Promo card for A Tale of Two Springfields"

In rock music the performance is usually given a higher priority than recording. This is not just the rock romanticism of the dramatic live show that expresses authenticity and emotion ---eg., the Who Live at the Isle of Wright; with the live performance as the paradigm of musical presentation.

It is the view that the recording is a documentation of the performance. This is a denial that language is present, in that it is held that the Who's studio sound is quite similar to the sound of the stage act, albeit recorded with overdubs and other standard studio tricks. Recordings are mirrors: the CD is the transparent medium for getting at the music. What is downplayed is the way that the recorded sound is manipulated, filtered, edited, crafted and altered--a sculpturing of recording sound; a working of the actual sound to create the overall sound.

This is what we see with the making of the music in the classic rock albums series, which show how the particular classic album was put together, and the considerable time that was spent on the recording of the album.

Who's Next is a good example of this. Much of it derives from Lifehouse, the ambitious sci-fi rock opera concept album that Pete Townshend abandoned, and latter released after nearly three decades. It indicates that the Who were more than Townsend's backup band.