![\"Pete](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Pete-Townshend-Musician-The-Who-1975-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Harry Chase \/ UCLA Library)<\/p>\n
Thu 4 December 2025 11:00, UK <\/p>\n
Getting your own way is famously difficult within the dog-eat-dog world of the music industry; even some of the greatest rock stars of all time, like The Who\u2019s Pete Townshend<\/a>, have occasionally had to strike up compromises and adhere to the demands of record company executives at one time or another, but that doesn\u2019t mean they went without a fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n When The Who first emerged onto the airwaves, from their roots in the mod nightclubs of London, they represented an angry new generation of rock and rollers. Playing with a short, sharp, and endearingly anarchic style, and striking upon era-defining anthems like \u2018My Generation\u2019, Townshend\u2019s outfits were the proto-punks of the swinging sixties, and they weren\u2019t bending over themselves to appease the wants and demands of the music industry, either. <\/p>\n After all, Townshend\u2019s artistic drive did not involve a desire to follow trends. At every possible turn, The Who devoted themselves to an entirely new area of rock and roll expression, whether it was the postmodern masterpiece of The Who Sell Out<\/a>, or Townshend\u2019s exploration of rock opera on 1969\u2019s Tommy \u2013 an album that ushered in an entirely new age both for The Who and the rock landscape more generally. <\/p>\n That album, in fact, formed a pivotal moment in the band\u2019s trajectory, allowing them to move on from the youthful rock of the mid-1960s into something with a much longer shelf-life. However, the planned follow-up to Tommy, Lifehouse, never came to fruition. The narrative of that particular rock opera was never completed, and the band eventually abandoned the idea entirely in favour of creating a much more digestible album in the form of Who\u2019s Next<\/a>. <\/p>\n Despite that collective decision, and the undeniable brilliance of Who\u2019s Next as an album, though, Townshend always seems to have harboured some disappointment that Lifehouse never worked out. Even during the production process for Who\u2019s Next, there was still a core part of his being hoping to capture the same expansive brilliance that had been planned for the band\u2019s 1971 effort. \u201cI was still hoping for a double album when we were making Who\u2019s Next,\u201d he confirmed to Rock Cellar<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a tough time. It became a tough time,\u201d the guitarist recalled of the making of that particular record. \u201cBut it was also a very important lesson for me. I\u2019d given up, in a sense, on the idea of working with Kit. That was the big thing,\u201d he said, highlighting the fact that the band\u2019s severed relationship with former producer and manager overshadowed the album\u2019s production somewhat. <\/p>\n As it turns out, though, the replacement producer in Glyn Johns didn\u2019t exactly adhere to Townshend\u2019s plans, either. \u201cWhen Glyn took over, I was hoping that he would make a double album,\u201d Townshend recalled. \u201cThat was all. That\u2019s why I gave him the script.\u201d <\/p>\n Inevitably, though, it didn\u2019t quite pan out that way, and Who\u2019s Next ended up being a single album, with a new notable tracks from Lifehouse strangely omitted from the final tracklist. \u201cI thought leaving off \u2018Pure and Easy\u2019, was like leaving fucking \u2018Amazing Journey\u2019 off Tommy,\u201d the songwriter attested. \u201cIt\u2019s the song that sets the scene, that gives Lifehouse the backbone.\u201d<\/p>\n For all its internal conflict and artistic disappointment for Townshend, though, Who\u2019s Next is still among The Who\u2019s greatest works, capturing the profound genius of the guitarist\u2019s songwriting talents at that time in the form of classics like \u2018Baba O\u2019Riley\u2019 and \u2018Won\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u2019 among others. What\u2019s more, Townshend\u2019s appetite for rock opera innovation was eventually settled in the form of Quadrophenia a few years later. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Harry Chase \/ UCLA Library) Thu 4 December 2025 11:00, UK Getting your own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,33162,9738,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-298567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-pete-townshend","11":"tag-the-who","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}