Albums that Pete Townshend referred to as “seminal changes” for the music industry
When musicians enter the recording studio, their major concentration is not often on making sales; rather, they are concentrating on creating something that conveys their feelings and establishes a connection with the audience. It is possible, however, for the output to suddenly resonate with millions of people when the creative process is functioning well. Pete Townshend, despite his huge triumphs in transforming rock & roll with songs such as Tommy, saw that something was changing when he first heard Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles and Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. Both of these pieces of music introduced Pete to a new musical direction. There was a seismic shift in the musical world that was brought about by these recordings, which had an impact not just on listeners but also on other innovators like Townshend himself.
On the other hand, if you were to look at the charts from about that time period, you would have been able to swear that a new album that would have changed your life would have been released virtually every other week. Even Townshend himself had begun to become excited about what constituted aggression in ‘My Generation’ by the time the British invasion had already produced records that were significantly better than what anyone had anticipated from the general rock scene.
The Beatles, on the other hand, always appeared to be in their own league throughout the process of making Sgt. Pepper. They had already vacated the road, but for anyone claiming that they were on the verge of drying up, hearing them put together a record all about using the studio as an instrument through the lens of an imaginary band became the perfect backdrop to psychedelia once the ‘Summer of Love’ kicked in a few months later.
On the other hand, if the Fab Four were given credit for being the ones who initiated everything, then Brian Wilson was the one who was ahead of the curve about a year earlier. Pet Sounds, which he released after taking some time off from touring, became his purest aural statement to the world. It had chord progressions that no one had ever dreamt of before in rock music, such as “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
However, this does not even take into account some of the other classics that were taking place at the same time. Fans would see the debut of The Doors’ first album, which included a warped take on psychedelia, while Bob Dylan would be pouring out every bit of himself on the tunes on his double album, Blonde on Blonde, during that brief period of time, which lasted for only two years.
In spite of this, Townshend considered Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds to be the benchmarks that ushered in a seismic shift in rock and roll. He stated to Rolling Stone, “Sgt. Pepper, there isn’t much of a concept to that record.” Nevertheless, to this day, everytime I take a seat, pull out the vinyl record, and put it on the record player, something always jumps out at me that I have never noticed before. It seems to me that the same may be said for Pet Sounds. Just amazing leaps of faith that the audience would accept it, those two albums are pivotal alterations in what we all believed was going to be achievable if you were in a band going through the process of creating music.
When one considers the amount of money that Townshend would be making just a few years later, it is not as if he was not considering expanding the scope of his work as well. Tommy was the sound of his conceptual albums like The Who Sell Out taken to its most logical conclusion, but when listening to Quadrophenia, it’s hard not to hear the influence of The Beatles’ more ambitious projects like ‘A Day in the Life’ or the way that Wilson utilised The Wrecking Crew in the same way that Townshend used string lines.
However, regardless of whether or not they sold millions of copies, Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds did not mean to cause a chain reaction that would engulf the entire world. It was simply a matter of providing the finest album that they were capable of, and by doing so on both sides of the Atlantic, The Beatles and The Beach Boys were able to assist rock audiences in dreaming of something far more than the party tunes that they had become accustomed to hearing.