‘Tommy’ at 48: How The Who’s First Rock Opera Changed Rock Forever

Vinyl Bay 777, Long Island’s music outlet, takes a look back at the album that put “rock operas” on the map

 Today marks the 48^th anniversary of the release of ‘Tommy,’ The Who’s groundbreaking fourth album that would become one of the most beloved and influential of all time. The album helped give rise to the “rock opera” format, as well as influenced many other bands to attempt writing their own rock operas.

 Released in 1969, ‘Tommy’ was Pete Townshend’s attempt at breaking away from the restraints of writing single-propelled rock music. No longer satisfied with 3-minute songs, he decided to explore the idea of writing a “rock opera”: a concept album with songs arranged in such a way that they follow a storyline. After an abandoned attempt and several “mini-operas,” Townshend began working on the concept for ‘Tommy,’ which focused on telling the story of a boy who is deaf, dumb and blind and how he sees the world.

While not the first rock opera to be recorded (British band Nirvana and The Pretty Things both released concept albums that have been referred to as such), ‘Tommy’ was by far the most popular. The album debuted at number four and number two on the Billboard Pop Albums and UK Albums charts respectively and was lauded by critics as “innovative” and a “masterpiece.”

‘Tommy’ led the way for other artists to express themselves in a similar fashion. Pink Floyd released ‘The Wall’ in 1979, a concept album that became one of the band’s most highly-regarded albums. Green Day took a lot of inspiration from The Who when they put out their rock operas, ‘American Idiot,’ which effectively helped them re-emerge as one of rock’s biggest and most important bands, and ‘21^st Century Breakdown.’ From My Chemical Romance’s ‘The Black Parade’ to Ludo’s ‘Broken Bride,’ releasing a rock opera has proven to continually be a popular move with fans.

The Who even followed up the success of ‘Tommy’ with another rock opera. ‘Quadrophenia’ was even more popular and critically acclaimed than ‘Tommy.’

Even today, 'Tommy' still finds itself an important piece of art, not only for rock music, but for theater in general. The original productions of the show in the 1990s won several awards and brought rock music to the stage at a time where it wasn't necessarily accepted. A revival of the stage show created from the album is currently touring the UK. This new production, which features a new song by Townshend, is being made accessible to those with special needs.

The popularity of ‘Tommy’ showed that rock fans, just like Townshend, wanted more from their music. By writing a rock opera, The Who were able to provide fans with a substantial work that went beyond the three-minute song structure. The album changed what it means to listen to an album the entire way through. Since its release, other bands have followed suit in releasing rock operas and concept albums.

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Find The Who’s ‘Tommy,’ other rock operas and more at Vinyl Bay 777 and vinylbay777.com. As Long Island’s top new independent record shop, we have wide selection of new and used vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, music DVDs and memorabilia in store and online to choose from. Whether you’re into rock operas or classical operas, we have thousands of titles spanning a vast array of genres that will have you covered. With more titles being added all the time, it’s always pays to stop by and see what’s new.