MovieChat Forums > Tommy (1975) Discussion > Was this an album by The Who before it w...

Was this an album by The Who before it was a movie?

posted 15 years ago by Jessaly
8 replies | jump to latest

Then after it became a movie it was turned into a musical?

I'm so confused.

I'll join you when hell freezes over.
Dumbledore's Army!

[–] samanthajane13 15 years ago

Yes and yes.

Album first-sung entirely by The Who

Movie

Musical

ii:iv

[–] Jessaly 15 years ago

Thank you and thank you.

I was explaining it to my friend when I suddenly realized that I had no idea what the hell I was talking about.

Musical=not as good as the movie.

I'll join you when hell freezes over.
Dumbledore's Army!

[–] lastpictureshow 15 years ago

The only people you wanna hear singing "Tommy" are the bleeding 'Oo at their peak in the early 70's. Not Ann Margret for crying out loud or Oliver Reed. As if. If you can call what they do singing.

I can't recommend "Tommy" to anyone. I couldn't even watch the whole thing. It's unbearable & embarrassing. 1 out of 10. You don't need all this crap to put "Tommy" across.

Could have at least given us a good minute or two of Ann Margret in the shower or something.

[–] lenono68 15 years ago

Ann Margret in the shower would have been great to see

[–] rwsmith29456 13 years ago

Yes, the album was written as a 'Rock Opera'.

[–] willjohn 13 years ago

It was originally an album with all the songs done by the Who as a rock opera, then a full on Rock Opera with an orchestra and several singers as well as the Who
(it was done in several countries with local artists, usually with at least one member of "The Who", in the Australian production Keith Moon did Uncle Ernie) then the film.

[–] jamiesonsam 11 years ago

In the late 60s The Who made the album Tommy which was the first ever rock opera. The Who then went on tour and played the album on tour. They played Tommy at the Isle of Wight festival and at the Woodstock festival. In 1975 they turned it into a film. In 1989 The Who went on tour and played Tommy in full this time with a baking band and guest singers. In 1993 lead guitarist Pete Townshend turned it into a stage musical. In 2011 lead singer Roger Daltrey toured Tommy with out The Who but with a solo band. The stage musical version of Tommy is still staged around the world to this day.

[–] darryl-tahirali 11 years ago

In the late 60s The Who made the album Tommy which was the first ever rock opera. - jamiesonsam

"First ever" is debatable. Tommy was certainly the first famous "rock opera," but both Nirvana's (the 1960s British band, not the Kurt Cobain outfit) The Story of Simon Simopath and the Pretty Things' SF Sorrow and Parachute are usually labeled as rock operas, and both predate Tommy. Also worth considering is whether Tommy or the other two are actually "operas" or are instead song cycles, which would then make albums like the Kinks' Face to Face precursors to Tommy. (And in fact the Who's own The Who Sell Out already showed the band stringing together songs and ad parodies into a unifying theme while Pete Townshend's early gem "A Quick One" showed him working out multi-part story songs.)

Chronology and semantics aside, Tommy indeed, as you note, became an in-concert staple, both when played in its entirety (Woodstock and Isle of Wight are good examples) and when big chunks of it became part and parcel of its other material--check out all the Tommy motifs that infuse the band's ferocious, extended take on "My Generation" on the legendary Live at Leeds set.
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"Man becomes the food of the divinity he worships." - Chris Stevens