The Who had previously toyed with the concepts which would lead to the full-blown rock opera with their six-movement 1966 track ' A Quick One, While He's Away'. Tommy would also go on to influence On and On, a rap opera by The Fat Boys and American Idiot, a punk rock opera by Green Day. The original album has sold 20 million copies and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The Tommy album developed into other media, including a Seattle Opera production in 1971, an orchestral version by Lou Reizner in 1972, a film in 1975, and a Broadway musical in 1992. Sorrow, critics have compared Tommy to it. Although the band's guitarist Pete Townshend denied taking any influence from S.F. The album tells the story of Tommy Walker, a 'deaf, dumb and blind kid.' Tommy displays the titular character's experiences with life and his relationship with his family. Scott Mervis of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that The Who's 1969 record Tommy was the first album to be billed as a rock opera. Sorrow (1968) by The Pretty Things is 'generally acknowledged as the first rock opera'. Neil Strauss of The New York Times wrote that S.F. Ĭolin Fleming of The Atlantic described The Story of Simon Simopath (1967) by British psychedelic band Nirvana as an 'early foray into the rock opera sub-genre'. However, the album for the rock opera was not released until 1996, and it was only fully realised and staged in 2017.

In an early use of the term, the July 4, 1966, edition of RPM Magazine (published in Toronto) reported that ' Bruce Cockburn and Mr Hawkins are working on a Rock Opera, operating on the premise that to write you need only 'something to say'.' Mark Wirtz explored the idea in a project A Teenage Opera, from which an early song ' Excerpt from A Teenage Opera (Grocer Jack)' recorded by Keith West was released and became a hit song in 1967. A number of rock artists became interested in the idea of creating a rock opera in the 1960s.

Rock opera definition