News

New Who Due

The last time The Who officially released an album's worth of new material was 1982, so maybe it's not surprising that songwriter/guitarist Pete Townshend is sort of slowly easing his way into it. Instead of a full Who album this summer, fans will have to make due with the June release of "The Glass Household," an 11-minute "mini-opera" based on Townshend's online serial novella, The Boy Who Heard Music.

According to Townshend's website, work on "The Glass Household" commenced several weeks ago after he finished the final installment of his novella. "I moved into Oceanic, my large studio, and began work with other musicians on Feb. 28," Townshend reports -- the other musicians being singer Roger Daltrey, keyboardist and longtime honorary Who member John "Rabbit" Bundrick, bassist Pino Palladino, and drummer Peter Huntington.

After launching "The Glass Household" out into the world, Townshend and company will continue to work on material for the long-promised full-length Who album, which the windmilling guitarist hopes to release in September. "[I've] completed 10 songs," Townshend wrote on his website, "two of which were full-length and quite complex, the rest shorter, punchier or simple and ballad-like."

We could spoil the newsworthiness of all this by pointing out that Townshend and Daltrey, the only surviving members of The Who's original quartet, have recorded together several times over the years, and even snuck two new songs into a greatest-hits compilation in 2004. But that just doesn't sound as exciting as saying, "First full album from The Who in 24 years!" now does it?

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
04.11.06