Tommy, Can You Hear Me?

This May marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Tommy, the first of two rock operas by English rock icons The Who. Widely acclaimed by both critics and fans of the band, it has become one of the most iconic albums of the 1960s, had a profound influence on the progressive rock of the 1970s, and continues to inspire musicians, young and old, to this day.

The Who began their career as a mod band, scoring hits like ‘I Can’t Explain’, ‘Substitute’ and, most famously, ‘My Generation’. While The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were still writing two-dimensional love songs, and The Kinks had cornered the market in nostalgic patriotism, The Who represented the ‘angry young men’ of modern Britain: young, aggressive, stylish, ambitious, not to be messed with. Roger Daltrey’s stutter on ‘My Generation’ symbolised the seeming inability of the working-classes to find a voice in a nation still dominated by wartime middle-class culture.

As the 1960s wore on, however, The Who’s fortunes began to falter. Bands like The Moody Blues and Procol Harum helped to bring psychedelia to the fore, and after the Brighton Riots of 1965 the mod scene died a slow and painful death. Pete Townshend attempted to keep place with the times, through songs like ‘Happy Jack’ and ‘I Can See For Miles’, but really no-one was fooled. By the middle of 1968 the band were heavily in debt and out of ideas. Something had to change.

Spurred on by classically-minded manager Kit Lambert, Townshend conceived a story about a boy struck deaf, dumb and blind by the murder of his mother’s lover. After enduring various attempts to cure him – from religious rituals (‘Eyesight To The Blind’) to LSD (‘The Acid Queen’), he becomes an overnight sensation by winning a pinball competition (‘Pinball Wizard’). Tommy becomes rich but his family are frustrated by his inability to communicate. After smashing a mirror into which he stares, Tommy is quite literally awakened and forms his own religion so that others can share in his enlightened state (‘Sensation’). The cult attracts many followers, but its heavy-handed nature, and the commercial ambitions of his parents, causes them to rebel (‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’). Left alone, Tommy gains a new enlightenment.

What distinguishes Tommy from many rock operas that followed it is that it manages to be immensely ambitious and artistic, and yet still be a bona fide piece of rock and roll. Subsequent bands found it difficult to match this feat, drifting off in one direction or the other. Some, like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, leant more towards the classical, filling out gaps with 20-minute solos referencing famous concertos. Others, like Pink Floyd on The Wall, drifted towards harder forms of rock, hiring The Scorpions as backing musicians and simplifying their riffs to win airplay.

Tommy, like Quadrophenia after it, manages to strike a great balance between rock and art. The themes, concepts and storyline are all there to be absorbed, whether in Townshend’s wistful lyrics or Daltrey’s dramatic delivery. But all the while they’re being driven by pulsing bass lines, huge guitar power chords and a typically insane drum section.

Because of this balance, Tommy is largely free of the excesses present in later rock operas. It does contain annoying segues – very short songs included to fill in plot gaps – but these excerpts are at least mildly entertaining. Genesis used looping instrumentals to the same effect on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and the project suffers as a result. Unlike Yes on Tales Of Topographic Oceans, you never get the sense that the band are playing long and complicated stretches of music just to show off and feel good about themselves. And unlike the so-called ‘rock musical’ Jesus Christ Superstar, no-one sings in an annoyingly clear style, whereby every syllable is so perfectly and melodramatically voiced that all emotion is lost.

Tommy is, therefore, an album which is both easy to enjoy and easy to respect. But is it of any relevance to today’s music, beyond being a cultural milestone occasionally acknowledged in polite conversation?

Two points need to be made. Firstly, very few bands attempt overt rock operas any more, and if I’m honest, the few efforts that have cropped up recently don’t really do the format justice. The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance boasted a number of good singles, but it now seems hackneyed and simpering, hence the band’s recent reinvention. The debut album by Justice may have a loose narrative – moving from ‘Genesis’ to ‘One Minute To Midnight’ – but it’s more of a concept album, lacking lyrics on too many songs. And American Idiot was so badly written that it almost killed Green Day’s career (the follow-up, 21st Century Breakdown, arrives in May and promises, if anything, to be worse).

Secondly, attempts to transfer the format to other genres rarely capture the artistic genius (or commercial success) achieved in the past. Attempts within metal, such as Avantasia’s The Metal Opera, are narrow in scope and often resort to classic, over-the-top power chords which overwhelm any trace of a plot. Hip-hop has been more successful, with R. Kelly’s much-parodied Trapped In The Closet. But this is a rather isolated success, especially considering the previous failure of Carmen, an adaptation of Bizet’s opera starring a then-unknown Beyoncé Knowles.

Rock opera is a tricky business, and only a few bands in any age have got it right. It is one thing to create an album which garners widespread critical acclaim and artistic respect; it is another thing entirely to translate that into strong sales. Tommy managed to jump both fences on its release, being rapturously received while producing three hit singles and reaching No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart. This anniversary should not be used as an excuse for nostalgia, or a means to lament the decline of the art in British rock. That art has always been there; the tricky part is knowing where to find it.