THE WHO'S QUADROPHENIA ON DVD (2001): The Mods will ride again

 |   |  <1 min read

THE WHO'S QUADROPHENIA ON DVD (2001): The Mods will ride again

Quadrophenia -- the story and music written by Pete Townshend of the Who -- shifted the focus back to pre-Beatles Britain, to the world of Mods and Rockers, of battles on Brighton Beach between the two, and Townshend's famously disenchanted lost boy at the centre of it all.

This was a dark world of early British pop culture that cheery Beatlemania erased from memory and it took the Who's Townshend to revive it.

The film was made in 1979, just as post-punk bands such as The Jam were spurring a Mod revival. The original album had been released six years earlier.

Oddly, it wasn't a world Townshend knew intimately -- the Who had been a "Mod band" as the High Numbers for a very short period between 1964 and 1965 -- but he captured universal teenage disillusionment better here than he did in the overblown Tommy which, for all its cynicism, was a kind of redemptive rock'n'roll opera.

Quadrophenia is more melancholy, more grim -- and it probably gave Sting his best screen part.  He barely speaks a word, if at all, he just looks good. But as Jimmy, the central character discovers, that isn't everything.

Townshend has always said he preferred Quadrophenia to Tommy and you can see why.

It's a darker ride. 

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Film at Elsewhere articles index

GREG CAMALIER INTERVIEWED (2014): The sound of soul and the Swampers

GREG CAMALIER INTERVIEWED (2014): The sound of soul and the Swampers

For a small, out of the way town which only had a population of about 8000 back in the Sixties and Seventies, Muscle Shoals in Alabama sure made its mark on the world. Situated by the... > Read more

KISSOLOGY; THE ULTIMATE KISS COLLECTION Vol 1, 1974-77 (Shock DVD)

KISSOLOGY; THE ULTIMATE KISS COLLECTION Vol 1, 1974-77 (Shock DVD)

It goes without saying that if Kiss hadn't existed then a 14-year old Japanese boy with a manga fixation would have invented them. He might have writen better songs for them as this rather too wide... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Moving Sidewalks: 99th Floor (1967)

Moving Sidewalks: 99th Floor (1967)

This psychedelic garagerock single -- inspired by fellow Texans the 13th Floor Elevators -- was written by Billy Gibbons in his maths class when he was about 16. And yes, that's the same Billy... > Read more

HEATHER LEIGH PROFILED (2017): A very different kinda coal miner's daughter

HEATHER LEIGH PROFILED (2017): A very different kinda coal miner's daughter

Anyone who had the gut strength and emotional resilience to undertake German saxophonist Peter Brotzmann's astonishing, heroic, muscular and often sensitive solo performance in Auckland a few... > Read more