The albums Pete Townshend knows he should have never made: “They weren’t classic”
If there’s one thing that Pete Townshend was known for, it was being brutally honest about what he was making.
He was never going to be the kind of artist that sugarcoated anything, and even when he was writing some of the best pop songs that The Who ever came up with, he would also sprinkle in a few lines that made everyone start looking at their situation in a much deeper way. He wanted people to think a lot more about the music they were listening to, but he could also accept the fact that he left his audience down more than a few times.
When talking about The Who’s greatest screwups, though, Townshend normally has a specific area reserved for projects like Lifehouse. Everything was in place for the record to be massive, but after spending so much time labouring over what the plot should be and making sure that the story was intact, Townshend joined the ranks of Brian Wilson by having an album that completely fell apart before it was even finished.
But that didn’t matter to Who fans. They still got some of the greatest rock and roll songs ever created out of the deal, and Quadrophenia managed to redeem his standing as a great storyteller. In fact, Quadrophenia may have been a little too good for its own good now that we know what came directly after it. Townshend needed time to rest, but we would never see these storytelling-style structures ever again.
And no, we’re not counting Endless Wire in this conversation. The Wire and Glass suite is certainly interesting for what it is, but even The Who continue on as a brand these days, there’s a lot of people that still stand by the fact that the band officially died all the way back when Keith Moon passed away. He was too important to their sound, and while they did release some great material, there had to be moments where one question kept running around in Townshend’s head: why bother?
It’s not an easy question to answer, either. Many people might have wanted the band to continue, but after looking at the way that their later records shaped up, Townshend felt that there was no need for them to make any new material, saying after the fact, “We made another two albums that we probably shouldn’t have made. It’s Hard and Face Dances contained really good material for a solo album but they weren’t classic Who songs.” That’s a little bit harsh, but you can see where he’s coming from.
‘You Better You Bet’ is still a classic Who track, but when you look at the way that the melody falls, the song could have easily been a breakout smash if Townshend managed to keep it for himself. And since Roger Daltrey already had problems with Kenney Jones replacing Moon, the dour tone on the next record didn’t come as a big surprise when people heard the tune ‘Eminence Front’.
The song itself sounds really cool and has Townshend in fine form, but let’s not sugarcoat what they’re talking about here. Townshend is telling you to your face that everything that he built on the record was a lie, and even if you love singing along to his tunes, all of them are a lot more hollow than you realise if you want to look through the tealeaves and see that he doesn’t want to be there anymore.
Should It’s Hard and Face Dances have been made? Well, there are a lot of Who tunes on that record that still sound great to this day, but given what they had gone through, it’s not shocking why Townshend wanted to close the door on everything. He had done everything he could, but at some point someone needed to face the facts and realise that those records weren’t exactly going to do anything for the band’s legacy, either.
