Townshend's Quadrophenia is a rather daunting proposition. Another Who double-album rock opera?…

The mind boggles, and you get the sneaking feeling that Pete Townshend has tried to out-Tommy Tommy and gone sailing right over the top.

The impression even persists when you start playing side one. The first thing you hear is a "Desert Island Discs" surf-crashing-on-the-shore sound effect in sumptuous stereo while distant echoed voices intone the four principal themes from the piece.

Then it suddenly cuts into "The Real Me", and you hear that sound, as uncompromisingly violent as a boot disintegrating a plate glass window at 4 a.m., and simultaneously as smooth as a nightflight by 747.

Prime-cut Who, and suddenly you realize that Pete hasn't blown it after all. Face it, he very rarely does.

Quadrophenia is both less and more ambitious than its notorious predecessor.

Tommy tripped over its mysticism rather too often for...