern: several of The Artists, especially of that era, seem to have made something great, then something greater, then something that went over the top. Always in threes. So Tommy would be the original hit, Who’s Next the level up, and Quadrophenia the bridge too far (counting only studio albums, Live at Leeds is out). The comparison cited was Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home was the foot in the electric door, Highway 61 Revisited took it to new heights, and Blonde on Blonde was the subsequent excess committed to tape. Now, longtime readers will remember my foundational adoration of Blonde on Blonde, but you’ll never hear me say it’s a better record than Highway 61. It’s just not. You can tell when the people in the studio have stopped saying no.
We could argue the Stones fell victim to the same sequence, perhaps respectively with Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St. There’s a lot of Exile that I dig, and it’s consistently hailed as one of the all-time best, but it does suffer from some bloat compared to its predecessors. Here my favorite is Let It Bleed, which is all killer no filler in my opinion. (Even the countrified “Honky Tonk Women,” Cecilia? Yes. Even that.) And the beauty of this particular trilogy is that various people in the room were oscillating between being mentally there enough to say no—which was definitely happening sometimes—and not really being there at all. It’s a dangerous way to work. I kinda love it.
The Beatles, as I’m sure you knew we were coming to, are another matter. The White Album is certainly too much, in a way that possibly no album ever made before it had even had a chance to be too much—but, by comparison, what is its direct predecessor? Magical Mystery Tour is more a soundtrack than a proper record. Sgt. Pepper, then, fits the ‘level up’ category. But is that one better than its own predecessor, Revolver? Prevailing wisdom used to say yes, but the current generation of scholars (of whom I humbly suggest I might be one) doesn’t accept that hierarchy unquestioningly. I find continuous evidence that Revolver is the masterpiece. And all that’s to say nothing of Abbey Road, which has been topping Beatles showings in the new spate of greatest-of lists. Why we repeatedly subject ourselves to the impossible task of compiling these meaningless lists, I don’t know.
Where was I? The Who? I mean, plenty of people I respect love Quadrophenia, and good for them. Everybody has a right to their affections. As it happens, none of this proposed trilogy is my favorite Who album. Who’s Next is fantastic, but it isn’t my favorite. Saying that would be a bit like saying my favorite star is the Sun. Statistically speaking, my favorite is probably…well, we’re getting there.
What other three-album runs might adhere to this pattern? Hunky Dory-Ziggy Stardust-Aladdin Sane? Dare I mention Taylor, who is arguably on her second ‘bridge too far’ record? Let me know!
Unrelated song rec of the week: “Rain On Me,” Lady Gaga ft. Ariana Grande