The Who - It's Hard mp3 album

I've Known No War is powerful and underrated. Entwistle's three songs on this album--especially Dangerous--are three of his best. Eminence Front has a funky groove and is the best song on the album...

I'm beyond tired of the drubbing this album takes. I think it's plain great. The who always delivered for me. They saved my life more times than I can count and no fuckers gonna dump on this or Face Dances in my presence. For Cry if you want alone it's a classic. Let the abuse commence but The Who were the greatest! They never,NEVER let me down and I'll always love them for that. They didn't keep shaking their asses to make fans happy to relive their first fuck. They grew up and their music grew up with them. Hard cheese,ain't it. But that's what makes The Who giants of rock. Every time they laid it on the line. Maybe they didn't give you what you wanted but they gave you what they were. That's my idea of a fucking band.

I'd give It's Hard a solid 3 1/2 stars based on Eminence Front alone. It's turned into one of their signature classics over the years. Most of Townshend's and Entwhistle's songs are heartfelt and don't indicate much lack of enthusiasm, which you might suspect. Unfortunately, they just don't jell like they would have a few years before. It also kind of reflected the music of that particular time, a mixture of waning punk and new wave insurgence into their music. In short, solid, but not outstanding, comparatively.

this is the last Who lp before 2006's Endless Wire. Side One is fairly strong but the songs on Side 2 are mostly forgettable. But after a string of 6 great albums, it is reasonable for them to have only half a good album.

An album containing Eminence Front can not be overlooked ... a modern classic and a poorly ranked work

Pete Townshend cleaned up his drug habit to put his focus back on his band, but It's Hard is an uneven way to wrap up a career. The keyboards drown out the Townshend/Entwistle section and give the album a muscularity that is more robotic in feel and less human. It was a small slice of the direction of music in the early 80s and The Who were not immune to the change of pace. Perhaps if Keith Moon were still around the band wouldn't have gone off into aimless noodling. It's Hard has some strengths but what it hurts it is its compromises to stay current. Key tracks are Athena, Dangerous, and Eminence Front.

Even hardcore Who fans would find this album "Hard" to sit through. Pete Townshend was asked by Roger Daltrey more "Who" like songs for the follow up to "Face Dances" so Pete obliged with some of his least interesting or melodic songs. "Athena" (original called "Theresa" and written for Theresa Russell) and "Eminence Front" remain the strongest songs here.There are anthems here buried under too many synthesizers and cluttered arrangements that did no favors to the material. Townshend would eventually rebound with "White City" as a solo album and for The Who (at that point just Townshend and Daltrey) with "Endless Wire" a much better album than this awful, bombastic swan song (well, at least until they reformed and returned to the studio for "Endless Wire"). The album isn't a complete loss but it is difficult to sit through.

It's Hard is another Who album that simply has no reason to exist. While Eminence Front is certainly a great song, given that Townshend himself provides the vocals for it it could just as easily fit onto one of his solo ventures. None of the remaining tracks do justice to the Who's name, trampling on the band's once immaculate image. The group could simply no longer sustain the level of quality that once came effortlessly to them, resulting in an album that fails to capture what once made the Who one of the greatest rock outfits of all time.