Track Listing

1. You Better You Bet
2. Don't Let Go The Coat
3. Cache Cache
4. The Quiet One
5. Did You Steal My Money
6. How Can You Do It Alone
7. Daily Records
8. You
9. Another Tricky Day
10. I Like Nightmares
11. It's In You
12. Somebody Saved Me
13. How Can You Do It Alone
14. The Quiet One

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22849 in Music
• Released on: 1997-05-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Running time: 63 minutes

CD Description
The Who's first album of the '80s and their first without drum maniac Keith Moon was viewed with cynicism by many longtime Who fans, who declared the band a dead issue. In fact, FACE DANCES was arguably the band's last aesthetically successful album. The reckless abandon of the Moon era was irretrievable, but the Who's sound was maturing all along, and Moon's madness fit Townshend's mature, sophisticated tunes less and less. FACE DANCES is no bland-out, but the band mines the subtle end of their dynamic range more extensively and successfully than ever before.
With the advancing years, thetension between Townshend's thoughtful lyrics and the rock-hero bravado of Roger Daltrey's delivery had grown more pronounced, charging these songs with subtextual energy. Guest Rabbit Bundrick's keyboards add colour to Townshend's increasingly introspective examinations of adult relationships and responsibilites (sounds boring as hell, but really it's not)on "Another Tricky Day" and "How Can You Do It Alone". Entwistle's bass still rages and rumbles like a nuclear submarine, and the band's fire still rages on FACE DANCES, albeit with a bit more finesse.

Customer Reviews

an underrated treasure
As some of the reviews clearly show, this album is not well regarded by Who fans in general. And you can see why. It lacks the visceral bombast of the classic 'Who's Next' or the expansive imagination of 'Tommy' or 'Quadraphenia'.
But I have always really enjoyed it. I think it fits far better if considered alongside the two Pete Townshend solo albums that he released before and after it. It is far more of a piece with 'Empty Glass' and 'All the best cowboys have chinese eyes' than with The Who's golden era.
If you like the introspective and sometimes painfully confessional songwriting of those two albums, then you may find that on Face Dances Townshend reveals his bruised soul (shorn of grand allegories) as on no other record.
A quiet classic.

A great album
I never listened to The Who, but my parents had this album so it got into my head. Ten years later, I tried it again and I was amazed. This is a superb album with marvelous guitars and drums. I don't which is my favourite song - they all are... I don't know was any song a big hit (but the album was #2 in UK and #4 in U.S.) but some of them should have been for sure... From the wonderful slower songs like Another Tricky Day and How Can You Do It Alone, to the great guitars like in The Quit One and Daily Recods this album never gets down. Buy it. You won't regret it. I promise!

Losing Face
In the world of rock ‘Hope I die before I get old’ is an oft used refrain from bands wishing to assert the ephemeral nature of their art whilst showing a contemptuous disregard for those who stay around for too long, leaving a burned-out catalogue of mediocrity. Indeed premature mortality for a group or an individual tends to bear a direct correlation with the ultimate longevity of their music. After the tragic death of Keith Moon The Who were reluctant to return to the recording studio. And rightly so, with their place already guaranteed within the pantheon of rock legends what else could they achieve?

Sadly the 1981 release of ‘Face Dances’ confirmed that the remaining three quarters of this seminal rock band could produce a record so trite and misguided that it would indelibly stain all that preceded it. One suspects that even the sudden and permanent elimination of the remaining band members would have done little to improve the reputation of this one! Perhaps the fact that many of their original fans had moved on, resulting in ‘Face Dances’ disappointing chart position (#2 in UK and #4 in U.S) helped save the total deconstruction of the bands myth.
1981’s ‘Face Dances’ was released in the same year as an overweight and over the hill Muhammad Ali climbed through the ropes for the last time to be soundly beaten by the journeyman Trevor Berbick. Whilst it is hard to say which comeback was the more painful, one senses that both occasions possessed an equal measure of desperate witless posturing in front of a shocked public. Whilst both protagonists should have been indulging in the easy life they allowed their delusions to take hold with tragic consequences.
The album ‘Face Dances’ comprises of nine original tracks seven of which were penned by Pete Townshend and two by John Entwistle. At the time of the recording Townshend was beginning to exhibit the same fertile imagination and scope that was later to produce his literally nightmarish concept album ‘Psychoderelict’. In contrast Entwistle’s monstrous chugging rehashes are far less ambitious and as such provide the albums more listenable moments. Tasked with interpretation and delivery Roger Daltrey beseeches the listener with impassioned clichés as he emotes:
“You lead me on like a lamb to the slaughter. Then you act like a fish out of water.”
Desperate stuff indeed!
At less than forty minutes in length ‘Face Dances’ is mercifully short but still manages to inflict a lot of damage on the listener. Having not managed to recapture the vitality of earlier works The Who compensate by reworking the musical styles of contemporary performers whilst pitching in a veritable kitchen sink of characteristic keyboard and guitar refrains. And so the listener is confronted in equal measure by what sounds like sub standard 10cc, The Police and Genesis. Both irrelevant and contrived The Who have served up a half cocked crock of cack.
The Hucknallesque track five asks ‘Did you steal my money?’ Anybody unfortunate enough to have shelled out their hard earned cash for ‘Face Dances’ will know this question to be rhetorical.
Buy it – I dare you.