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Pete Townshend is 80

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He turned 80 today. Putting aside all the current (and past) shenanigans. He was a great songwriter/performer

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  3. One of the people who made me pick up (and then learn) the six string, watching Kids are Alright as a teenager was an incredible head turner for me. I believe that some of the footage while great, it’s only a small sampling of what the group could acheive, is some of the most bracing, thrilling and spectacular performances *** captured in all of Rock Music.

    I bought an Epiphone SG copy shortly after, causing both me endless joy and no dearth of annoyance from my neighbours.

    View post on imgur.com

    *** Though some of it, “A Quick One” notably, was overdubbed and tarted up after the fact.

  4. Great songwriter and performer, showed ambition to move on from the 3 minute anthem through A Quick One, Sell Out, Tommy, and Quadrophenia.
    Lifehouse – a brave concept that his mind just couldn’t articulate – but did result in Who’s Next (surely one of the greatest, defining Rock Albums?), and several attempts at piecing it together later in life.
    The Scoop collections make for interesting (if not repeated) listening on how stuff came together.
    Since 1978? Most of his output (solo and band wise) has moments of interest, not always wholly but always trying.
    Is this the place to admit I actually quite like Endless Wire?

    • I put Empty Glass (1980) up with the best stuff he ever did. Follow up “Chinese Eyes” was also excellent. I quite liked Endless Wire when it came out but haven’t played it since

  6. The first 10 years of the Who were/ are fantastic. Pete now has the usual problem of so many artists that were stellar in the late 60s through the mid 70s: “lightning in the bottle” became more difficult to catch. It’s difficult to think of any artist who has had more than one imperial period. Maybe Nick Cave still delivers?

    My theory is that these artists (of whom Townshend is a good example) – used to produce brilliant albums (and singles in between), plus gigs and tours. They find, after a few decades, that their best new tracks after said imperial phase might make or a good late material compilation (the Stones and Bowie have done a lot of good things, for example). This is also why so many acts now have too many live albums.

    I don’t know what the solution is, and wonder if it’s something to do with creativity in the popular music world, the optimal age for creativity, whether you need to be struggling, the importance of context and critical mass/ collaborations, bands becoming brands, etc.

    • Well, it’s not meant to be autobiographical, it was a mod anthem, many of whom probably did die before they got old. I think Pete only really started writing himself with By Numbers

        • Based on the comments in this thread I gave WBN a listen for the first time in about 30 years. I’m afraid it still sounds like a bunch of expositional filler from a musical. But then again, I also feel that about Quadrophenia. My Who love drops off a cliff after ‘71.

      • I came very late to WBN (bought as a result of a tiggerlion review in fact ) and it’s my favourite by far. The others have a touch too much filler, but then nearly any album does.

  8. Who’s Next could and should have been the greatest rock album of them all. Its not for two reasons:
    1. They left off Join Together and the Seeker. Both fantastic.
    2. Its a terrible album cover by any measure.

  9. I love(d) the Who – first band I ever saw in 1966, and probably the band I have seen most often over the years. For sheer primal, visceral excitement there was no one to touch them as a live band, but Pete suffered as time went as he was the only songwriter of note. This must be hard – Ray Davies was in a similar postion with the Kinks – whereby an early hot streak is increasingly difficult to match and there is no one to work it through with. No one ever understood Lifehouse, and he has spent the intervening years trying to explain it, and just writing good songs without some sort of theme or storyline seemed beneath him.

    The Stones have Mick and Keith, who genuinely seem to inspire one another – you can argue that they too never matched their imperial period ( which is obviously true) but they have produced some worthwhile records later on. John and Paul struggled without each other too, although Macca eventually came through that. With the whole band and enterprise relying on you, it must be a burden.

    • Good points. I think all 3 of the “other” bands had somewhat similar trajectories. They were slightly behind the Fabs (or at least John and Paul), partly because they were a couple of years younger. In general a lot of excellent early singles then a 4 or 5 album run of greatness starting in the middle to late 60s then back to relative mediocrity. One difference is The Who were still playing live in the 67-69 period, The Beatles weren’t, The Stones stopped for a while and The Kinks were banned from touring the US.

  10. Great discussion in this thread. Re Pete’s creative burden – was that of his own making? You’d expect Entwhistle at least to have been able to collaborate with Pete but didn’t he spend all his time in his home studio doing demos and then just present them to the band?
    Roger, to me, seems to lack any creativity and Keith, well who would know.

    • I think it was in Pete’s book where he said he tried to collaborate, but it just didn’t work. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere is listed as a co-write with Roger. I think the reality was it started as Roger’s idea, he had some of the words, but Pete shaped it and drove it.
      Entwistle, arguably the most theoretical musician in the band contributes usually one song per album

      • Almost uniquely, Pete is/was the main songwriter but not the lead singer, which presumably adds another layer of difficulty. I can’t think of too many other bands where this is the case – Oasis is the only other instance that immediately springs to my mind, and by all accounts the man protagonists there didn’t always see eye to eye.

  11. I wouldn’t change anything about The Who’s albums and singles, I’m becoming quite a fan recently. The trope that he became a boozer and lost his talent seems probably wrong; I’m listening to However Much I Booze right now and it occurs to me that he was fearless in his writing- and listen to that guitar playing! The layers! … and you can do this with any random song of theirs. I think he felt under pressure to keep outdoing himself on a grand scale, and felt bad that he couldn’t.

    All these albums are great mixed bags of songs. So are the singles.

    Also: synth and home recording pioneer!

    • I remember a part of his book devoted to a production of his that didn’t enjoy the success he had hoped for. He said that the “audience wasn’t ready for it”. It was an audiobook and he delivered it totally straight, like that was he sincerely thought. He was joking though, right?

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