{"id":1047012,"date":"2026-06-24T11:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1047012\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:50:17","slug":"the-only-musician-pete-townshend-said-could-do-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1047012\/","title":{"rendered":"The only musician Pete Townshend said could do anything"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pete<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Harry Chase \/ UCLA Library<\/p>\n

Wed 24 June 2026 8:00, UK <\/p>\n

As someone whose game has always revolved around revolutionising rhythmic grooves in British rock, Pete Townshend<\/a> has no time for the more flashy guitar players or the ones who prioritise fast, complex riffs without ever finding their footing in the real world of music.<\/p>\n

As he once explained to Loudwire, most of them in the current landscape are too focused on appearing a certain way for bite-sized TikTok audiences and not focused enough on what makes their craft worthwhile or meaningful. In his view, these types of players need to find their place \u201csomewhere other than Instagram\u201d, or any other place that proves they have far more depth than a simple internet fad.<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, this scathing observation of the current social media landscape and its impact on today\u2019s musicians drew comparisons to the legendary prodigy himself<\/a>, Prince. Now, when we think of Prince, most of us think about how he raised the bar not only for blending different styles of music but also for showing people what live music was supposed to be all about.<\/p>\n

But in Townshend\u2019s view, while Prince was undoubtedly one of the greatest guitar players in the world, and someone who could \u201cdo an extraordinary shred\u201d while playing a soulful track and getting \u201cfrom one bit of blues to the other\u201d, he was also \u201ca bit flash\u2026 Maybe it was just to show he could do it,\u201d said Townshend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That said, when you look at what the rocker has said about the Purple One in the past, there\u2019s more to his claims than what appears to be simple dismissiveness about Prince\u2019s so-called pretentiousness. In fact, Townshend has previously praised Prince\u2019s multi-instrumentalist approach, essentially arguing that there\u2019s nothing he couldn\u2019t do<\/a>, so much so that he sits in a lane entirely occupied by himself and no one else.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at somebody like Prince,\u201d Townshend told Guitarist in 1990. \u201cHe has that armoury. He can write an orchestral score, sit at a piano and read a part, knock out a fairly good version of the Moonlight Sonata or study Gershwin if he likes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThen you\u2019ve got this impetuous, imp-like character grafting all this intuitive waif-like feel. You come up with that kind of magical quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

With this in mind, when you consider his other remark about Prince being \u201cflashy\u201d, it seems more like a reflection from someone who has forgotten just how much of an impact Prince had, not only on the world of rock, but on Townshend himself. After all, Townshend didn\u2019t just praise the way he could pull off literally anything, he also once recalled going to see the movie Purple Rain<\/a> with Eric Clapton in 1984 and being completely blown away by how he \u201cfolded autobiographical references so elegantly into his film\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also revealed how Purple Rain ultimately inspired him to make his own location-focused project, encouraging him to immediately start generating ideas around how he could bring to life a film based on his concept album, White City: A Novel. Specifically, Townshend took different elements of Purple Rain, like how Prince had appeared \u201cdeliberately romantic and distant\u201d, while striving to make White City appear both entertaining and authentic.<\/p>\n

Therefore, it\u2019s clear that his comments about his impact and capabilities were more of an extension of his views on the current music scene, and how often modern guitar players will focus too heavily on image or how things appear rather than venturing beneath the surface and making music or concepts that actually stay with you.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Harry Chase \/ UCLA Library Wed 24 June 2026 8:00, UK As someone whose…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3940],"tags":[81823,274592,4080,77,14569,3020,176791,7794,287907,2535,14566,16,15],"class_list":["post-1047012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-1980s","tag-274592","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-pete-townshend","tag-pop","tag-pop-rock","tag-prince","tag-purple-rain","tag-rock-music","tag-the-who","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116804939308778155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}