…May 1975 found Pete Townshend turning 30 and troubled by thoughts of the future. What would it hold for The Who, the music business, and rock and roll itself? He poured his anxieties and emotions into The Who by Numbers, the October ’75 release of which would become the band’s seventh studio album. On October 30, Polydor and UMe celebrates 51 years of The Who by Numbers with a new 5CD/1Blu-ray Super Deluxe Edition.
Sessions for the album began in April 1975 and continued through early June, with producer Glyn Johns (Who’s Next) at the helm. Though Townshend recalled being detached from the sessions with his bandmates in various states of distraction, the resulting album became one of the band’s most distinctive. Underneath a drawing…
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Few bands have shaped the landscape of rock music quite like The Who. With a legacy spanning nearly six decades, their sound, spirit, and spectacle have resonated across generations, cementing their place as pioneers of classic rock. From their role in the mod movement to groundbreaking albums such as My Generation (1965), Tommy (1969), and Who’s Next (1971), The Who helped define the genre while pushing its boundaries. Their music was instrumental in the development of hard and heavy rock, they famously entered the Guinness Book of Records as the loudest live act, and their sensational stage shows—complete with the ritual smashing of instruments—remain iconic. Often hailed as forefathers of punk rock, their influence…
Keith Moon’s death three weeks after its release added a tragic coda to The Who’s eighth album. In truth, Pete Townshend had threatened to sack Moon during the protracted sessions for Who Are You, his booze-addled antics by then eclipsing his ability to actually do the job.
September 1971 wasn’t a happy time in Who world, even by their remarkably narky standards. Pete Townshend had lost the battle to turn his abandoned Lifehouse concept album into a movie, and a filmed band meeting to discuss where The Who should go next ended testily. Mercifully, relief suddenly arrived in the form of an invitation to headline a British version of the Concert For Bangladesh, George Harrison’s all-star fundraiser staged at Madison Square Garden the previous month. So the group stopped bickering, moved their new £20,000 PA system into a Wandsworth cinema, and began rehearsing for a September 18 show at the Oval cricket ground, also set to feature the Faces, Atomic Rooster, Mott The Hoople, Lindisfarne and more.