In a new interview with NME, Roger Daltrey was asked if fans can expect to hear a new studio album from THE WHO. He responded: “What’s the point? What’s the point of records? We released an album four years ago [2019’s ‘Who’], and it did nothing. It’s a great album too, but there isn’t the interest out there for new music these days. People want to hear the old music. I don’t know why, but that’s the fact.”
The frontman then explained that the band’s fanbase now ranges “from 80 years old all the way down to eight years old”, adding: “We’ve got quite a lot of young people in our audience these days. It’s quite interesting that they’re picking up on our music. But record companies, they just don’t do the same job as they used to.”
In October 2022, THE WHO released a new version of the 2019 album “Who” featuring an updated version of “Beads On One String” newly remixed by guitarist Pete Townshend and acoustic tracks from the band’s only live shows of 2020.
The songs on the deluxe version of “Who” were recorded in Kingston on Valentine’s Day this year exactly 50 years to the day since THE WHO‘s seminal show at Leeds which became the infamous live album “Live At Leeds”.
In December 2019, “Who” entered the U.K. chart at position No. 3, becoming the band’s highest-charting U.K. LP in 38 years.
“Who” was THE WHO‘s first set of new material since 2006’s “Endless Wire”, which debuted at No. 9 in November of that year.
Two years ago, Townshend was asked about reports that he was working on material for THE WHO‘s next album. He told Rolling Stone: “I’m not working on the next WHO record. I think what happened is that when I did an interview for Uncut about ‘The Who Sell Out’, I was asked whether or not I was preparing any material or writing anything. I said, at the time, which is where I was since I did this interview before Christmas, that I had an idea for a series of songs. I’d written a series of essays and I was working on it. And subsequently, I had a conversation with Roger and flew the idea past him, and he half-liked it, and said it would be interesting to hear when the music comes. And then I started to read things that he was saying in the press, which were very much at odds with the conversation that we had face-to-face. I think we really need to have another proper conversation. Until we have that conversation, I don’t think there’s any real prospect of a WHO album developing because it’s all in my hands and I tend to do it, and then Roger comes along and sings the songs.
“I need to know that I’m … what’s the word? I don’t want to use the word ‘servicing.’ But I need to know that I’m facilitating Roger‘s needs as a singer,” the now-77-year-old continued. “There’s only two of us now. And these days, he insists on having music to sing, which he believes in, completely and utterly, that he can get inside. Unless he can inhabit the story of the song, he can’t do a good job. And so it means that I have to, in a sense, work as as tailor. I’m not really that free to write whatever comes off the end of my tape machine.
“I don’t know whether there will be another WHO album. It needs Roger to be on it. And I think he was even complaining that he didn’t make any money out of it. I was, like, ‘Who does make money out of fuckin’ records anymore?’ I don’t know who does. Maybe two or three people, but not many.”
