Pete Townshend names The Who’s “first proper album”
The Who’s Pete Townshend has always believed in experimentation regarding the album format. He sees a record as a blank canvas waiting to be moulded into a new entity. This mindset helped inspire Townshend to pioneer the concept album, but the traditional route was another appealing option.
In the mid-1960s, The Who established themselves as a meteoric force in rock, and on the live stage, few bands could compete with their majesty. With their first two albums, their songs largely were designed for integration into their live sets, but this began to change with The Who Sells Out, which saw the band poke fun at criticism they’d received from supposed fans after hitting the big time.
An early take on the concept album format, The Who Sells Out, was presented as a fake pirate radio station, allowing The Who to play around by introducing skits and making advertisements that would feel at home on Radio Luxembourg.
It was an album that proved The Who could do things differently from the rest of their contemporaries. Even though it lacked storytelling muscle, The Who made amends for this in their future concept work, including their next studio album, 1969’s Tommy.
The record was a roaring success and put The Who in a position to headline the famous Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. However, replicating it was a task that didn’t come easily for Townshend, who initially plotted to release the sequel to Tommy, Lifehouse.
Notably, The Who’s relationship with longtime producer and manager Kit Lambert had become fractured, which was a major reason why Lifehouse was scrapped. Thankfully, Glyn Johns stepped into the producer’s chair and turned the set of songs intended for Lifehouse into an unfiltered rock ‘n’ roll masterpiece, Who’s Next.
Although eight of the nine songs on the album were written for Lifehouse, Johns messed around with the tracklisting to prevent the narrative arc from being noticeable to listeners. Additionally, he removed several numbers that Townshend had intended for the extensive rock opera.
Boasting beloved efforts such as ‘Baba O’Riley’, ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ and ‘Behind Blue Eyes’, Who’s Next elevated the band’s status even further, much to the delight of Townshend who was worried that he’d created an unsalvageable mess.
On the 50th anniversary of the album, Townshend proudly told Guitar Player, “I was delighted with it. I was relieved to have anything at all, and it felt like the Who’s first proper album. It felt uncomplicated and simple, and I didn’t care that the story had been lost. And I just loved the way the songs sat together.”
Furthermore, in another conversation with Rock Cellar, Townshend explained why the tough process made him a better artist, noting, “It was a tough time. But it was also a very important lesson for me. I’d given up on the idea of working with Kit, which was a very big thing. I still had the band, and the band was still behind me.”
Townshend wasn’t pleased with every decision that Johns made but understood it was the producer’s call. He recalled, “I didn’t think that we would get to the end of the project and he would decide that the double album was going to be a single album and leave off ‘Pure and Easy’. I remember thinking that was like leaving fucking ‘Amazing Journey’ off Tommy! It’s the song that sets the scene; that gives the other songs a backbone.”
Ultimately, Johns was proved right not to put ‘Pure and Easy’ on the record because he needed to remove the structured story of Lifehouse. If Townshend had let himself remain in control of the car, there’s a strong chance he’d have driven it off a cliff, but Johns came to the rescue and provided a lesson in the art of simplicity on Who’s Next.
