Retro Spins: Pete Townshend - White City: A Novel

 

Despite only being 1985, Pete Townshend's, White City: A Novel, would be his last. A concept album at its core, focusing on the story of low-income housing, and the families within White City, a district near where the artist grew up.

To support the record, Townshend starred alongside Andrew Wilde, and Frances Barber in the film, White City: The Music Movie, directed by Richard Lowenstein. Though it was dubbed an interesting movie, overall, it was critically panned, widely considered a poor movie with an incoherent story. To be fair, most critics felt the same way about The Who's Tommy, which became a cult classic.

While the guitar work on the opening track gave me the feel goods, and hooked me, admittedly, the overall premise was goofy and fell flat. I'm sorry, but singing for five minutes about, Give Blood, comes off more as a commercial for the Red Cross than a serious song.

As the album played out, I frankly lost interest in it, instead more interested to peruse the many Christmas related cartoons which would soon fill my television as December 2025 approached. I checked in mentally here and there, and while I could appreciate the solid instrumentation, the songs just weren't doing it for me.

When White City ended, I was actually a bit surprised, because the whole listening session felt relatively short. This wasn't a bad thing, all things considered.

It's a flat ending for me in my trip with Pete Townshend, but it's also something I'm not too upset about. I picked this album up for a buck on a whim at a local used CD store. It's not like I actively sought it out, so I'm okay with this outcome. Would I have like something hidden within it? Sure, but no big loss. 

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