Album Review: Various - Whole Lotta Who

The Who were precursors to punk, and were an inverted ideal of the archetypal rock band; the bass was arguably the lead instrument. So it's a great disappointment to find out that this album is lacking in vision and creativity. The Who's songs are by nature hard to cover, and it's tough to find a new approach to reinterpreting such iconic anthems. Sadly these musicians on Whole Lotta Who merely pay homage to these songs as opposed to making them stand out in new ways.

By using a Led Zeppelin reference in the name of the album, the listener could well expect some kind of angle on this tribute, but there's no sign of that throughout. The opening track is the simplistic I Can't Explain, which was the band's first singe. Here Iggy Pop provides a straight forward vocal over the four chords on display. Who Are You comes closer to a more creative approach with the keyboard moving into a funkier sound. Elsewhere there is a broken down version of Magic Bus, which is more imaginative.

There are songs in the Who catalogue that deserve a whole lot of respect and The Seeker and Bargain are perfect examples of songs that are best not tampered with. Artists like Joe Elliott, Rick Wakemen and The Sweet appear on some of these tracks, so it's no surprise that the album lacks any sense of here and now. If you really want to learn anything about The Who, then best to go and get a copy of Who's Next and enjoy the real thing.