Sound Round

Whenever I head off for a lengthy road trip, there are certain albums I queue up on my iPod. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve listened to them, but albums like King of America, All the Roadrunning, Harbor Lights, or A Momentary Lapse of Reason will always be played. A lot of it has to do with the time of year it is: Harbor Lights and King of America are summery albums, while Momentary Lapse is more of the spring persuasion. One album that will be played regardless of season, temperature, or climate is Pete Townshend’s Psychoderelict, by far my favorite of his solo albums for reasons I can’t explain.

See, it isn’t the best in terms of lyrics; that honor, for better or worse, goes to All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. It’s not made up of consistently brilliant rock songs, like Empty Glass or Rough Mix. But it somehow manages to combine the best of Townshend’s warped creative genius with the best of his abilities, conscious or sub-conscious, to write a catchy tune or several, throw a plot and some dialog at it, and still make it sound brilliant.

Now critics have complained that it’s overly pretentious, that the dialog is weak, and that the songs are substandard dabbles in synths and drum machines. To which I emphatically say, bullshit. Yes, there is some pretense, but when is Townshend not pretentious? Yes, there is dialog, but it’s part of the story, and some of it is downright hilarious:

Ray High: “I’m not going in there. That bloody cow Ruth Streeting uses this pub. She hates my guts.”

Rastus Knight: “It’s her job to hate your guts. She’s a journalist. Oh sod it, I forgot, she won’t be here! She’s in the States! Ahh, come on, let’s go in anyway. You’ve gotta get back in the mainstream sometime. C’mon, you own shares in the place.”

Ray High: “That cow wrote that I’m ugly.”

Rastus Knight: “You are ugly.”

Ray High: “I’m not.”

Rastus Knight: “Yes, you are.”

Ray High: “No, I’m NOT!!!“

Rastus Knight: “Well, you are, actually.”

And yes, there are synthesizers and drum machines, but see my point about pretense.

The point that I’m trying to get at is that Townshend is at a creative peak, writing a story that’s both interesting and engaging, and writing a bunch of songs that rank among his very best. For those who need the backstory, it’s this: Ray High is a washed-up rocker from the 60s, whose best days are behind him and has become an alcoholic recluse, living off his past royalties while evading the public eye. Exasperated manager Rastus Knight is trying to get him out of hiding and earn him a much-needed latter-day hit, but Ray wants none of it. Music journalist and sexy sleaze Ruth Streeting, who despises Ray for no other reason than he’s a pretty despicable character, hatches a scheme that is a little dangerous (hint: it involves an underage sex scandal, and yes, I’m aware of the irony) for Ray but is guaranteed to get to the general public’s morbid curiosity. It works, Ray’s career is revived, and the world is a happier place.

There’s also an underlying theme of Ray’s own abandoned concept, Gridlife. This is a nod to Lifehouse (not the band), a conceptual rock opera Townshend developed in the early 1970s that was going to be The Who’s next album after Tommy; instead, it merely became Who’s Next, one of the greatest rock albums of all time, though the failure to produce his vision to his own satisfaction sent Townshend into a tailspin. Regardless, he would return to the concept several times over the next 30 years, and finally released the comprehensive six-disc box set Lifehouse Chronicles, chock full of demos intended for the album, orchestral works, and a lengthy radio play. (Well worth picking up if you’re into impenetrable rock operas about the future.)

So Psychoderelict is itself slightly impenetrable, and if you’re a moderate Townshend fan, is probably not the place to start. But a cursory listen to the actual songs reveal some of his strongest, certainly better than predecessor The Iron Man (another conceptual album, this time based on Ted Hughes’ children’s book of the same name): opener ‘English Boy’ is a scorching rocker, with Townshend unrestrained on guitar and howling the lyric of his wild boy persona, while ‘Let’s Get Pretentious’ takes a potshot at critics already sharpening their knives at Townshend’s musical excess. The more emotional songs – in particular, ‘Now And Then’ and ‘Fake It’, the two best songs here by a long shot, and even maybe in Townshend’s solo career (seriously) – come nearer to the end of the play, and are naked and revealing in lyrical matter but at complete odds with each other, musically: the former is set to a stark backing, dominated by bass and featuring Townshend’s voice to the fore, while the latter is more jubilant, with a jangly 12-string Rickenbacker giving it a Byrds vibe. (The spoken word interlude – “I am prepared to put up with this because I love you so much, and I know that you probably don’t love me in the same way, but if you care for me at all then take me in your arms” – really hits my emotional core, because I’ve been in situations almost exactly like that. The less said about that, of course, the better.)

What’s most important is that Townshend sounds like he’s having fun on the album, whether it be little improvisational vocalizations or the practically unhinged delivery on ‘Predictable’; he also adds some of the most raucous and gritty guitar work in recent years, especially on the epic reprise of ‘English Boy’, squeezing in layers upon layers upon layers of guitar to dazzling effect.

Not all of it is great, of course. ‘Don’t Try To Make Me Real’ rambles a bit, despite its intensely personal lyric, and ‘Outlive The Dinosaur’ is a tad overwrought. ‘Flame’, the only song not to be written or cowritten by Townshend (the credit to Townshend is not to Pete but his younger brother Simon), sounds too much like the generic one-hit wonder power ballads of the late 1980s; with vocals by Chyna (within the story, this is supposed to be Ruth Streeting posing as Ros Nathan), it brings back horrid flashbacks of The Iron Man, and that’s enough to ruin anybody’s listening experience. Mercifully, it’s brief, so at least it’s got that going for it.

One of the neat gimmicks is that the album also serves as a pseudo-Scoop album, containing four demos of songs originally written for the Lifehouse project: ‘Meher Baba 3′, ‘Meher Baba 4 (Signal Box)’, ‘Meher Baba 5 (Vivaldi)’, and the “Irish jig” conclusion of ‘Baba O’Riley’. These are interesting if you’re an anorak who appreciates good demos, but serve merely as musical backing or transitional interludes between the more consequential songs.

Remarkably, Psychoderelict was greeted with general indifference from the record buying public, resulting in Townshend’s worst-performing solo album to date. Attempting to salvage something from the debacle, he presented a unique “music only” version, cutting out the dialog completely and giving the songs proper beginnings and conclusions. My advice: avoid the “music only” version (unless you’re like me and like to make your own compilations of a single artist, and require only the most complete versions available, devoid of dialog or cross-fades), because it is far inferior product and, quite frankly, an insult that Townshend would acquiesce to those who didn’t “get it” and pander to their inability to listen to something apart from a collection of four minute rock songs. It might take a few listens, but you’ll come to appreciate the dry humor and inventive plots, even if they don’t all completely make sense. Or maybe they’ll just drive you derelict – but at least you’re not mature.

Essential listening: all of it, unless you’re lame and get the “music only” version, in which case: all of it