Quadrophenia - History

History

During the album production Pete Townshend made many field recordings with a portable reel-to-reel recorder. Some of the location sounds that made it to the record were waves washing on the beach and a diesel train whistle recorded close to Pete Townshend's house at Goring-on-Thames. The ending of "The Dirty Jobs" also includes a musical excerpt from The Thunderer, a march by John Philip Sousa. Townshend recorded this while listening to a brass band perform at a park.

Quadrophenia was originally released as a two-LP set with a gatefold jacket and a thick booklet containing lyrics, a text version of the story, and photographs illustrating the tale. MCA Records re-released it as a two-CD set in 1985 with the lyrics and text story line on a thin fold-up sheet but none of the photographs. The original Polydor CD issue included the complete booklet in miniature, as did the remastered MCA and Polydor CD reissues of 1996.

Quadrophenia was originally released in the UK as Track 2406-110/111 on 26 October 1973. However, it appears that owing to a vinyl shortage caused by the OPEC oil embargo, only a limited number of copies got to stores before production had to be halted. Most British Who fans failed to find a copy until after The Who's UK tour. In the UK, Quadrophenia reached the #2 position, being held out of the top spot by David Bowie's Pin Ups, which contained cover versions of The Who songs "I Can't Explain" and "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere".

In the liner notes to the remastered Odds & Sods Townshend revealed that Quadrophenia evolved from an idea for a self-indulgent autobiography of the band (which was allegedly to have been titled Rock Is Dead—Long Live Rock!). Two of the opera's tracks date from 1972 ("Is It In My Head?" and "Love Reign O'er Me"), a year that also produced The Who's singles "Join Together", "Relay" and "Long Live Rock" (the last not actually released until 1974). However, by the time Quadrophenia was released, the band's role in the story was only symbolic, through Jimmy's four personalities.

The 8-track tape version of this album has the distinction of being one of the few 8-tracks that is arranged exactly like the album, with no song breaks.

Quadrophenia reached #2 on the US Billboard album chart (kept from #1 by then-labelmate Elton John with his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album) and was the highest position of any Who album in the US as they would never hit #1 on the US album charts.

The band viewed the tour in support of the album as disastrous. Owing to extensive use of synthesisers and sound effects on the record, the group elected to employ taped backing tracks for live performance, as they had already done for "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again". Initial performances were plagued by malfunctioning tapes. Once the tapes started, the band had to play to them. The band felt constrained in playing to these recordings, preferring a more free-form attitude.

On the first night of the US leg at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, drummer Keith Moon collapsed onstage. Scot Halpin, an audience member, was brought on to finish the show.

Pete Townshend now looks back on the album with great pride. "The music is the best music that I've ever written, I think, and it's the best album that I will ever write". "We never really ever made a truly great album again."

In May 2011, English writer Peter Meadows published a novel called To Be Someone based on characters presented by the album. On 1 June 2011, Townshend stated in a blog entry on The Who's official website that he had begun working on a deluxe edition of the album. It was released as a 5-CD box on 15 November 2011.