“The reason that the album has come out emotionally as it has is that I felt that The Who ought to make, if you like, a last album.” These had been the dramatic phrases of Pete Townshend in an interview with the NME because the band’s new album was launched on October 26, 1973. The file he was speaking about, ultimately to be was a characteristic movie, went on to make its UK chart debut on November 17. It was Quadrophenia.
This bold new work by Townshend, was launched within the US media on October 19 on 28 huge FM radio stations, with a full playback and a taped interview with Townshend. “A masterful set,” avowed Billboard.
On November 10, as Elton John assumed the No.1 place there with Goodbye Yellow Brick Street, The Who landed the very best new entry of the week, at No.24, on the way in which to their best-ever album chart place within the US of No.2. They’d attain that peak once more with 1978’s Who Are You, however have by no means fairly reached the head.
A story informed with realism and compassion
“After a two and a half year wait, The Who have returned with another masterpiece in hand,” avowed commerce weekly File World. “Quadrophenia is a two-record concept album telling of the breakdown of an alienated English middle class teenager. Superior songs like ‘Real Me,’ ‘Cut My Hair,’ and ‘Love Reign O’Er Me’ tell the tale with realism and compassion.”
The Who hit the highway within the UK within the week of the album’s launch, with reveals up and down the nation that launched Quadrophenia tracks to their repertoire. Then adopted their first American reveals in two years, with a tour of 11 main arenas.
Within the album’s first UK chart week, there was no shifting David Bowie from the highest of the UK bestsellers together with his covers album Pin Ups. However The Who did the subsequent neatest thing, arriving at No.2 and nudging the Elton album down into third place. Quadrophenia was, in actual fact, considered one of solely two new titles within the High 40 that week, with Rory Gallagher’s Tattoo a modest second, at No.32.
In that NME interview, Townshend commented on whether or not the album was some form of epitaph to the mod motion. “Songs like ‘My Generation’ were that kind of epitaph in a more realistic sense,” he mentioned. “This album is more of a winding up of all our individual axes to grind, and of the group’s ten-year-old image, and also of the complete absurdity of a group like The Who pretending that they have their finger on the pulse of any generation.”
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