10 Greatest Albums That Never Happened

There's a lot of pressure when it comes to making an album. All manor of things need to fall into place. You need a solid wealth of material to draw from; capable musicianship; a recording studio - with at least modicum of functioning equipment; and money. Trying to wrangle all of these aspects into place, is akin to herding cats. Add to that all the swirling, over-inflated egos that so often go and in hand with the music business... Yep, it's no easy gig.

It's not surprising then, that very often, albums or musical project go unreleased - despite being near completion, in some cases. Is there a more egregious injustice, then being teased with an album, from your favourite musician, or musicians; only for it to be tucked away on the shelves of some dusty recording studio, or hidden deep on a forgotten hard drive? The answer is, of course, no.

This is no less of an uncommon occurrence than a movie project being shelved, or a TV series being scrapped after a less than satisfying pilot. We all felt the pain, when HBO abandoned the Game of Thrones prequel, tentatively titled 'The Long Night'. But over the years there's been a handful of unreleased/uncompleted, or outright abandoned albums, that for fans of music, it's almost too much to bear.

After the success of the Who's, Tommy in 1969, Pete Townsend had grand ideas to further develop the rock opera format. By 1971 Townsend started experiencing transcendent moments on stage. He felt so connected with his audience that he began to believe, the power of music could unite the world's people - a noble, if not somewhat farcical, notion.

He carried this revelations into the now infamous project, Lifehouse. His grand vision would chronicle the story of Bobby, a hacker/pirate-radio DJ/musical genius, who, through music, would save the population of dystopian Britain. In the story, Bobby, takes the personal data of every individual on the planet to craft their unique and personal song. He then throws a post-apocalyptic Woodstock, inviting all the people of Britain to break free from the oppressive ruling class. Everybody's personal song is played in tandem, creating a symphony, powerful enough to heal the world. The concert is raided by bio-suit wearing henchmen, but before they can arrest anybody, Bobby plays the "perfect note", causing everyone to transcend to the musical heavens. And that's the abbreviated version...

Needless to say the concept ran away with Townsend. He never managed to actualise his vision, and was forced to fold many of his ideas into various future projects. Over the years, Townsend tried to revitalise his dream through a radio play, a film script and even a book, to varying degrees of success.