Any serious fan of The Who regards Quadrophenia as the great masterpiece that not only sealed The Who’s reputation as one of the best rock acts at the time, if there were still any lingering doubts in 1973, but also cemented Pete Townshend’s reputation as one of the greatest songwriters of modern times.
While Tommy helped propel the band to rock music stardom, Quadrophenia would be the pinnacle of their collective achievements as a band. Reaching the top of their musical mount Everest so to speak.
Unlike the other studio albums released by The Who up until 1973, all the songs on Quadrophenia were written by Townshend to the point where fully realized demos, recorded at his home studio, were used to record the album. To say that the other members of the band simply overdubbed their parts, and that was the end of it, would be an understatement. Even Townshend himself acknowledged in his memoir, Who I Am, that the band wasn’t exactly thrilled that the album was practically completed when they started recording it. The only song arranged in the studio by the band was 5:15.
Without Entwistle’s horn arrangements, helping take the soundtrack to a whole new sonic level on top of the brilliant synth tracks Townshend recorded at home on his ARP 2500; Moon’s thunderous drums and his cockney accent bringing the Bell Boy to life; and Daltrey’s gut wrenching vocals, especially on Love Reign O’er Me, Quadrophenia, would not have become the classic it is. Their contributions helped fill out Townshend’s second fully realized rock opera and put the album into masterpiece territory.
Before tracking of the album started, the band set out to build a new studio which became the famous Ramport Studios where many albums had been recorded over the years following, from Supertramp to Thin Lizzy and Judas Priest. Townshend’s original idea was to mix the album in quadrophonic sound (4.0 surround sound) but his vision never came to fruition as the studio was not completed on time and an album needed to be released.
One of the genius ideas Townshend did musically on this album, was weave a series of musical themes into the songs, to represent each member of the band’s unique personality. These themes coalesce early on with the title track Quadrophenia and then again towards the end, in The Rock. The distinct melodies can be heard in the following songs:
Helpless Dancer (Daltrey)
Bell Boy (Moon)
Doctor Jimmy (Is It Me?) (Entwistle)
Love Reign O’er Me (Townshend)
Not only is the theme about the four distinct personalities of the band, but they are also the four split personalities of Jimmy Cooper, who is the main character in the Quadrophenia narrative. Thus, the album name being a reference to the split personality disorder, schizophrenia.
Using the musical themes as a foundation, Townshend tells the story of an emotionally unstable character. A young British working-class Mod who in 1964 can’t keep a job, is into amphetamines and fighting Rockers and is infatuated by a girl who ends up being with his best friend. But rather than me try to interpret the story, let’s get it straight from Townshend himself. This is an excerpt from the recording notes given to journalist upon release of the album:
“The concept of the album is pretty simple. It’s really a series of reflections and memories that a young mod kid is having while sitting on a rock he has ended up on after a miserable and disturbing week. The boy whose name, hold your breath, is Jimmy, has four distinct sides to his personality. Each one bothers him in a different way. One side of him is violent and determined, aggressive and unshakeable. Another side is quiet and romantic, tender and doubting. Another side is insane and devil-may-care, unreasoning and bravado. The last side of him is insecure and spiritually desperate, searching and questioning.”
You can find a version of the notes here.
While Townshend downplays the concept of the album as “pretty simple”, it is anything but, from writing songs in four different perspectives, to the complex musical arrangements and the technical aspects of recording the album. Townshend even took two weeks to learn the cello in order to layer the string sections of the album to get a better sound. Everything you hear on this album is the four members of The Who with the only exception being Chris Stainton who plays piano on The Dirty Jobs, 5:15, and Drowned.
The album sold one-hundred thousand copies in the US upon its release on 26 October 1973 and was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA In February 1993, with one million copies being sold. Sluggish sales of the album were due in part to a lack of vinyl copies being available because of an ongoing OPEC oil embargo. The album sales of Quadrophenia are in stark contrast to their previous release, Who’s Next, which has gone 3 times platinum in the US in the same period.
The album was made into a movie in 1979 featuring Phil Daniels as Jimmy Cooper and Sting (The Police) as the Ace Face. It is not a musical like Tommy, featuring members of the band, but a movie based on Townshend’s original story.
The album underwent a remix in 2011, resulting in a five disc box set and finally saw its originally intended surround sound mix in 2014, with a blue-ray audio version including the 2011 remix and the original 1973 LP mix. An orchestral version of the album was released in 2015 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra being conducted by Robert Ziegler and featuring English actor and singer Alfie Boe on vocals.
One could say that Quadrophenia is the least known in The Who’s catalog, which is really a shame considering its superiority over anything the band had released up to this point or anything afterwards. As far as other great concept albums of the day, it easily holds its own among classics such as Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, also released in 1973. Like Dark Side, these are albums you sit down and listen to and allow your mind to be taken on a musical journey.
Just being familiar with the singles 5:15 and Love Reign O’er Me is not enough to appreciate this album. If you have never heard Quadrophenia in its entirety before, I promise it is well worth the 80 minute time investment.