If it weren’t for “Eminence Front” as a fairly regular entry into current setlists by the contemporary configuration of The Who, It’s Hard (released 9/4/82) might well be a forgotten entry in the iconic British band’s discography.
As it is, this tepid tenth studio album has hardly gotten any more attention than its unsung predecessor Face Dances: at least that LP had the distinction of unveiling the post-Keith Moon Who lineup (featuring former Faces drummer Kenney Jones in place of the man who had unexpectedly (?) passed in 1978).
In addition, the pop-oriented nature of Pete Townshend’s material on the 1981 release, like “You Better You Bet” (also played live regularly these days), harkened to the early style of the group. It’s Hard is something else again, however, as it finds the group trading on the superficial evocation of their stellar middle-period work such as Who’s Next; with four decades hindsight, it sounds more than ever like a mercenary effort, ground out by the group and its chief composer merely as means to have ‘product’ available for its farewell (sic) tour in the fall of ‘82.
In light of that jaunt’s corporate sponsorship by a beer manufacturer (supporting a group with at least one functioning alcoholic member), further retrospect only casts further aspersion on all this activity. And the music on the record can hardly deny that negative impression: while there’s no question “Athena” is just one of multiple tracks that sounds like vintage latter-day Who, the power chords, as well as the horns, sound too tentative to deliver even the somewhat muted impact of numbers off Who Are You, much less the resounding likes of the masterwork that is Quadrophenia.
This Glyn Johns engineering/production sounds only marginally superior to its predecessor–which the band excoriated all around–and the remixing and remastering for the 1997 reissue did little to correct the brittle, thin audio. The performances of the band are generally a cut above cookie-cutter material “Cooks County,” but that’s not really saying much. It’s difficult if not impossible to dismiss the notion such compositions may have been left over from Pete’s third solo album, All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, released just under three months before.
Even more discouraging is the theory his writing resources were essentially depleted. Still, that may explain why the aforementioned expanded release for It’s Hard had no studio outtakes, but instead, four live performances from the final tour stop in Toronto; there is at least some modicum of fire in those renditions compared to their studio counterparts, perhaps evidence of the group’s own enervated regret in acceding to the mercenary move of having the concert broadcast as a pay-per-view event.
At the time of this second Warner Bros. release, the Who had fought artistically fossilizing for almost a decade (perhaps more). Still, it’s unnerving to hear Roger Daltrey, one of the great rock singers of all time, so often just going through the vocal motions: his guttural delivery on “I’ve Known No War” stands out in marked contrast to his other (literal) readings.
No longer the rookie of the group, Jones nevertheless seems to be following rather than propelling his fellow musicians. Meanwhile, Townshend’s guitar work too often sounds restrained to no purpose; the single exception, perhaps not surprisingly, is the very same aforementioned cut where Daltrey stands out: the chords sting and cut as much as if not more than the singing.
Considering how John Entwistle’s distinctive style of aggressive bass playing distinguished him through much of Who history, it’s even more enervating to hear his tame approach here. “It’s Your Turn” is as wan as his bandmate’s songwriting gets here too, that weakness in addition to sounding too much like an aping of Townshend’s writing style. More curiously (or perhaps not), on other tunes from his own pen-like “Dangerous,” The Ox is sadly detached from the proceedings; to be fair, though, he comes off no more disconnected from it all than the whole band looks on the cover photo. Except in fleeting moments like the comparatively energetic “Why Did I Fall For That,” the Who sound like they look in those graphics: a shadow of their former selves (even as the kid playing the arcade game is a strained attempt to evoke the glories of the rock opera Tommy of over a decade past).
It’s worth noting that both Townshend and Daltrey have taken great umbrage with the motivation(s) behind It’s Hard, so perhaps it’s no surprise the LP has received scant archival attention (as is also the case with its predecessor recording counterpart with this lineup). Or that the title phrase of its most famous song is defined as: ‘ an act…. a pose…front…usually enacted just long enough to win favor.’
The definition resounds with a bitter truth forty years later, if for no other reason than, subsequent to its release and the attendant focus upon it, the Who reunited more than once (on a variety of premises elucidated upon at length by Townshend in his autobio Who I Am).
In fact, in the wake of the sudden tragic death of John Entwistle on the eve of a 2002 tour, Daltrey and Townshend’s relationship galvanized, to the point they produced two new studio efforts, 2006’s Endless Wire and Who thirteen years later (to much more deservedly favorable response). Regular touring commenced throughout that decade and into the next as well, with a much greater inclination towards creativity: most recently, the Who’s been working live with local orchestras on selected tour stops.
These two surviving members of a volatile band, who once came to blows in the recording studio (an extreme instance of many conflicts with each other over the years), now approach their career with admirable shared equanimity. While that enlightened state does not excuse the egregious compromises of the past, at least it doesn’t appear to allow for the repeat of them.
