![\"\"](\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/who_are_you_tribute.jpg\")
\nI’m cool with the concept of tribute albums. Hell, I play in a cover band, so I get it. Paying respect to a group or artist is a worthy goal, if perhaps not the world’s most creative endeavor. But for it to be more than an exercise in futility, there needs to be something of value there for the listener.<\/p>\n
On paper, Who Are You: An All Star Tribute to The Who<\/em> would seem to have that: the list of artists here includes some highly-respected and\/or outside-the-box personalities. John Wetton<\/strong><\/a>, Todd Rundgren<\/strong><\/a>, Terry Reid<\/strong>, John Wesley<\/strong> (of Porcupine Tree<\/strong><\/a>‘s touring lineup), Rick Wakeman<\/strong><\/a> and several others. What makes Who Are You<\/em> a bit strange is that it doesn’t leave these artists simply to come up with imaginative covers; no, instead it pairs them, seemingly at random. So we have on one cut Joe Lynn Turner<\/strong> (Rainbow<\/strong>) with Mountain<\/strong>‘s Leslie West<\/strong>, and on another \u2013 get this \u2013 Peter Noone<\/strong> (Herman’s Hermits<\/strong>) with Peter Banks<\/strong> (Genesis<\/strong>) and Ginger Baker<\/strong> (Cream<\/strong>). Is that, you may well ask, as bizarre as it reads on paper? Actually, no: their version of \u201cMagic Bus\u201d is pretty cool, if failing to add anything to our understanding of the original.<\/p>\n And there’s the rub: few if any of these songs go anywhere new. Some are slavish, near note-for-note recreations of the Who versions, yet they generally lack the slashing power of the originals. But then few can compare to The Who<\/strong><\/a>. A couple of the tunes are true standouts: \u201cI Can See For Miles,\u201d a collaboration between Mark Lindsay<\/strong><\/a> (Paul Revere & the Raiders<\/strong><\/a>) and Wayne Kramer<\/strong>(MC5<\/strong>)<\/a> is pretty damn exciting. But Nektar<\/strong><\/a>‘s cover of \u201cBaba O’Riley (with violinist Jerry Goodman<\/strong>) seems completely unnecessary. The punk summit reading of \u201cMy Generation\u201d (The Vibrators<\/strong>‘ Knox<\/strong>, Dave Davies<\/strong> of The Kinks<\/strong> and Rat Scabies<\/strong> of The Damned<\/strong>) strikes just the right tone. But then Iggy Pop<\/strong>‘s \u201cI Can’t Explain\u201d is musically too reverent (blame\/thank ubiquitous behind-the-scenster Billy Sherwood<\/strong><\/a> and J\u00fcrgen Engler<\/strong> for that), and vocally it feels phoned-in. Which it may well be.<\/p>\n In all, Who Are You: An All Star Tribute to The Who<\/em> is a mixed bag. There are no outright disasters (though Pat Travers<\/strong>‘ comically overwrought \u201cBehind Blue Eyes\u201d comes close), but \u2013 while enjoyable and worth a spin \u2013 it’s not likely to earn a place as one of your favorite discs. In the end, when it comes to The Who, the best advice is to \u2013 if you\u2019ll pardon the obvious wordplay \u2013 Accept No Substitute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m cool with the concept of tribute albums. Hell, I play in a cover band, so I get it. Paying respect to a group or artist is a worthy goal, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[2190],"class_list":["post-3507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-the-who","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32565,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions\/32565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}