Pete Townshend: Truancy, The Very Best of Pete Townshend (2015)

Pete Townshend: Truancy, The Very Best of Pete Townshend (2015)

“What I'm trying to do is find either existing properties or come up with properties or angles or stories which will create music drama. It's my obsession and most of all I would like to remain working in theatre. I think it's very much alive.”

Pete Townshend

By: Ghost Writer

I rarely write about greatest hits records, it's not something I'm accustomed to, I prefer records as a whole and not in pieces or as summaries of someone career, but this one came to me in a quite unusual way, perhaps a sign that music is music no matter what.

I spent the last weeks searching for a Pete Townshend record I own but also lost when I moved from house to house in the last couple of years, I wasn't able to find it so I looked up to a digital one in the net, I wasn't able of that either and the this came to me in an almost magical way, in the right time.

Truancy, The Very Best of Pete Townshend is a great condensation of Pete's career as a solo artist, almost everyone you ask may know The Who, that monumental British band that rival in transcendence with The Beatles and the Stones and that was a pioneering band in the metal, punk and Brit pop genres, but how many of you knew that The Who's main songwriter Pete Townshend had a solo career, and that for a time, that solo career was the reason The Who nearly broke up forever.

As a solo artist Townshend is quite different from the wild guitar man and brave songwriter of the Who, here Townshend own voice leans toward purity and mature enlighten, perhaps some of the most disturbing tendencies of the Who here presented in a different context tend to make more sense, after all, Townshend admits to compose sweet songs to be played by a wild band, and Truancy demonstrates that sweetness and delicacy of Pete's songwriting, but careful! As we all know Pete likes to include some twisted plots immersed and masked in his songs giving sometimes clues to some of them for shock value, here Truancy starts with the beautiful almost proggy Pure and Easy that almost serve as a declaration of principles for Townshend with a beautiful melody, tight arrangements, some fiery guitars and Pete's delicate voice, Sheraton Gibson is again another pretty little melody showcasing Pete's always interesting guitar playing, sounding here similar to some of the great tunes by the legendary Simon & Garfunkel, with whom the Who shared stages in the Monterrey Pop and Woodstock festivals in the end of the 60s.

Let’s See Action is a good mix of upbeat music honky tonk piano and minimalism that reminds me of the Avant pop developed decades later by the great Jim O'Rourke, and sets the pace for the fast rocking My Baby Gives It Away featuring a great vocal work by Townshend, while the proggy tendencies return on the synth busy Let My Love Open the Door featuring Townshend's synth obsessed arrangements.

Rough Boys follows the tradition of Townshend's quirky songs recalling The Stranglers tough pub rock, dedicating it to the Sex Pistols and featuring heavy homosexual references, but my all-time favorite Pete's solo song is the incredible Face the Face with its powerful bass lines, abrasive horn arrangements, baroque structures and Pete's completely maniac vocals.

Defiantly heavy, English Boy is this record most daring tune with its brutal guitar lines and then the surprising deviation into pure abstract funk with industrial overtones conforming this passionate ode about being British that remind me if other great patriotic tunes like Made in England by Elton John or Victoria by the almighty Kinks.

Truancy is a must for all and a definite compendium of Pete awesome solo work, a work little known and unfortunately overshadowed by his colossal work with the monumental The Who.