10 Sophomore Slump Albums By Amazing Bands

One of the main missions that Pete Townshend had in the glory days of the Who was to break down the conventional structures of rock and roll. Storming out of the gate with My Generation, what used to be a nice little R&B group were transforming themselves in the studio, introducing distortion and doing the ‘60s equivalent of what punks would have done a decade later by unleashing anarchy onstage. Pete always wanted music to mean more than destruction though, but the label had other plans in mind.

Looking to make the album process more of a collaborative affair, A Quick One was designed to have equal contributions from every member, with varying degrees of success. While we did get John Entwistle breaking his silence behind the bass on songs like Boris the Spider, Keith Moon’s offerings like Cobwebs and Strange sound like they were designed to just take up space on the final album.

Townshend did end up making his songs count though, writing one of his best ballads on So Sad About Us and closing the album with the sort-of title track A Quick One While He’s Away, sprawling out over 9 minutes and telling the full story of a man returning from war and finding out his wife cheated on him. There’s a lot of strange moments on an album like this, but if you listen to that last track on its own, you can see the seeds being planted for Tommy.