The Who released WHO in the UK on December 6, 2019. Their twelfth studio album followed Endless Wire by 13 years, with Pete Townshend writing songs intended to challenge Roger Daltrey and give his voice room to work. Getting those songs from Townshend’s demos to the finished record involved two producers, separate recording setups and new songwriting collaborations.
The opening track, “All This Music Must Fade,” put the question of originality directly into the music. Townshend dedicated it to artists accused of borrowing from someone else’s songs, arguing that familiar chord sequences shouldn’t be treated as one writer’s exclusive property. Released as a single that October, it introduced an album whose songwriter was openly questioning how musicians lay claim to their ideas.
Townshend had prepared home studio demos in the summer of 2018. In the album announcement, he explained that he wanted to give Daltrey fresh material suited to the singer’s voice, while steering away from romance and nostalgia where possible. He also ruled out an overarching concept or continuous story. Individual songs could take on different subjects, from memory and spirituality to contemporary events, without having to fit a single narrative.
The recording process needed flexibility, too. Most of the album was recorded in London and Los Angeles during spring and summer 2019, with Townshend and Dave Sardy co-producing. Polydor A&R director Richard O’Donovan told Music Week that Townshend had requested frank criticism of the material. Of the 17 or 18 songs initially sent over, O’Donovan thought eight stood out, while others needed work. Sardy’s ability to handle studio sessions, remote recording and mixing made him a practical choice, and early sessions at British Grove helped establish the album’s direction.
Daltrey requested Dave Eringa to produce his vocals. O’Donovan passed information between the studios and helped keep the two producers in contact, maintaining a shared direction as the parts came together. He recalled Daltrey sometimes returning two or three vocals in a day that required no changes. The singer’s interpretation was central to the process: Townshend supplied the writing, and Daltrey worked out how to inhabit it.
Townshend’s search for material also reached beyond his own demos. “Beads On One String” developed from a track by Josh Hunsacker that he discovered on SoundCloud. “It’s his music, my arrangement and lyric,” Townshend told Music Week in October 2019. Hunsacker shared the songwriting credit, while Townshend’s brother Simon wrote “Break The News.” Both collaborations became part of the standard 11-song album.
The cover renewed an older creative partnership. Peter Blake, who had designed the sleeve and contributed a painting for 1981’s Face Dances, created the artwork for WHO. Blake and Simon Halfon received sleeve-design credits, connecting the new collection to an artist who had already helped shape the band’s visual identity.
WHO reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200, matching the positions achieved by Quadrophenia and Who Are You. It also reached No. 1 on Billboard’s separate Top Album Sales chart.
