7. The Who by Numbers (1975)

By many accounts, this album shouldn’t have happened. Townshend wanted to disband the Who after Quadrophenia and Moon was spiraling further out of control. The second — and shockingly upbeat, at least as far as the chord structures are concerned — song on the album, “However Much I Booze” finishes that thought with the words, “There ain’t no way out.”

There, of course, wouldn’t be for Moon, but the lyrics, here, are from Townshend and can be troubling. They shine a light on a delicate, troubled genius. Here’s a guy who could muscle out the genre-defying “Squeeze Box” and the sexually probing, Entwistle-shining “Dreaming From The Waist” from a band that he purportedly didn’t even want to exist anymore.