I was listening to
Quadrophenia this morning and was struck that while it's running time exceeds that of a single CD it never feels overly long. Then I thought about recent albums from any number of bands that decided to employ every second of space afforded by a CD (or, even beyond into the digital realm that literally has no time imitations). Those, almost without fail, actually make you grow annoyed with the band as they overstay their welcome. In a day and age where every album seems to require a "deluxe edition" with another 15-30 minutes worth of material.
But what if something like this had been available back when
Quadrophenia was recorded? Would I view a band like The Who differently? Would they have taken advantage of it?
I think the answer is yes they would have and yes I would have.
The album before
Quadrophenia, the now universally viewed as a classic
Who's Next, began as a concept album that would have been titled
Lifehouse. The story line was incredibly convoluted, and eerily prescient of technology and modes of social interaction that was still decades away, and despite his best efforts Pete Townshend could not shape the tale into submission. Instead he took a few of the best songs, augmented them with a few others, and put together the succinct statement that was
Who's Next. In a way, the triumph conveyed by those nine songs far exceeded anything another rock opera would have. Subsequently, I believe that caused Townshend to focus his efforts when it came to
Quadrophenia and focus on telling a cohesive story buoyed by a collection of musical themes that stands up and sounds as fresh today as I bet they did in 1973. I wish I could say this definitively but I was only one at the time, so my critical facilities were still being formed.
Now what if in 1971 Townshend could have just released a "deluxe edition" of
Who's Next including all the
Lifehouse tracks? What then? Considering a decade later he began releasing his
Scoop series that collected demos and half-formed songs because, hey, everything he did was fucking art, man! So I think he would have happily unloaded all of
Lifehouse, that existed at the time, on the public had he the chance. Hell, a little over a decade ago he did, with the release of
The Lifehouse Chronicles! And while that is certainly an interesting addendum to be enjoyed by fas of the band, had it been out out at the same time as
Who's Next I don't think the transcendent economy of that album would have shone so brightly. And that would have been a real shame.
So I think the lesson here is that while it's tempting to wow fans with the enormity of your creative output
—and let's just put the assumption that additional material released relatively soon after the initial release of an album is also a greedy money grab and just focus on what measure of the artist's inflated sense of self is at play here
—nothing makes your star shine so brightly as the good sense to edit out the flab and focus on the strongest material.
It seems like such a simple lesson, but as barriers and limits continue to fall it's a lesson that grows harder for band to learn. Too bad.
