10 Lost Albums From Famous Rock Musicians
5. Lifehouse - The Who
Remember the rock opera Tommy from earlier? Well this is its long-lost cousin.
Tommy was a huge hit for The Who, selling millions of copies and even spawning a film adaptation. Naturally, they wanted to follow this up, and set about writing a sequel called Lifehouse.
Pete Townshend was inspired by watching fans achieve near-spiritual bliss whilst vibing at his shows. He wanted to recreate this feeling in album form, oblivious to the fact that they were probably down to psychoactives.
Lifehouse was going to be set in the future, in a world where rock music no longer existed. The band were going to take up a residency at London's Young Vic theatre and let audience interactions shape their output. This was a good idea in theory, but it would have been a nightmare to actually organise, which might be why the concept was eventually dropped.
It also didn't help that Townshend had a nervous breakdown whilst working on it.
A lot of the material intended for Lifehouse eventually ended up on subsequent Who releases, including the songs Baba O'Reilly and Behind Blue Eyes.
Worth having a breakdown over? To be fair, they are both bangers...