Pete Townshend - Pete's Next (1971)

It's fairly well-known that when Pete Townshend wrote a new song he often recorded a demo of it, playing all the instruments himself, so that he could present it to the Who for their opinion. Many of these demos have turned up over the years on his 'Scoop' series of albums, as well as on a wide variety of bootlegs, and while they are generally not too different from the finished article by the Who, it's still interesting to hear his original take on the song. During the 70's he was able to record these tracks in his own studio, so the sound quality is excellent, and around 1970 he laid down a considerable number of demos for his aborted 'Lifehouse' project. It's well documented that despite Townhsend really believing in the project, it was beset by problems and remains unissued to this day. So as not to waste many of these new songs, he offered them to the band for a new album, which became 'Who's Next', and it's now generally regarded as one of the very best records of the Who's long career. I thought it would be interesting to hear what this classic album would have sounded like if Townshend had decided to release it himself instead of 'Lifehouse', and as there are demos available of all the songs that he wrote then it's fairly easy to do. One of the tracks was composed by John Enwistle, so obviously there will be no demo for 'My Wife', and in its place I've added an extended take of 'Pure And Easy', which was written at the same time as the others, and which has always been a favourite of mine. Some of these recordings are noticeably longer than the Who's versions, which were obviously tightened up in the studio, while 'Love Ain't For Keeping' is more of a sketch for the full song to be completed later, but this is still a fascinating look behind the scenes of how 'Who's Next' was put together. I've updated the original sleeve to make it a Townshend solo album, but kept the idea of the title.  

Track listing

01 Baba O'Riley
02 Bargain
03 Love Ain't For Keeping
04 Pure And Easy
05 Song Is Over
06 Getting In Tune
07 Going Mobile
08 Behind Blue Eyes
09 Won't Get Fooled Again