In my opinion, these are two very good albums, certainly better than The Who By Numbers, probably a step above Who are You, and rank around an 8/10 after the greatness of Tommy and Quadrophenia.
I like the drumming of Kenny Jones, he is the opposite of Keith Moon. No, his drumming isn’t explosive like Moon’s, it is far more like Ringo Starr. The right drum riff played at the right time.
There are excellent songs, You Better, You Bet, Emincence Front, It’s Hard, Don’t Let Go the Coat, Another Tricky Day, Athena, Cry if You Want.
Daltrey was quoted as saying It’s Hard should not have been released. He’s wrong. it’s a good, if not landmark album.
Hmm. I think I owned everything The Who/Townshend/Moon/Entwistle ever released, plus some bootlegs…and while I rate those two albums as pretty good, I don’t hold them in the same regard you do. I find the production on both, in particular Townshend’s vocals, off…brittle, for lack of a better word. There are a couple of great tracks on each, however.
While I don’t have as much Who, et al, as Maserschmidt, I have quite a bit, and I’d have to say It’s Hard is my least favorite. It just seems to be relatively uninspired, lacking fire and spark. Eminence Front has got some punch, but the rest is kinda limp. The lyrics in particular seem, when compared to most of Townshend’s work both before and after, somewhat pedestrian and far less poetic and clever. I’ve always thought that ironic, given the lines from Cry If You Want: “Don’t you want to hide your face / When going through your teenage books / And read the kind of crap you wrote…”
I don’t know those albums beyond their singles. Because I can’t stand the singles at all. I own all The Who albums w/Keith Moon, but think the singles from those post-Moon albums are atrocious. ‘You Better’ and ‘Eminence Front’ put me to sleep. It’s hard to believe that it’s the same band who put out “Real Me,” “I Can See (For Miles and Miles),” and others.
I can’t really stand either one. Then again, I’m kind of an anomaly among Who fans - I think they got progressively worse after The Who Sell Out, and Who’s Next is the last one I can even stand to listen to. The music got more ponderous, Daltrey’s singing got more bombastic (I can’t believe anyone can listen to “Love Reign O’er Me” without breaking into fits of laughter), and it all added up to dreary. Every now and then I try to revisit It’s Hard to see if my opinion changes, and every time it sounds just as dull as it did on my first impression.