Empty Glass [Original recording remastered]

Pete Townshend | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 21, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Atlantic / Wea
• ASIN: B000002J6J
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,447 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Rough Boys

2. I Am An Animal

3. And I Moved

4. Let My Love Open The Door

5. Jools And Jim

6. Keep On Working

7. Cat's In The Cupboard

8. A Little Is Enough

9. Empty Glass

10. Gonna Get Ya

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece, May 30, 2001

By 

David Bradley "David Bradley" (Sterling, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Empty Glass (Audio CD)

Pete Townshend is the best thing that ever happened to Rock, and EMPTY GLASS is his solo masterpiece, an insightful, invigorating confessional from a man on the edge.

Townshend addresses punks, aging, drinking, music critics, work ethic, and his lifelong quest to find some meaning in life. Townshend is Rock's great philosopher and, like all great philosophers, he frequently dips into deep dark spells when he concludes life is pointless.

The centerpiece of the album is the title song, in which the dueling elements at Townshends core--the rough boy, tough guy (the adolescent Mod, perhaps?), and the softer, more fragile adult--battle for supremacy.

That's some pretty heavy stuff, but Townshend bounces back from those depressions--"Don't worry, smile and dance, you just can't work life out."

Townshend's backing band, including members of Big Country, isn't the as hard as the Who, but does rock, and can float through the softer sections of EMPTY GLASS in a way the Who had some trouble attaining.

I am completely stunned by the ho-hum reviews others have given this masterpiece. EMPTY GLASS represents the very essence of Townshend, and the remnants of 1960s Rock, as the 80's began and those icons hit their mid-30s. There have always been those who have critisized Townshend for his self-discovery and his search for a greater meaning. For me, it is the questions Townshend asks, and the search he has made, that make him the most important thinker in Rock, and a worthwhile role model.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pete's Best Solo Album, September 3, 2004

By 

Alex Muir (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Empty Glass (Audio CD)

Brilliant! I bought the cassette of this record when I was 12 and I have to say that not many albums have moved me the way this album has. It is a masterpiece of songwriting..

It is a great rock album. My favourite track is "A Litte is Enough". Amazing. I can still smell/feel/see myself walking to school through the forest every morning as a little kid with my headphones on while listening to it today.

Thanks for all the great music Pete!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I used to play it every morning!, August 12, 2004

By 

Anyechka (Rensselaer, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Empty Glass (Audio CD)

This was the second Pete solo album I acquired, and because I bought it on vinyl, I had to wait a short while (18 days) before I got myself my first record player on the day after my birthday to break it in. (I'd played side one in the store already before buying it, but accidentally had it on the wrong speed until I was midway through "LMLOTD"; I knew his voice wasn't that feminine-sounding!) This is my favourite of all of his solo albums, a perfect mix of hard rockers like "Jools and Jim" and soft introspective numbers like "I Am an Animal." A lot of people feel that this should have been a Who album and 'Face Dances' should have been the solo album, but some of the songs on this record I just can't see Roger singing, such as "Rough Boys" and "And I Moved." He wrote these songs for himself and interpreted them for himself; I can't imagine what they'd all sound like had they been part of a Who album. And these songs, like "And I Moved," "A Little Is Enough," "I Am an Animal," and "LMLOTD" are proof enough of why he got so many female fans when he went solo. He found a whole new audience because of how different this material was from the type of material he wrote for The Who.

Some people don't like "Rough Boys" and "And I Moved" because they think Pete is bisexual; even if he were and people weren't just trying to cross the Ts and dot the Is based on some things he's said that suggest identifying with women and not always feeling exclusively stereotypically masculine, it wouldn't change the fact that those are not songs about being in love with other men. "Rough Boys" is a song making fun of the punk culture in England at the time, since many of them were dressing up like gay men in America and not even knowing it. "And I Moved" was written for Bette Midler, but her handlers rejected it as too smutty instead of the type of dirty song they said she liked to sing. It takes a whole lot of guts for a man to not only write but then to sing a song about a sexual encounter from a female pov.

This is such an incredible album, I can't believe I'd been nervous about getting it since I'd feared that the rockers on here I'd heard about would be out of character. It's a lovely album; the only song on here I'm not keen on is "Cat's in the Cupboard." I also wasn't keen on "Keep on Working" at first, but it grew on me eventually. Practically all of the rest of the songs are my favourite on this album; the title track is even one of my two favourite of his solo songs.