30. FACE DANCES by The Who

I would be remiss if I didn’t feature the album containing this blog’s namesake. Released in 1981, this was the first album the Who released after drummer Keith Moon’s death in 1978 and featured Kenney Jones (the Faces, the Small Faces) as Moon’s ‘replacement’ (as if Keith Moon could ever be replaced). Album opener ‘You Better You Bet’ was the lead single and also one of the first videos to be played on the new music video channel, MTV. This album seems to always be in the running as one of the Who’s worst (usually competing with ‘It’s Hard’), though I think both of these records have their share of hits (and misses). Aside from the singles (‘YBYB,’ ‘Don’t Let Go the Coat’), other tracks I would check out include John Entwistle’s ‘The Quiet One’ (imagine if Moonie played drums on this rocker), ‘Daily Records’ (for obvious reasons) and ‘Another Tricky Day’ with it’s killer opening riff. By the way, after listening to ‘Another Tricky Day’ queue up the first 30 seconds or so of the Steve Miller Band’s 1977 song, ‘Swingtown.’