Tommy

This was hard to plow through. There were just a couple of good songs buried in there, but it’s mostly painful to listen to.

Absolute ass

This one really didn’t do it for me.

apart from PInball Wizard, nope

I hate rock operas and this is worse than most. The lyrical content is weak and the music meanders as if lost, far from home. Oh, and then there's the sex abuse.

I love The Who, amazing band. Hate almost everything about this album though. Almost every track is filler and the story is super confusing and pretentious (not in the typical charming Who way)

Not a fan of concept albums. Yet to hear one I liked. Way, way, way too long. It's a 1 because I didn't finish it and I am not gonna put it on again.

Bailed after 9 songs, as I could see there were still many many more to come. I am not really a fan of 'Rock' or Opera, so that was never going to work for me. Pretentious without being interesting. Overblown.

Too long, overblown, a bit pompous, a bit tedious and a bit directionless. There are some cool instrumental licks interspersed here and there, and the concept surrounding the album is interesting at the very least, but the album never seems to have any idea of where it actually wants to go and I had to research/read into the concept whilst listening to make any sense of it. As soon as the album begins to build up a head of steam following a central idea, it falls into a perpetual loop of wanking itself into a coma - rinse and repeat.

It's a bore Mrs Walker it's a bore. The only song anyone knows from this is also shit

Tommy is a concept album telling the story of a disabled boy called, suprise suprise, Tommy. While the idea of the album is interesting, its 24 song, 1 hour 14 minute long length is perhaps too long for a mediocre rock opera. It is not bad, and has standout tracks such as "Overture", but the overall sounds feels repetitive and a little dry, with key features including vocal harmonies and drums front and centre. For a band with such a glorified history as "The Who", it is doubtless a little underwhelming.

This is one of those "classics" that's really overrated crap. Should have been a single with Pinball Wizard as the A side and Sparks as the B side.

At first I thought wow this will be an incredibly imaginative, instrumental exploration of what could have been a visual tale… but I couldn’t get through this and I’ll never try to listen to it again. Maybe having two concept albums back to back wasn’t helping my listening experience here, but this also 1000% felt self indulgent. Comes off like a strange drug trip narrative that a brain-fried friend tries to recount to you and no one could possibly know what he’s talking about except for himself. Favourite song(s): Least favourite(s): ^quite honestly I have no distinct choices it was all so bleh

Who wants to sit around listening to an hour of wank about uncles fiddling their nephews, cousins doing physical abuse and a 'gypsy' queen who foists drugs and sex on a kid? Is this fun for people?

Badly needed an editor. It felt like it kept going narrative verse, 30 secs instrumental, narrative verse, 1 minute instrumental. Irritating, meandering and bloated.

waste of time for me

This is just bad... Thin sounding. His voice doesn't fit this style at all. Instruments are boring. Most songs are boring as well. Tommy.. dude.. Just give up..

This was an absolute slog to get through, that's hitting skip partway through a few tracks. Gotta respect the rock opera concept album thing as a... concept, but nothing about the listening experience was enjoyable. Going in, I would have told you I liked "Pinball Wizard," but now I feel like I never want to hear it again—it's just going to make me relive the rest of this album and I'd rather not. Best: "Pinball Wizard" Worst: "Fiddle About"

When I first saw the song count, I groaned. I typically don’t like long albums so this had a high bar to reach. After getting into it a lot of the songs are shorter so while still a longer album not as much as the song list might imply. Before going into this, I knew the song Pinball Wizard. I also vaguely knew that they had made a play about the kid in Pinball Wizard. I didn’t know that the entire album basically is the self contained story of Tommy. Which is all really cool. However, this album is the first time so far in these listens that I have wanted to stop listening to the album. I dislike this album immensely. The lyrics do nothing for me and no much of it seems like a teenager wrote it and talented musicians performed it. I really liked the song Pinball Wizard before this and it did give me a brief respite in the middle of the album but ignorance was bliss because I like that song less after a full listen. This album has very few redeeming qualities to me, I do appreciate the concept album style of this but the story feels shallow at best. I fully understand why it is on the list but I never want to listen to these songs again.

Ive always thought of The Who as boring. This listen didn't change my mind at all. D'Angelo died yesterday. I'm gonna listen to Voodoo now.

Album 24/1001 You know a band must be taking themselves too seriously when they think producing a rock opera about a deaf, dumb and blind kid is a good idea. 🤦 1 ½ / 5

I don’t like it.

Wow. Hated it. I was looking forward to experiencing this album, assuming that it would be track after track that I knew but didn't recognize from their titles. Nope! Knew 3 songs and didn't like the rest. Boo.

Pretentious rock opera ugh

I listened to as much of this as I could muster. Maybe seven songs? The word pretentious gets thrown around a lot and tends to be conflated with elitism. This album is pretentious in that it takes itself super seriously and it just doesn’t have the depth. The melodies are mediocre, the topics are so painfully boorish - it betrays the Who’s desire to appear as some kind of working class response to their contemporaries. I respect they were trying to do something; it’s just that they aren’t as smart as they think they are.

3 1/2 hours!? What could possibly be so important

Barely halfway through, and so far, it's okay. Exactly what you would expect from the 70s, I guess. Or late 60s, in this case. Kind of like a rock version of The Beatles. Kind of. Okay i didnt want to finish it. 3/10 i jus dont like it.

I disliked this immensely. Poor in concept and execution - long, pretentious and lacking any memorable songs to hang the concept around.

Too close to musical theatre for me

Its clear that all the bets were on the album concept. However, the execution was not great. It wasn't even decent. Too much abuse in the story, especially one of a sexual nature. What's the point? What does it contribute to the story, to Tommy's development? The narrative feels wonky and distasteful, the theme of sexual assault was not handled well. Musically, it was not too hard of a listen. Not enjoyable either. No song in particular stood out to me – they all seemed pretty dull. Will not listen again

Tommy by The Who? More like Who would recommend this album to me? Because it was bad. (Pinball Wizard is of course still a great song, but a deluxe album should have at least two?)

For the most part, the playing on this is great, especially Keith Moon's drumming. But it suffers from the lengths to which it goes to tell its story. The choruses on so many of these songs are simple and lame, presumably to make sure you know what's happening. The pacing suffers from multiple minute-long interludes and a 10 minute one that seems to only exist for the "Underture" wordplay. The story ranges from goofy to hard to take seriously. The worst moment is when we hear about abuse by Tommy's uncle in the painfully annoying "Fiddle About" chorus, which is quickly followed by a song about how Tommy is super good at pinball. Talk about tonal whiplash; there are themes here that are worth exploring, but they aren't treated with any care. The biggest problem is simpler though: none of the songs, even "Pinball Wizard," are really all that good.

Lots of meandering and forgettable chord progressions with few memorable melodies or hooks. Bloated and repetitive. Maybe it was culturally exciting for being a new way to present rock and roll music, but it doesn’t make it something I’d want to put on my turntable.

Given that I like a lot of songs by The Who, I am speechless at how utter dog doodoo that was. Awful.

I hated it. Like it actually had potential. I feel like it might be good music? But gosh I hated it. This had to be heavily drug influenced right?

Could not finish bleh

rated 30 on aoty july 18th 2025 i hate this

I hate it… The opening track Overture sets the scene on this overly bloated concept album. Described by the band as a spiritual opera, it feels more like a self indulgent drug fuelled wank fest. Underture stands at an outrageous 9 minutes and offers nothing, other than making me want this album to end. I appreciate the musicianship, however it offers little to no enjoyment to my ears. The song Fiddle About, is grim, I didn’t need a song about molesting a deaf, dumb and blind boy… The album has Pinball Wizard, which itself is a 5* tune, but can’t save the album.

I just can't with The Who- either it's some of the best music I have ever heard, or the worst dreck ever to befoul my ears.

Sorry folks, I don’t give a shit about some rock opera. This was absolute trash for me, and I couldn’t even get to song 4. I’m glad I bailed too, considering this slop is over an hour long. I really don’t get the love these classic rock groups get, especially when the singing is as bad as this.

Too weird and demented for me…

Not a Who fan, and that goes double for this cheesy, boring rock opera. Way too long, dull songs, completely uninteresting story, strange mixing choices. Just not at all a fun listen.

This is such a drawn out album. Genuinely hope I never have to listen to it again.

I appreciate that the Who took this impressive of a swing even if it resulted in as violent a miss as peak Prince Fielder trying to plant the ball in the right field seats. If there's one redeeming factor to this album it's that Keith Moon's drumming is epic enough to almost carry the opera piece of this. Unfortunately, the lyrics and story are about as awful and terrible as you’ll hear on an album. As a serious album it’s self-parody, and if it’s deliberately a parody the Who do not possess the lyrical prowess of a Randy Newman to properly deal with their chosen subject matter. If you’re going to be offensive you better be funny. The Who made great songs and great albums, and I appreciate their ambition here, but this album is a fucking atrocity.

What a load of rubbish. Soundtracks shouldn’t be allowed on this list.

I never cared for The Who.

No interest whatsoever.

Rock operas have never been a good idea. Never will.

FFS! Another load of white blokes. Is this a 'history of white male privilege as told through music' list or what? Oh and look whose up next, another old white dude. Jeez. Anyway, I let out a sneer when this Who opus came up and expected to instantly write it off as overblown rock opera shite. Then I got to properly listen to Overture, It's a Boy and 1921 and was mildly interested. Thankfully this blemish on my coolness (you knows it) was soon dispelled - I had no idea that Tommy of pinball wizard fame had endured bullying growing up at the hands of Cousin Kevin and then sex abuse at the hands of some weird uncle. Fiddle About has to be the most ridiculous and excruciating song about a horrific experience I think I've ever heard. Tommy's 'miraculous' rediscovery of his sight left me perplexed - was he kidding all along, or was it PTSD, or was it a miracle? Actually, I don't care. Thanks be to god that we only had to listen to the 1969 version and not the deluxe.

Agree with some of these posts about this hot garbage.

Crap. One good song in a 1 hour and 14 minute long album is a joke.

Two albums of The Who in a row? :D Seriously? The band itself is great, but I don't like it much. The vibes of The Beatles are in place. I like a few popular songs of The Who, but I don't enjoy anything else much.

Turned it off during “fiddle about” WTF? Changed times

This has got to be one of the most self indulgent albums I've ever hear. Seriously, nobody cares about your creepy little drunk uncle dude. Yeah there are some hits like Pinball Wizard, but by the time you get there you're already so fucking over these guys.

the opera has a nice story to it but what an awful album to listen to. Pinball wizard and go to the mirror are good songs.

So. Much. Padding. Dear Lord this whole album has one song.

.. no

All who albums are getting a 1 star for noncing.

1 i dislike it its just not my type of music i dont like the vibe its just not my style. the second one i dont really like either its just not my stlyle the third one i dont really like it just not my style of music i dont really like the chorus

'Who' gives a shit? See what I did there... Now stop reading this review and go listen to something enjoyable.

I have some friends who adore this album, but it left me absolutely cold and actually quite unsettled. I get the idea of it as an opera, and the need for short interludes, but it was missing something. I couldn't easily follow what was happening, it was just a disjointed sequence of sketches and ideas. When it did settle on an idea, it was images of child abuse set to fairground melodies. I started off wanting to give it a chance, and just got more and more disappointed as it went on. I know Pinball Wizard is a classic, but the album as a whole doesn't deserve it.

How was this a popular as it was?

Didn’t like this at all. Songs are not memorable, musicianship was very average

A double album I don't like by a band I don't like to start the week. 1001 Albums Generator, you do treat me.

lol

This is beyond disappointing. If anyone happens to read this before they have listened to Tommy, I would encourage them to check out the live performance of these songs from the Live 1970 album. The songs themselves are never great but at least on the live album there is a band chemistry that isn’t present on the studio version.

2/10 A jesu me udavili s ovim. Inace The Who mi ima super stvari, ali sjecam se da su mi uvijek bili hit or miss sto se tice albuma i/ili perioda. Ovaj mi je potpuni miss i zapravo zalim svake minute potrosene na njega jer mi je bilo gotovo neslusljivo. A i 75 minuta, calm your fuckin' tits sa svojom dosadnom rock operom.

Not a fan of songs that mention Christmas or has Christmas in the subject. Also songs with the g slur. Nice sounds, but it did feel too long of an album somewhere during the listen. Also, what is the line "gonna rape you" supposed to mean there in the last song,

Like this if you gaf about Tommy

Not for me, whacky to far out there. Like a crap Pink Floyd.

>be there when rock and roll was most popular >have guitar >form a band (random people) >strum guitar >???? >superstar

Was fairly ambivalent about The Who when I started this album. I almost turned off the album during Cousin Kevin. Then I DID turn off the album at Fiddle About. Music is trash, lyrics are worse.

Never really understood The Whos popularity,they have a few good hits but this was just bad from start to finish

Honestly, I just can't get on with the Who. I tried again but got 2 tracks in and just had to turn it off

Tommy by The Who is often hailed as a groundbreaking rock opera, but its ambitious scope sometimes results in a long, dull, and overindulgent experience. The production and arrangements, while innovative, sometimes feel excessive, overshadowing the emotional core of the album. While tracks like Pinball Wizard stand out as high points, the overall experience can feel weighed down by its own ambition. Tommy is a landmark in rock history, but its grandeur might make it a tough listen. NUMBER OF BANGERS - 1 STAND OUT TRACK - Pinball Wizard

I’ve struggled to write a review on this for some reason. Firstly, I don’t like musicals or ‘rock operas’ unless I like the story. And I really really really don’t like this story. Therefore the songs are just too hard to listen to. The vocals feel like they are forced in to tell the tale rather than something that makes a lovely song! This was all about Pete Townshend being too arty/clever/up his own arse.

feels like 70s summer, but also kinda boring. def didn't listen to whole thing. I like It's Hard 80s album better

oh god this is that fucking "rock opera" isnt it. *checks wikipedia* yep. I've heard this before and I thought it sucked horrendously, lets see if I still think that way. There's a good song called We're Not Gonna Take It but its not the one on this album Pinball Wizard is fine I guess but even it's wildly overrated. One star for being pretentious nonsense with almost no good SONGS in it, and only because this site will not let me rank something 0 stars

I understand now why the only song I've ever heard off this album already was Pinball Wizard and I'd like the time I spent listening to this back please.

60’s

Underwhelming. Pinball wizard is a really good track but the rest of the songs feel really under developed. Singer needs to sing in a lower octave it's v monotonous and forced.

absolutely atrocious

Mto grande nem ouvi

Self indulgent BS

I just can't get into this band. Favorite track: Pinball Wizard

Right, so the reason this doesn't work for me as opposed to something like The Wall is that it feels insincere. It's like they constantly started adding whatever bullshit they could think of in order to justify the length. There are a couple good songs on this album (as usual with the Who, way more a singles band than an album band), but as a whole it's just a slog to get through.

Sounds like it's been recorded in a bucket. Roger Daltrey's singing is appalling and the music mediocre. Absolute toch.

1. overture - 1 2. a boy - 0 3. 1921 - 1 4. journey - 0 5. zparkz - 0 6. the blind - 0 7. chriztmaz - 0 8. kevin - 0 9. acid queen - 1 10. underture - 1 11. alright - 0 12. fiddle about - 0 13. pinball - 1.5 14. doctor - 0 15. mirror - 1 16. tommy - 1 17. zenzation - 1 18. miracle cure - 0 19. zally - 1 20. im free - 1 21. uuelcome - 1 22. holiday camp - 0 23. take it - 1

O começo: detestei Meio: ainda tava ruim Final: já tinha desistido

Just an awful album

I absolutely hated this, wow. Disliked the vocals, they couldn't get my attention for the story, which would obviously be mandatory for such an album like this, and there is just generally very little to enjoy here. Oh and it just went on and on, I couldn't wait to be finished with this.

Self-indulgent crap. This is the first Who album I bought and listened to and basically wrote them off because of it. Who's Next is an absolute masterpiece. This? It's not enjoyable to listen to at all.

Etwas lame

Easily the biggest delta so far between the reverence most folks have for the album and the depths of my distaste for it. Roger Daltrey is unbearable both as a singer and a human being. The story is boring. The music is fine. I never want to hear it again.

Not a fan

Did not listen. Not a Who fan. I like behind blue eyes and pinball wizard and that's about it 1⭐

Regular

Just kept going and going and going

I am not a fan. Alot of the songs are rather long winded and mostly instrumental. Alot of the background band is really just noise; there are times where I can't hear a melody of any sort. This feels like a halfbaked album that could have been a weird 4-5 track EP. Also don't care for the range the singers hang in most of the time, very shrill.

i could stand 2 cuts

Terrible...just can't abide the Who. 1.5/5

This is terrible

nope

Awful

don't like the who

A meandering and overlong exercise in patience. No memorable songs.

Fuck Tommy.

Genuinely one of the most irritating albums I’ve ever listened to, weird kids bop glossy pantomime ass music Pinball wizard goes though

Maybe i need more listens or have to see the musical or something. Not feeling this.

Couldn’t make it through all the creepy child rape and uncle bits. The hits are there, of course, but the rest is garbage and sounded like they were making it up as the album was being recorded. The repetitive, out of key, and out of sync lyrics were too much. This is no Wall, that’s for damn sure.

Wasn’t a fan of the Jumpscare sexual assault stuff tbh

Ugh. I don’t know shit about operas, but isn’t this a rock musical rather than a rock opera? I mean, it sounds like The Who doing a lame ass musical. So, The Who are pretty good, but lame ass musicals aren’t. This is like Micheal Jordan playing baseball. Or I guess if the Beatles did a rock musical, that would be like Michael Jordan playing baseball. This is more like Shaq playing a genie in “Shazam.” Blech.

Was rock never cool in the first place?? Truly horribly tasteless

the book™️ refers to this album as “naive” “a rocky ride” and “a load of self-indulgent high-school conceptualism”. and the book™️ has a lot more positive feelings about the records it put on this list than i do. this record is bloated lumbering and drab as all hell. just because you have a story idea and the resources and will to execute it. doesn’t mean it’s gonna be any good. and this record fucking sucks. common british L.

I don't like this album, really not my kind of music. I don't like the who. Sorry.

What if a band that wrote really good 3-minute rock songs drew out an idea for a 70-minute album? What if that album told a story? And what if the songs were subsumed to telling the story? And what if the story was extremely goofy? Pinball Wizard is a very dumb idea for song but is way better than it has any right to be. The rest is extremely boring. Random guitar parts throughout sound good and I always love JE on bass - but these songs are such a drag.

I'm not a big Who fan and didn't like the film at all, so I couldn't quite persevere with this one. Appreciate the concept but it's not for me.

Meh

I fucking hate The Who.

I had never listened to this. I thought this would be great, but it was really only good for Pinball Wizard.

weird - I actually love a lot of songs by The Who but I guess not this "Rock Opera" thing. The drumming was EXCELLENT as could have been expected, and the recording seemed quite good. It's just not very interesting music I guess.

Couldn’t finish it

Heard Tommy lauded as the first rock opera and assumed this was based on a solid album underneath. What was that? Equal parts boring and disturbing, seems like they'd decided on the mad story first and then arranged some music around it as an afterthought. Pinball Wizard is alright but I don't need to hear anything else from this again.

Honestly, who cares.

Did not hit in the slightest

it's funny how this is like a groundbreaking work in terms of being conceptual and more orchestrated than a typical rock album and very pretentious and then the premise is a blind kid who is good at pinball, just the stupidest shit anyone has ever thought of the instrumentation on the opener is good "it's a boy" is irritatingly precious even if it's short 1921 also irritates me, it feels a bit like trying to cram a narrative into a musical framework rather than just writing a good song really that's the whole thing, the who could write a good wrong song occasionally but too often they got lost up their own ass being silly and/or pretentious the whole sound of this album is a little too cutesy for me it's not the worst thing I ever heard but I don't really enjoy it. I write this as I am only on track 4 of 24. keith moon's drumming is still excellent when they really let him go off. but i am already incredibly sick of daltrey's falsetto. sparks is another kind of neat instrumental but it feels more like an intro to a song than a proper song eyesight to the blind is fine but basically forgettable and the intro to 'christmas' with the 'ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah' background vocals is teeth gratingly bad again just WRITE A REGULAR SONG OH MY GOD the "see me touch me feel me refrain is meant to be like, Conceptual or Something as a motif they use several times but it and the TOMMYCANYOUHEARME just get under my skin a ton honestly i was going to say this album has at least some decent bits but so much of it is so incredibly long and so much of it is so bad, i just cannot stand it as a whole do you think it's alright/fiddle about is just atrocious. godawful. who the fuck thought it was necessary to have 2 minutes on the album dedicated to songs about child molestation. i doubt i will hear a worse 2 minutes of music anywhere pinball wizard is okay i guess. i almost certainly prefer it as a single outside the album though. the back half of the album is sort of blandly unmemorable. still kind of irritatingly precocious but doesn't grind my gears as much. "we're not gonna take it" starts off not great but honestly i like the back half. still not an album i would be compelled to revisit much at all.

ok so my issue here is that the story is too like, hamfisted. it's over an hour of just like mostly exposition. the parts that are supposed to be emotional feel fake. i would not want to read a novel written by this dude, he's never heard of "show don't tell" and honestly the fact that the story is about like a character disassociating due to trauma and finding ways to cope with it makes it a little offensive imo that it's treated in such a clumsy way. its giving the same vibes as like when white people write a story about racism the music is fine. there were parts i liked and parts that were kinda boring. pinball wizard was fun. a bit too long

i was not going to listen to all of this but i will say. this was written under the influence of many MANY drugs.

Generally hate The Who, so approached with extreme prejudice. As expected, Tommy is over-blown, over-long and not particularly interesting. Hopefully this is the last Who album on this list.

Riktigt jävla tråkigt de första 4 låtarna innan jag gav upp.

Too long and boring each song should have been half the length. It's just okay

Laughably bad

How the fuck are these lot considered to be such an important band? Wank.

Ja, gewoon helemaal kut dit dus! Wat een gejank.

I remember watching this film and finding it slightly troubling. without the film this is just a massive pile of shite. there's nothing endearing the storytelling is non existent and the music sucks ass. seems a shame cos the who have created some great songs. just seems they disappeared up their own ass with this. also the lighthearted abuse by fiddling seems a funny thing to joke about.

Not my thing.

Disappointing

Before I listened to this album, the number of concept/story albums in the rock world that I liked and would listen to again was very small (Alan Parsons Project, some other prog metal, etc.). The number didn't go up after this. Forgettable, story was...eh...and music...well....no thanks.

no

don't like

La verdad no me gusta the who

Did not like

Interesting sound and chorus. Melodies are all over the place. The voice of the artist is a little high pitched but it's pleasant to hear.