History and Composition
Most of what is known about the development of the album has come from Pete Townshend's website. On 21 March 2005, Townshend announced the postponement of the new Who album. On 24 December 2005, Townshend announced that manager Bill Curbishley had introduced a "great scheme" to allow the band to tour in mid-2006 in support of new material, even if Townshend did not have "a full thirty tracks ready to go." On 20 March 2006, Daltrey announced that he and Townshend were making progress with the album and that Townshend had written a song about Stockholm Syndrome, entitled "Black Widow's Eyes". Daltrey also said that Townshend is playing some bass on the album.
On 28 March 2006, Townshend announced through the diary portion of his website that a mini-opera, entitled "The Glass Household" now forms the core of the album. It is based on his novella "The Boy Who Heard Music". He also announced plans to have a shortened version of the opera released prior to the release of the full album. This diary entry also confirmed the line-up of the band: Pino Palladino on bass, Pete Townshend on guitars, his brother Simon Townshend on backing vocals, and John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards. Peter Huntington, from Rachel Fuller's band, was on drums because Zak Starkey was touring with Oasis.
On 9 April 2006, Townshend announced that the shortened version of "The Glass Household" had been played to executives at Polydor, and a release date has been set for June, with a tour of Europe following, and the album in September. On 3 May 2006, Pete Townshend posted on his diary page that the mastering for the new EP, titled Wire & Glass, was complete and that the tracks would soon be sent to Polydor. Townshend anticipated a mid-June release for the EP, and a mid-September release for the full album. He had also announced that The Who would begin rehearsing for their tour, during which time Townshend would finish recording the rest of the album with Roger Daltrey.
A version of "It's Not Enough" was released online at artistdirect.com. "It's Not Enough" had tentatively been announced as the first single off the album, to be released simultaneously.
On 3 October 2006, "It's Not Enough" was made available on iTunes. "Tea & Theatre" was also made available. Then on 14 October 2006, Polydor built a website for the album. It was announced from Pete Townshend's website. On the website endlesswire.co.uk, samples of the songs "We Got a Hit", "Endless Wire", "It's Not Enough", "Black Widow's Eyes", "Mike Post Theme", and "Man in a Purple Dress" are available to listen to, but not to download. As of 23 October 2006, the entire album was available to stream on music.aol.com.
Endless Wire debuted at #7 on the Billboard 200, selling about 81,000 units in its first week of release.
Read more about this topic: Endless Wire (The Who album)
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