Guess who's back?

A couple of days ago, after indulging in too many Youtube videos yet again, I decided it was time to take a shower. It was 10:40 in the morning, after all. I put on my favorite local rock radio and started getting undressed. As I opened the shower door, a new song started playing, one that I didn’t know before.

But that I still felt I knew.

I mean, the sound and style were familiar, like insanely familiar. That kind of sound I’d heard over and over again before, I was sure of that. Yet, the voice was not a young one, meaning that whoever was singing this had had more than one glass of wine in their life. Meaning they had been at it for at least half a decade — and I was right about that… Finally, the lyrics talked about Guantanamo. So either the artist was a psychic, or this song had been written recently. What a conundrum.

I did what anyone would do in that situation: I ran back in the living room naked to check out who the hell was performing that song. Turns out is was Who. I mean, The Who. And the album was called Who. And it had been released in December 2019. And I was only finding out about this now. I stood there, a little dumbfounded at realizing how out of touch I was, while listening to the piece as it slowly grew in intensity, a clear callback to their classic “Baba O’Riley”…

“Ball and Chain”, Who, 2019.

It shouldn’t come as much of a shock to anyone familiar with one of the greatest rock outfits in music history, but that track is good. Perhaps great, even. From the intertwined guitar and keyboard intro to Roger Daltrey’s voice that arguably aged but still manages to muster astounding power to the incantatory nature of the track… all of that makes for a modern classic by one of the true original gangstas of rock.

While the band’s track record would indeed ensure that any new outing of theirs will be of the highest quality, even the greatest bands have often disappointed with their later works, as evidenced by… everyone except perhaps the Rolling Stones — if that. Admittedly, it is hard to rock it as effectively in your 70’s as you did when you were 20 and living on a dream, as you are now sleeping in your mansion with its outdoor pool and butler. Yet, Townshend and Daltrey manage just that, proving once again that rock is not dead — although it is ageing…