Pete Townshend’s favourite album by The Beatles
There are a lot of musicians who are considered good songwriters. However, a lot less are considered to be good album writers. Pete Townshend is an exception to this. He is an artist who can see the bigger picture before paint has even hit the canvas, as concept albums such as Tommy and Quadrophenia redefine what it means to weave narrative through music. So, what inspired him to become the master of the magnum opus?
Naturally, all members of The Who had their own creative influences. Their varying taste in the kind of music they pined to make eventually led to friction within the band. However, Pete Townshend was an unwavering force when it came to putting his ideas forward, and his ideas for what the group were capable of eventually led to some of the most exciting LPs in recent decades.
Though Townshend has a lot of musical influences, he cites two albums in particular as signposts towards the future, one of which was his favourite Beatles album. He praises this record for showing listeners what the future looked like while being subdued enough not to tell listeners how to get there. They were given a glimpse of what the next generation of rock would be, but no further information than that, and Townshend essentially spent the next few years of his career trying to unpack the secrets of the album.
The Beatle’s highly conceptual collation of colour, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band broke new ground and left a lasting impression on The Who guitarist and chief songwriter. “The shock-wave it caused challenged all comers,” said Townshend, “No one believed The Beatles would ever top it or would even bother to try.”
It’s true that when The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper that they redefined what an album was capable of. The LP had recurring characters, an arc and a common thread which linked every song to the next. There was an undeniable ambience throughout the whole thing, which brought an element of consistency that engaged audiences in the same way that movies can.
When you look at the qualities this album had, and that which are present throughout some of The Who’s biggest albums, it’s hardly a surprise that Townshend looked to it as an inspiration. However, it wasn’t the only record from around that time that he praised as a game-changer.
“For me, Sgt. Pepper and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds redefined music in the 20th century: atmosphere, essence, shadow, and romance were combined in ways that could be discovered again and again,” he said. “Neither album made any deep political or social comment, but ideas were not what mattered. Listening to music had become a drug in itself.”
It’s funny that there are such clear parallels between these two albums and what The Who eventually made, yet all projects also sound wholly individual to one another. This is the quality of a good musician, who can clearly draw from their inspirations but not be so overcome that they become a poor imitation of them.
