(Credits: Far Out / Harry Chase / UCLA Library)
Tue 11 November 2025 14:15, UK
If there were a way to own the copyright on rock operas, there’s a good chance that Pete Townshend would hold all the trademarks.
There had been albums with running themes since the dawn of rock and roll, but Townshend was the first to figure out that an album had the potential to tell a real story without having to sacrifice any of the standard rock and roll tropes. But while his works like Tommy and Quadrophenia are classic examples of what rock operas could be, Townshend is the first to admit that the concept album had been there for many years before he thought of the idea.
Because when looking at the biggest names in music, all of them get to a point where they want to make some sort of grand statement. It’s one thing to make an album that’s nothing but a bunch of commercial songs slapped together in a decent order, but concept records are something different. These are the ones that prove that the musician is a true artist and is willing to paint a picture of whatever concept they’re looking at.
And while Townshend did have the musical know-how to make a great concept record, making a record like Tommy was always going to be daunting. No one else in The Who’s camp knew the kind of music he was working with, but once they finalised the story in their heads, the record seemed like a perfect commentary on not only the life of this deaf, dumb, and blind boy, but also on the perception of stardom as a whole.
If you were to ask Townshend himself, though, a lot of the great ideas for concepts had already been covered by that point, saying, “I think a rock opera has to have a more specific story, or theme. The first two concept albums for me were Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper. No story, but very clear resonance and sense of time. But by the time they were released I had already begun toying with the idea of rock-opera, and so had a number of other writers, especially in the UK.”
If you break both of them down, though, Pet Sounds’ concept is more rooted in the music than anything else. The idea of Brian Wilson painting this masterpiece was going to be an uphill battle, but by following his muse, it’s easy to hear him pouring out his heart and pick apart his own state of mind when writing every tune, whether it’s dealing with loneliness or that feeling of being in love for the first time.
And while John Lennon might have still been refuting the claim that Sgt Pepper is a concept album if he were here today, it’s not like it doesn’t have connective tissue. ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ might not have anything to do with the titular band in question or even some of Paul McCartney’s tracks like ‘Getting Better’ or ‘When I’m 64’, but there is that common sound that captures the Summer of Love better than any other record could.
But beyond rock and roll, the idea of making an entire record based around a central theme goes back to the days before rock and roll properly existed. Frank Sinatra famously hated everything that rock and roll stood for back in the day, and yet a lot of the concept albums made after him wouldn’t have been possible had he not put together an album like In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.
Then again, it’s easy to see why Townshend always went back to The Beatles and The Beach Boys first. Rock had still been a fairly adolescent genre, and when albums like theirs ended up storming up the charts, that practically gave him permission to challenge his own audience when making his rock masterpieces.
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