| Who Came First | 1972 |
| Rough Mix (with Ronnie Lane) | 1977 |
| Empty Glass | 1980 |
| All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes | 1982 |
| Scoop | 1983 |
| White City: A Novel | 1985 |
| Pete Townshend's Deep End Live! | 1986 |
| Another Scoop | 1987 |
| The Iron Man: A Musical | 1989 |
| Psychoderelict | 1993 |
| The Best Of Pete Townshend (compilation) | 1996 |
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(reviewed by Joseph Spaulding)
Pete Townshend's first solo effort is composed of mostly demos of the failed Lifehouse project and then a few tributes to his mentor Meher Baba. A very nice version of 'Let's See Action' is present here and for my money is far superior to the version by The Who. Other songs on this album later done by The Who are 'Time Is Passing' and 'Pure And Easy' both of which hold up rather well. The Baba tribute songs are the main flaws here like the overlong 'Parvardigar' and 'There's A Heartache Following Me', which is just all right but not fantastic.
There are a few guest spots here when two other Baba worshippers show up. These two being Ronnie Lane who plays 'Evolution', which is a stand out track. 'Evolution' is a rework of the song 'Stone' that would appear on The Faces first album First Step, which I have not heard so I can't compare. Billy Nicholls brings in his composition 'Forever's No Time At All' which is a pleasant folk rocker. The most recent reissue has six bonus tracks with some hits and misses. The hits being 'The Seeker' and 'Sleeping Dog', which is my personal favorite, and the misses being 'Lantern Cabin' which is a four-minute piano jam. Much like Rough Mix this is an overlooked classic with some really great songs on it.
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released by Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane
(reviewed by Joseph Spaulding)
This album came about to help Ronnie out of bankruptcy after a disasterous tour so it should be safe to assume that it is a complete throw away, however it turns out to be a fantastic gem that is sure to win you over with its simple charm. For those only familiar with Pete Townshend's days with The Who and his post Empty Glass period this album may come as a complete shock. Instead of attacking us synths and hard rocking numbers he mostly sticks to a pleasant acoustic and at one point brings in an orchestra.
This album contains some of each artist's best work. To start Pete Townshend has the bizarre love song 'My Baby Gives It Away'. Then there is the confessional 'Keep Me Turning', which has a fantastic melody. On Ronnie Lane's side there is the simple 'Annie' and my personal favorite 'April Fool', both of which almost steal the show away from Pete. Another great Lane original is 'Catmelody' which appears to be a good morning after song. They both join together for 'Heart To Hang Onto'. Then Pete closes the album with the cover 'Till The Rivers Run Dry' which is pleasant enough. My only problem is that I wish they had collaborated on more songs - the only one they cowrote is the title track, but overall the album holds up very well and is an overlooked classic.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: And I Moved, Empty Glass, Rough Boys, I Am An Animal. LOW POINTS: Cat's In The Cupboard.
Though Pete Townshend had released solo material before (mostly demos, outtakes and a collaboration with Ronnie Lane), Empty Glass is often regarded as the first proper Townshend solo effort, and judging from the results of the two efforts done by The Who after this one, it was clear that he was saving his better material for his own albums. As for the overall sound here, there are some similarities to that band - some instances of bombastic arena rock, and synths all over the place, but this has much more of a feel of an introspective, deeply personal effort, especially in the lyrics, which I just can't imagine Roger Daltrey singing at all. And surprisingly, the material here is really excellent - the general atmosphere is special for this sort of album, the overall sound is quite varied, and the melodies are highly memorable.
It also helps that the first half of the album as a whole rules mightily. The hit single "Let My Love Open The Door" might actually be the weakest of the bunch, but the main melody is very, very memorable and engaging, and it's just a nice, short synth pop tune that provides a good detour from the other songs on the side, of which "And I Moved" is my favorite. The discoish groove on this song is certainly fun enough, but what really makes it is the hauntingly beautiful atmosphere created by the combination of Townshend's vocals, the understated melody, and the brilliant fast piano parts contributed by "Rabbit" Bundrick. And as for "Rough Boys" (a minor hit here), I wouldn't really expect a song dealing with gay sex to be as energetic and entertaining as it is, but it's a thoroughly awesome way to open things. The main melody is extremely catchy in a typical bombastic Townshend way, and it rocks hard.
The other tracks on the side are almost as great. "I Am An Animal" contributes to the strange concept of Pete imagining himself as a woman around that time, and not only are the lyrics fascinating from that perspective, I just love the way the acoustic guitar driven melody leads into a powerful contrast between bombastic and quiet in the chorus ('I'm looking back and I can't see the past.... anymore, so hazy') and that great climax of later ('I will be immersed! Queen of the fucking universe!'). Two fine pieces of slightly operatic work come in "Jools And Jim" (a very catchy groove attacking the media with a lot of passion and wit, especially in the faster chorus) and "Keep On Working", due to its' chants of the title that sound stupid at first and overall laid back mood, initially sounds out of place and awkward, but it's really quite a charming British-flavored song with a great key change at the end. A nice tune, it is.
Side two doesn't really live up to that high of a standard, but it is quite listenable nonetheless. The only song here that fails to really strike me as interesting in the least is the generic hard rocker "Cat's In The Cupboard", but the other three are all at least good, with the title track leading the way in overall quality. With a mesmerizing repeated guitar part in the intro developing into an exciting rocker and then turning into a gripping portion where Pete sings a breathtaking melody in falsetto, the song also boasts great lyrics all the way through, making it a perfectly arranged, introspective masterpiece, and one of the best songs on here. Strangely enough, it works in fascinating contrast with the really uptempo synth pop of "A Little Is Enough", which takes a couple listens to become memorable, but once it does, you may not be able to get that hook out of your head ('your love's so incredible! your body's so edible! you give me an overdose of love...')
Finally, the quirkiest and heaviest moment here comes in the closing track "Gonna Get Ya", a typical hard rocker with more synth overtones, and it has a fun, bouncy melody that really makes it work. The only problem here is that the arrangement is a little overlong and repetitive at 6 minutes plus, but it's a good tune anyway. Great album as a whole, too - despite what the Keith Moon-less Who albums might have had some fans thinking, Pete Townshend was certainly not depleted on awesome songwriting talent just yet, even though he wasn't bothering to use any of it outside his solo career. While this might not be an absolute masterpiece like some would say, it still has more than enough great material to be a consistently solid, often breathtaking listen.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Slit Skirts, Face Dances Part Two. LOW POINTS: Communication.
One of the great things about Empty Glass was that as lyrically personal as it was, it was also musically and melodically dynamic, offering something satisfying for many different listeners in the process. The followup album, unfortunately, is kind of a disappointment in that respect. The biggest problem I see here is that most of these melodies are simply not among the more memorable and breathtaking Pete has ever put to record. Instead, he lets his more inaccessible, 'difficult' side get in the way here - there's clearly more of an emphasis on the lyrics than before over the melodic quality, and the often same-sounding quality of production ensures that even if you can get past some of the monotony, you may not be left with a whole lot to remember about the listening experience first time around. Luckily, several of these songs did grow on me to the point where I think it's a good album, but it's still a bit of a letdown from before.
It also kinda doesn't help that in the opener "Stop Hurting People", you're greeted with an ultra-bombastic and smooth synth part with obnoxiously pretentious spoken poetry over it. Thankfully, the combination of the two eventually turn out to have an effect more memorable than most of the album, and it's probably the most fun and engaging track to listen to as a whole thanks to its' nice directness. But sometimes the experimentation gets annoying in the incredibly stupid "Communication", with an irritatingly repetitive chorus hook and more crappy spoken poetry in the verses, and the cheesy 'marching' synth tone on "Uniforms (Corp d'esprit)" nearly obscures a quite lyrically thoughtful and melodically solid number. Plus the brief "Prelude" sounds entirely inappropriate and self-important within the flow of the rest of the album.
As for the rest of this, I pretty much appreciate everything else here as individual songs, from the deeply personal 'uplifting and big chorus with depressing lyrics' of "The Sea Refuses No River" to the 'unmemorable at first, but eventually engaging' self-explanatory pop of "Stardom In Action". Even "Exquisitely Bored", where the overly cynical lyrics are placed over the actual melody of the song in terms of importance, has a sweeping chorus once you can get past its' flaws. The cover of a traditional song ("North Country Girl"), overproduced as it might be, has a nice level of energy and pleasant quality in its' mood, and "Somebody Saved Me", despite some really awkward lyrical passages in there, boasts arguably the most well thought out and easy to digest musical arrangement on the whole album, with a nice, passionate melodic refrain.
The two real keepers on the album amongst all the good but flawed tracks on here, though, are also unquestionably the best in melodic quality, and probably the only two that can stand up to Empty Glass in that respect. At least this is what my brain tells me. But in any case, "Face Dances Part Two" has a simply excellent synth-pop charm to it both in its' quirky melody and instrumentation, and "Slit Skirts" might not have the most ideal flow between its' slightly dark piano-laden verses and pop-laden chorus in the world, but fortunately, both portions of the song are great, and I'm so glad Pete ended the album on such a high-quality singalong tune like that. Overall, this is a record that I can easily understand one being 'exquisitely bored' with for reasons I mentioned, and while it is pretty inconsistent, quite a bit of the album is still very pleasurable in the long run despite a potentially unrewarding first impression.
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