Pete Townshend

Essential: a masterpiece of Rock music
WHO’S NEXT is the Who’s most exciting album, and one of the greatest masterpieces of 1970s rock.

.When the Who initially attempted to tour Quadrophenia in 1974, the results were a disaster. The band performed the rock opera alongside a series of backing tapes containing synthesizers and sound effects, a decision that put the mercurial Who into a straitjacket and led to uncharacteristically restrained performances…

This rock documentary includes the complete concert performance of The Who at the third and final Isle of Wight music festival. Playing to 600,000 ravenous fans on August 30, 1970, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon outdid themselves with a towering set. They even went so far as to play the rock opera TOMMY in its entirety, giving audiences yet another reason to shout…

The Who: Live in Boston captures the legendary band during their 2002 American tour, which began with the death of John Entwistle, singer-songwriter and superior bass player whose complex lines and thunderous sound was integral to the Who's brilliance…

The 2020 deluxe edition features Pete Townshend’s remix of Beads On One String plus The Who Live at Kingston, a special acoustic performance recorded on 14th February 2020, recorded 50 years to the day since the seminal Live at Leeds show.

Pete Townshend originally planned The Who Sell Out as a concept album of sorts that would simultaneously mock and pay tribute to pirate radio stations, complete with fake jingles and commercials linking the tracks. For reasons that remain somewhat ill defined, the concept wasn't quite driven to completion, breaking down around the middle of side two (on the original vinyl configuration). Nonetheless, on strictly musical merits, it's a terrific set of songs that ultimately stands as one of the group's greatest achievements. "I Can See for Miles" (a Top Ten hit) is the Who at their most thunderous; tinges of psychedelia add a rush to "Armenia City in the Sky" and "Relax"; "I Can't Reach You" finds Townshend beginning to stretch himself into quasi-spiritual territory; and "Tattoo" and the acoustic "Sunrise" show introspective, vulnerable sides to the singer/songwriter that had previously been hidden. "Rael" was another mini-opera, with musical motifs that reappeared in Tommy. The album is as perfect a balance between melodic mod pop and powerful instrumentation as the Who (or any other group) would achieve; psychedelic pop was never as jubilant, not to say funny (the fake commercials and jingles interspersed between the songs are a hoot)– Allmusic