A lot of my whole "thing" with this band is predicated on the notion that, at peak strength, they were better than the Beatles. I'm not certain that I fully believe this, but..."can your precious Beatles do THIS?"
Just as the Beatles sort of "amped up" what had come before them (black music, country, Tin Pan Alley, girl groups, early rock and roll), it seemed like the Who were just that crucial bit more youthful, tough and...heading straight for "the rock" and desperately trying to discard "the roll" (an element of which they, nonetheless, had plenty). I don't think it's any stretch to say that they occasionally made even the very best of their immediate forebears (peers, even) seem a bit quaint.
The sort of "one man guitar orchestra" of Pete Townshend is central to this - all of these sort of sophisticated slashing chords cutting through and chopping down everything in their path. There was obviously so much more to him and them than that, but...it is an overriding feature of their style and sound. He and Moon seem to really be both on this path (until they eventually get distracted sometime in the 1970s) - there's almost something virginal about it in the best possible way...rather than the sort of cool, laid back, experienced sound of jazz or swing (or...I dunno, Booker T and the MGs or the Meters), you get these sort of "trying-to-mollify-the-person-holding-us-at-gunpoint-by-playing-with-maximum-enthusiam-and-abandon" eager and aggressive and hyper performances, like...if they kick out enough jams in a sufficiently demonstrative fashion, they'll "get the girl" or something. It's the only way I can describe the sort of masculine adolescent adrenaline in all of those classic songs.
I mean, if I were asked to do a BCB 130 solely on "I Can't Explain" or "I Can See For Miles" or "Pictures Of Lily" or "I'm A Boy", there's absolutely no reason why I couldn't. Townshend playing bar chords high up on the neck on a 12 string and sounding as tough as anything that would ever exist...the super insane tension created by the tight and almost atonally close harmonies in "Miles" (the mono single climaxes in this sort of "your head's gonna blow off before we get to the coda" kind of way) - it's like they used The Ivy League for backing vocals on the first single and were instantly like "Okay, thanks - we can not only do this for ourselves now, but...seriously...watch and learn."
Given the speed at which things moved back then, the fact that the Who were "post-Kinks" (even to the infinitesimal extent that they were) gave them a certain elemental ammunition that no band before them had (I mean, I know the Sonics were quite heavy in their own way, but still in a "Yeah, sure - saxophone players!" kind of "50s hangover" way that has nothing to do with the Who). To further illustrate why the Who's youth was such a virtue, there's some interview with Townshend in the early 1980s where he makes some patented reflexive snide remark about how his concept of rock and roll is not tied to the same implicitly antiquated values as someone like Paul McCartney ("...whereas I don't think Little Richard mattered.."). The 1960s were a wonderful time to be modern, and the things that made The Who "younger" than their British Invasion peers seem like very good things indeed (in much the same way as, say, Piper at The Gates of Dawn or Are You Experienced? are "younger" than the Who, and so on).
There's something cool about looking at pictures of people who sort of haven't "gone through it" yet, where you think "Oh, wow - he really has no idea he's gonna be president, go to the moon, etc.", and I feel like all of the James Brown covers on the debut album and the versions of "Heatwave" and the fucking Beach Boys/Jan and Dean nonsense and "Legal Matter" are a bit like the baby pictures of some very important person, but...then...from the same era, the likes of "The Kids Are Alright" seem to already have one foot in this very singular territory. Maybe it's only one foot, but that's one more foot than anyone else. The sort of digressive choral interlude in the middle of "I'm A Boy" with all of those very emotional minor chords and suspensions? I mean, it's like the Incredible Hulk trying to burst out of puny David Banner's body. Some of you have kids, and you know how they all say these fucking ridiculous things when their vocabulary is at a certain point (let's say preschool age or earlier)? They seem hilarious, but...obviously, they are loaded with meaning - they are meant to indicate some very real imperative or communique. I think a great stretch of Pete's magic is in that sort of "I'm trying to ask for food (or, you know, spiritual nourishment) but 'Happy Jack' is what comes out!" corridor of songwriting. Sell Out, especially, seems like he's really got something very personal to express (the emotional equivalent of "I've got to go to the bathroom" or what have you) and it comes out in these songs about tattoos and deodorant - these beautiful songs with very evocative and yearning and epic melodies/changes/arrangements. I think we're all lucky that he ended up in a band that had faith in that stuff, cause...it seems like he might have had a hard time getting the Yardbirds or Troggs to play those songs.
It's hard to discuss their story in this day and age without referencing the likelihood of Townshend having been an abused child with some deeply repressed trauma - it seems like such a huge part of their/his best work. Issues of betrayal, perception, compensation, escape, the need to belong, the need for total autonomy, wanting to be heard, wanting to be understood, and the difficulties of childhood seem to permeate their artistic peak, and...there's a lot of the musical questing and expression which seems very much like an unintended outlet of sorts - you could very well be watching a rat attempt to work his way out of a maze when you listen to something like, say, "Sparks".
That isn't, by any means, the whole story, of course. There's also the notion that an inexplicable thing happens in an ensemble and you can only identify it post-mortem. It's all very well for any of the surviving members to sit around and pontificate about how the band's elements interacted during the period of their greatest work - "Well, Keith was 'knitting', and I was working my way around that, and John was doing this, and Roger was standing over there, etc.", but...nothing that great and powerful is ever designed from a blueprint or theory. It is, in some ways, the sound of the legendary conflict the group were known for - dysfunctional people, all unlikely bedfellows in one way or another, substance abusers and serial misbehavers and malcontents who drove each other mad from the very beginning (and two of whom ultimately worked their way towards the ultimate escape), but...who could never have done what they do without each other. Not to say I don't love, say, the Zombies, but...you can hear the difference, right?
I remember a friend and fellow songwriter once expressing some envy to me about Townshend's ability to write songs that she believed spoke to/for some universal audience/congregation. It wasn't something I'd ever really considered prior to that moment, but...my God, this conversation would have taken place in a very narcissistic era in popular music (near the turn of the millennium), and...the contrast, when I look at any number of Townshend's songs is incredible - you totally don't have to be him to live at the center of the lyrics/music. He's just managed to take the microphone for some enormous mass of people and sing their lives or some big part of them. I mean, it's the sort of trick that a lot of people attempt with varying results, and that a lot of people just wouldn't even bother with - it's too daunting...you can sing about your own interests or life or fears and hope that they are somehow resonant...I mean, I love Big Star and relate to a lot of their music, but somehow I'm very aware of Alex Chilton or Chris Bell composing and expressing these ideas, and...Neil Young...again, it's meaningful to me, but it very much seems like HIS story, and a lot of the relatability of it comes from his sort of "leaving holes" in the work...the enigmatic element. Townshend seems (for the period of his work that has any relevance here) unusually adept at standing atop the mountain and singing OUR song (through his band). I love the Velvet Underground, for example, but...not for THAT reason, by any means. The thing that I'm accusing Townshend of doing, I don't think Lou Reed was ever able to do with any real frequency or reliability. And The Who fans aren't even remotely agreed on WHEN and WHERE it happens - I've met the "Quadrophenia saved my life!" types and the "'My Generation'/'Substitute'/'Anyway Anyhow Anywhere' and nothing later!" types, and all sorts in between, and none of these factions seems any less convinced of their direct relationship to the music than the others. I cringe to hear the author HIMSELF discuss/describe his process, because he seems almost determined to spoil his own effect on others - I've said similar things about Neil Young's autobiography...what could Pete Townshend possibly know about his own work?!?!?
Even their biggest fans here will typically cop to some wild inconsistency - either that (as mentioned earlier) there is a specific and exclusive period that makes the Who their favorite band, or that the quality of the work varies wildly (even within an album or period), or that "they left the best bits on the cutting room floor", or that this work or that work would be better if only some caveat had been navigated (they used the wrong takes/songs/producer/sound). I'm certainly of the opinion that they hit some of the absolute highest highs in music, but that...they weren't ALL masterpieces by any means. I don't own LPs of the first two records, and I can't say it bothers me (I've let the final four sit in the racks at record shops forever). Even a song as powerful as "A Quick One (While He's Away)", I'm inclined to think it genuinely took them a couple of years to get the song to where it really needed to be, musically. The LP version sounds "clanky" to me, and...you must be as tired of hearing me and others rhapsodize about the Rock and Roll Circus performance as you are of hearing about Freddie Mercury at Live Aid (okay, fine - I won't say it again, but...only because you KNOW how major that Who performance is). I think Tommy is as great as anything anyone has ever done, but...I'm always hearing a certain type of Who fan complaining that it somehow follows the REAL peak of the band (this implies that "Batman" and "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" and "See My Way" is the top of the mountain, but...we're all here to get along, right?). I tend to agree that there's something maybe a bit too pristine and tight and concise about Who's Next (and, I really can't summon any real enthusiasm for "Going Mobile" or "Love Ain't For Keeping"), and...yeah, I'd be interested to see what might have happened if he hadn't flaked out so thoroughly on Lifehouse, and...sure..."Pure And Easy" is really fucking amazing...but...ugh..."Join Together"? No thanks. An exercise like Odds and Sods would seem to be perfect for a band like the Who - famous for their outtakes and unreleased gems, the group combs the archives as a stop gap and comes up with...well, not much, really. Barring a couple of actual killers (chiefly "Long Live Rock"), there's a lot of dross/chaff there, and they end up spending the 1990s (!) releasing box sets and expanded versions of their many albums...finally unleashing some genuinely killer material on the world (I mean...look at the plethora of shit hot 94/95 Thirty Years Of..., Sell Out and Leeds bonuses - you're telling me none of that was the equal/better of what limped out on Odds and Sods?). What I'm saying re: the band's hit or miss rate is basically the equivalent of trying to convince you that the world's greatest band put out, on average, one absolute great-as-music-gets classic song amidst four absolute turds. Listen to something like the (ridiculous by ANY metric) chorus to "Now I'm A Farmer" and you have to remind yourself that Townshend's mostly unlikely ideas were so often his very best - so much so that he could bring the silliest thing in the world into his bandmates and they'd probably assume (and approach it as if) it was likely to be the next "My Generation". Obviously, we live for the times when this worked.
If you have time for this, it cuts to the heart of my whole "thing" in a way that an essay simply cannot:
Quadrophenia took me forever to "get" - I'd spent years thinking it was just the most bloated, over produced, bombastic, polished bullshit ever to bear the name of a majorly talented band, but...then one depressing night, broke and far from home in a flat (for it was London/Islington) that I didn't especially wish to be in, someone put it on, and...all of the emotional content (especially in the longer instrumental pieces like "The Rock" - that shit's just LOADED with palpable sentiment) just really opened me wide open (and I'd been pretty fucking into the Who for DECADES at this point). I'm not necessarily pushing it on people who can't get past the image of Daltrey jogging in place, or banks of synths or football stadiums, but...I tend to think of it as a rather expressive emotional piece from Townshend and...if you're up for it, he's got a lot to offer there. Even something as seemingly silly as "Bell Boy" has loads of "feeling".
Despite being someone who will confess to having spent years subconsciously (?) aping them with a particular ensemble, I can nonetheless say that I find most people's alleged "Who influence" excruciating to witness. I know some of these people personally...and I know of bands who famously modeled themselves on the Who...what does it all mean...trying to look sharp like the Who did in 1965/6? Flailing around on the drums with a cool haircut? Using Rickenbackers? There's a certain subclass of band/musician who have done little other than demonstrate how impossible it is to copy the Who/Moon/Townshend. If anyone had truly managed it, I think we'd have heard about it. I mean, I absolutely understand that they are a very attractive proposition as role models - the original power trio with all of these very moving and affecting masterpieces, but...ugh...just...no. You can put all the Who songs you want in your stage act, record them, pal around with Pete or Roger, dress like them, and so on...but...the evidence that there's only one Who gets stronger with every occasion on which someone lesser chokes on some marble mouthed interpretation of a Who classic. I know we can all stand to learn something from the Who, but...on evidence, maybe we all ALSO have the (even stronger) capacity to stubbornly NOT learn from them, no matter how much we play dress up.
*(fucking 0:46 is such a payoff for me)*
There's an odd economy at play here - I mean, sure...you could say that they all overplayed and oversang, but I find the records (including the live ones) uniformly and unspeakably lean. The guitar chords seem to contain just the right amount of information (and often less than you think is there)...it's like the impatient person who gets frustrated at having to communicate using anything more than some bare minimum of coded language, references or gestures. Given the right synergy of all parties, one could optimally get a lot across with this format in which the listener fills in a lot of gaps. Maybe it's all a little more powerful for not being TOO spelled out. Much like Led Zeppelin, for all the "heavy rock" and "proto-metal" we might associate with this band, the guitar sounds are never all THAT saturated - the actual power seems to come from a surprisingly measured source. The next time you hear something like "Won't Get Fooled Again", you can marvel at a) how little guitar there is in the verses, no full bodied chords, a lot of very spartan voicings, little more than a series of terse interjections, a lot of "holes", and b) the tastefulness of the sound...it has that lovely "small amp sound" (I don't actually care what amp he used) of most great rock guitar recordings with absolutely no more gain than is needed. Keith Moon and John Entwhistle are quite possibly seen to be these horribly busy musicians, but...again, listen to the tracks and they really seem to be playing with enormous purpose - it's like four limbs of a body all doing some part that makes no great amount of sense independently, but which serves the greater good. That sounds a little vague and generic and sort of "Oh, well, you could be describing any band here", but as it applies specifically to the Who, listen to any of Moon's eruptions or more involved parts and they really do seem to be making some very relevant point (even knocking all of the percussion instruments over at the end of "Love, Reign O'er Me") or interacting with the vocal in some deeply involved fashion. Ditto the bass - when Entwistle goes "wacky", it's always allowing someone else to do some very important thing - often you'll find this is when someone else is going deeply sparse or simple or plain...it really is like the human body's tendency to shift weight and emphasis according to some subconscious and automatic compensatory need.
OK - that!
Inevitably, there were people approximately 25-30 years later who would attempt to make entire careers out of this song...with none of the playful grandeur so natural to the Who. Of course, the Who moved on instantly (save for, I suppose, "Tommy's Holiday Camp" and occasional little bits of "drunk on stout" type detailing), as they so often would. Better that the Kinks get blamed for subsequent crimes.
This one just slays me - buried in the middle of a disjointed Side Two of yet another flawed classic. The vocal and the playing are gorgeous, and hint at a certain frailty that will come up again and again in their work. There's a few motifs here (and elsewhere) that Townshend appears to be exploring quite a bit around this time - in many ways, Tommy seems like the climax/finale of a certain self-searching era (you can hear the musical and lyrical warmups all over the place ca. 67-68, in both finished and unfinished songs - I rather enjoy that he wasn't afraid to keep coming back to these bits and refining them at the time. You'd hate for someone to do that over a period of decades, but as a rather finite process, it shows a refreshingly un-self-conscious determination and dedication to the muse).
I've said a lot, and yet I've only scratched the surface. I know they are (I mean, in a way that exceeds most popular artists and groups) such a personal band to whom so many have their own personal bond. Why don't I leave you with this (THEIR "Good Vibrations?") while you contemplate your own contributions:
