Not many rock groups could pull off the “concept album” without it descending into a morass of self-indulgence and wretched excess. The Who was one of the bands that could get away with it, because Pete Townshend was such a genius. Here’s The Acid Queen, from their rock opera “Tommy”:
Did I mention that adding in a layer of psychedelia makes it that much harder to achieve? Because it does. And if very few artists can do this sort of thing, even fewer can cover them successfully. Needless to say, Tina Turner was one such artist:
Don’t even try to touch that. You just can’t.
This week marks the kickoff of a new project in Saturday videos, similar to the one I did with that Popdose Top 100 list, but with songs from my collection. I may or may not have all the versions for which I post videos, and in some cases I may do a “same name, different song” post. Should be fun, let me know what you think.