The Who have officially announced that they will release their new studio album, WHO, Nov. 22 via Interscope Records, marking their first new record in 13 years, and the legendary UK rockers have shared a preview of the effort with the first single, “Ball & Chain.”
The band confirmed the release during Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey’s appearance at the opening for New York’s Pace Gallery on Thursday evening where, as Brooklyn Vegan reports, the duo and some of their bandmates performed acoustic versions of classic tunes like “Pinball Wizard,” “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
WHO was recorded in London and Los Angeles earlier this year with a band featuring Townshend, Daltrey, touring drummer Zak Starkey and bassist Pino Palladino, plus guests like Simon Townshend, Benmont Tench, Carla Azar, Joey Waronker and Gordon Giltrap.
“I think we’ve made our best album since Quadrophenia in 1973,” Daltrey says in a press release. “Pete hasn’t lost it, he’s still a fabulous songwriter, and he’s still got that cutting edge.”
Townshend adds, “This album is almost all new songs written last year, with just two exceptions. There is no theme, no concept, no story, just a set of songs that I (and my brother Simon) wrote to give Roger Daltrey some inspiration, challenges and scope for his newly revived singing voice. Roger and I are both old men now, by any measure, so I’ve tried to stay away from romance, but also from nostalgia if I can. I didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. Memories are OK, and some of the songs refer to the explosive state of things today. I made new home studio demos of all these songs in the summer of 2018 using a wide collection of instruments old and new. We started recording as The Who in March 2019, and have finished now in late August just in time to make some vinyl………maybe even some cassettes……ready for release in November.”
Listen to “Ball & Chain” and watch a couple Instagram clips from The Who’s Pace Gallery appearance below, and pre-order WHO here. The group continues their Moving On! tour dates this evening with a show at Boston’s Fenway Park before moving to Long Island on Sunday. See their full schedule here.
WHO Tracklist:
1.All This Music Must Fade
2. Ball & Chain
3. I Don’t Wanna Get Wise
4. Detour
5. Beads On One String*
6. Hero Ground Zero
7. Street Song
8. I’ll Be Back
9. Break The News**
10. Rockin’ In Rage
11. She Rocked My World
7 Comments comments associated with this post
TheGreatWent
September 14, 2019 at 5:19 pmCrappy song but it beats anything out out by Widespread Panic in the last 30 years. You better, you better, you bet!
jaggerrich
September 14, 2019 at 10:49 amI’m with MB: “Pretty good, w/ politics aside”. Just came from the NY+CH post. and: “DITTO”. Though I agree with both of their general slants on politics, I am not sure I need them in the NEW songs (too, too often) of the finest godfathers of Rock and Roll.
Mike Gordon
September 13, 2019 at 7:42 pmPete and I have similar tastes in art photos. I know he was only doing extensive research into graphic art
Sad
September 14, 2019 at 12:16 pmFunny!
mb
September 13, 2019 at 7:25 pmI’m with Luis. This sounded pretty damn good. All politics aside.
To you Luis
September 13, 2019 at 6:41 pmGuess we listened to different songs. Sounds pretty bad to me and I love TbeWho.
luis
September 13, 2019 at 1:59 pmFinally the wait is over ! This new song, sounds like old time classic WHO. This new album, should be definitely a hit. Pete Townshend said recently, in different interviews that they recorded 16 songs plus a 1966 demo. Eleven (11) songs will be in the regular release, but 3 more songs will be included on the “special” CD and the 1966 song, will be on the super deluxe edition.