| The Iron Man: The Musical | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 27 June 1989 | |||
| Recorded | 1986–1989 | |||
| Studio | Eel Pie Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 45:36 | |||
| Label | Atlantic (US) | |||
| Producer | Pete Townshend | |||
| Pete Townshend chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Hi-Fi News & Record Review | A*:1/2[2] |
| Rolling Stone | [3] |
The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend is the sixth solo studio album by Pete Townshend of The Who, released in 1989 as a concept album adaptation of Ted Hughes' story The Iron Man. It also stars Roger Daltrey, Deborah Conway, John Lee Hooker, and Nina Simone.
The three then-surviving original members of The Who (Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Townshend) performed as a group in two songs, "Dig" and "Fire", although the latter was a cover of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's hit. (The Who would later perform "Dig" live during their 1989 reunion tour.)
"A Friend Is a Friend" and "I Won't Run Anymore" were commercially released as singles; "Fire" was issued as a promo-only single in the United States. Cash Box said that "A Friend is a Friend" "finds Pete in an uplifting vein, with falsetto vocals and strummed guitar."[4]
A stage version was mounted at the Young Vic theatre in London in 1993. On the strength of this, Warner Bros. optioned the story for a movie that, with a very different adaptation of the story, became The Iron Giant; Townshend received an executive-producer credit.
- ^ The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend at AllMusic
- ^ Dellar, Fred (September 1989). "Review: Pete Townshend — The Iron Man" (PDF). Hi-Fi News & Record Review (magazine). Vol. 34, no. 9. Croydon: Link House Magazines Ltd. p. 103. ISSN 0142-6230. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 September 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2021 – via World Radio History.
- ^ "Pete Townshend: Album Guide | Rolling Stone Music". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 5 February 2011. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
- ^ Wednesday, Oscar (17 June 1989). "Pure Pop for Now People" (PDF). Cash Box. p. 22. Retrieved 21 December 2022.