The Who : Classic or Dud

Classic. Join the cult of the band, won't you?

Search: all boots from 1969-1976. You only really understand how good this band was by hearing them live. Search specifically the Rock Circus vers. of A Quick One, Dreaming From The Waist from 1976 Swansea, Live At Leeds Complete and Woodstock. Quadrophenia.

Destroy: All post Keith material, the 'complete' BBC sessions, 'cause they're not complete. The Tommy movie.

The film of "Quadrophenia" is great. The album "Who's Next?" is great, with its total yeow! rock antics. And "Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy" has all your old Who favourites. I don't know anything else.

I find what I've heard of the later stuff ("Who Are You", "You Better You Bet") obviously tedious and banal, like any other plodding rock band.

The Who are classic for their Keith-era work. The best of it is completely untouchable raw power. Their post Keith work is patchy (mostly bad - no, GODAWFUL - patches), and some of their reaches didn't quite make it (Tommy is ridiculous). But as I always say, no great band has ever not made something, or many somethings, of complete toss. Being the greatest makes you more likely to fall because you reach too far, IMO.

Search: Who's Next. Okay, scratch that cos if you haven't already searched that you're just completely behind. So, instead: He's a Boy, for being the funniest song.

Destroy: The belief that the Who were still the Who without Keith Moon.

Always thought Who's Next was overrated though -- "Won't Get Fooled Again" is great, "Baba O'Reilly" is very good, but all the other songs on that album underwhelm me. I guess I just don't like classic rock enough.

Search for Live at Leeds and Quadrophenia and all the early singles.

Destroy Tommy in its many incarnations.

search: A Quick One, Sell Out, My Generation: The Very Best of... (which hits the mark more than most 'best of's'), Who's Next

destroy: the other compilations (Sheesh, are they the most overly anthologized group ever?), all films and film-related music (except the r'n'r circus performance), Squeeze Box (NOW!), hell, most anything post-Who's Next, and even Live at Leeds (*checks watch* Still playing that one guys?)

Apropos to nothing, I once worked with a guy who insisted on a dramatic reading of the lines "She comes to me with open arms (preganant pause) / And open legs" every time You Better, You Bet came on the radio. Yes, yes, it's very clever. Now go away. Please.

IMHO, the Who are the most problematic of the Sixties acts. As indisputably great as they were, there was always someone better at some element of their game. Lennon/McCartney, Jaggers/Richards, and Ray Davies were better songwriters than Townshend. The Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, and the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds did more with feedback and distortion. Townshend basically stole his earliest songs from the Kinks and his early guitar sound from Dave Davies, while Ray Davies wrote funnier lyrics and better rock operas (he even beat Townshend chronologically since Arthur was written, though not recorded, before Tommy). Hendrix, Beck, Jimmy Page, etc., were better guitarists than Townshend. Barrett, early Jefferson Airplane, the Mothers of Invention, and countless others did psychedelica better. Jagger, Lennon and McCartney were better singers than Daltrey. Charlie Watts was at least as good a drummer as Keith Moon. And the Stones (who were the Who's real competitors) were just flat out better.

That said, their early stuff was still pretty damn great.

As for the Watts v Moon argument - it's kinda pointless. Both of them contributed perfectly to the kind of material that their band was playing. Sure - few drummers could've played like Moon, but does that make him *better*? Just different, I'd say. Keith could never have complemented Keef n' BJ like Charlie did, but without Keith The Who wouldn't have had their explosive impact.

As for Watts vs. Moon...well. I'm with da Mod, yo. Moon could've kicked Watts ass from here to Whoville, but the point being made that they were both perfect for their band is true too. Just look at the Beatles versus the Who. Ringo wasn't really the greatest drummer ever, but if Keith was with the Beatles, he would've absolutely destroyed (which some might say is an improvement, but that's a different story) their sound.

My favourite Kinks single, "See My Friend", seems to get virtually no airplay whatsoever in the UK, so well done to Scott, though I suspect he was referring to a radio format that doesn't exist here.

Of course I would be very interested in what David the Huntsman could say to this thread since as some of us know he was very much the childhood Who obsessive.

2) wasn't 'see my friend' the first psychedelic song or something?

i think tad hits upon something when he implies that there was always something second-best about the group, moon and the great songs notwithstanding. was it reynolds who said that there's something unloveable about them?

give me "i can't explain"; the rest of those early singles might as well have been performed by the later kinks, which means that they can take a flying leap. and then give me "baba o'riley" and "won't get fooled again" and any of their really hard-rocking moments, their CLASSIC ROCK moments, if you will. at their core, they formed a great rock band and so it's a shame that they didn't indulge that side more.

I know what you mean Robin. Their early singles were more pithy, r&b- ish. As they went on, the hyped-up guitar powerchords came more and more to the fore, to the point of deliberate self-pastiche by the time of tracks like "In A Hand Or A Face" (1975).

Having said that, I have to disagree with you about their best period, preferring the years 1970-75. My favourite album is "Who's Next" which I think you should check out because, apart from anything else, you may find the background to it interesting. For what it's worth (nothing), it's probably my all-time favourite album (by anybody). "Quadrophenia" is also quite good, although over-repetitive musically. "The Who By Numbers" has some good songs on it, but you can hear Townshend's guitar playing changing as he starts to incorporate slightly funky American styles (rather derivative and dreary to my ears).

The worst thing about the Who, and something that worried me slightly even at the time, is the sense that everything is incredibly male- centred (and verging on the thuggish at times eg glorification of Moon's antics).

I've always wondered why the run of singles from "I Can't Explain" to "Pictures Of Lily" did very little in the US at a time when the American charts were at their most open ever towards British acts. My glib guess would be that, in the sense of irony and sexual innuendo and various allusions in the lyrics, they were very "English" in a sense that didn't really appeal to mainstream US audiences and radio programmers (as opposed to the stereotypical sense of Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, or Paul McCartney in "When I'm 64" mode). There's something slightly camp about the high-pitched backing vocals on "I Can't Explain", and it didn't have the undercurrent of de-ironised rockism that I can always detect in Mick Jagger (who is always a terrible disappointment to me when judged by the "campness" criterion).

David, given that I once constructed an entire email to you around the *context* of "Won't Get Fooled Again" (an awesomely brilliant song BTW) rather than the song itself, I can see what you mean about my finding the context of "Who's Next" interesting. And you are right; I feel extremely guilty that I haven't heard it.

Ihave no problems with Townshend's need to break free from conventional song and album structures - in the main it works, but I strongly disagree that Who's Next is their best work. IMHO the middle of this album is as weak (from My Wife to Going Mobile) as the rest (Baba/Bargain/Love ain't.../Behind Blue../Won't Get...) is monumental. If pushed I could let My Wife through for the wierd brass stabs, but I can't accept that The Song is Over/Getting in Tune/Going Mobile are worth anything. Townshend seems to be trying to wrestle the sons away from Daltrey - either by taking over the vocals, or by chucking in key shifts that aren't needed (The Song is Over). It feels like he's still trying to get to whatever "Lifehouse" was supposed to be Also, two songs *about* songs or using songs as metaphors is pretty damn close to bands writing songs about being in bands. Daltry's leather-lunged vocals get pretty close to unpleasant also, again the tension between him and Townshend seems to come to the fore - it's like he's trying too hard to outdo Pete's reedy whine when he really doesn't need to try AT ALL. I much prefer Rog's R+B voice of 1964-7. So "Who's Next" is fatally flawed in my book, but still clearly essential for the 5 good tracks. My Search would include all the singles mentioned above, Live At Leeds, Who Sell-Out, BBC Sessions (Fantastic!), and I'd Destroy everything after Keith. The truth is that the rot set in in 1971 though.

Well it depends if you like Townshend's vocals or not. I do, so I have no complaint. In fact Townshend's demo of "Pure & Easy" (on his solo album "Who Came First") is much better than the Who's version, sung by Daltrey (to be found on the "Odds & Sods" compilation and the remastered/repackaged CD of "Who's Next"). I have often wondered though what the criteria were for lead vocal parts being assigned to Townshend.

...or by chucking in key shifts that aren't needed (The Song is Over). It feels like he's still trying to get to whatever "Lifehouse" was supposed to be...

Of course "Who's Next" was something of a rescue job after the failed attempt to make a coherent double album/conceptual work of "Lifehouse". So "Song Is Over", which I love btw, is very much a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, and can seem confusing because its intended context is missing.

>>> IMHO the middle of this album is as weak (from My Wife to Going Mobile) as the rest (Baba/Bargain/Love ain't.../Behind Blue../Won't Get...) is monumental.

But... well, that's quite a bit of Monumentality. For me the first two tracks alone justify the enterprise. Monumental indeed.

>>> If pushed I could let My Wife through for the wierd brass stabs,

Hey - those weird brass stabs!! And what about that vast menacing undercurrent of brass as the song heads out?

>>> It feels like he's still trying to get to whatever "Lifehouse" was supposed to be.

Well - it was Daltrey (!) who said that the greatness of the LP maybe came from the unrealized 'conceptualism' behind it - from the failure, but residual presence, of Lifehouse. Interesting, I think - more perceptive than I'd expect from the old trout.

>>> Also, two songs *about* songs or using songs as metaphors is pretty damn close to bands writing songs about being in bands.

This ought to be a thread: songs about songs - search & destroy...

And the absurd lyrics.

Plus, they rock. Live at Leeds is just so fun for the power chords and crazy drumming.

The one post-71 thing you should definitely check out is Odds & Sods. There singles/B-sides thing that has some great moments, many dating from the period you like best (also some more classic rock stuff like "Long Live Rock," but hey.)

As for "A Quick One" - it seems fairly fashionable to riducule the Moon songs and Daltrey's "See My Way", all of which are in fact ace and a nice counterpoint to Townshend's 'before your very eyes' transformation from Mod-man (Run, Run, Run, So Sad About Us) to concept-man (A Quick One). That makes "The Who Sell Out" the best next step, IMHO.

But my god, the remaster of My Generation sounds perfect to me. It pops and cracks whereas the crap mono version clanged and fizzed. It sounds so good cranked up, and having all the B-sides together is revalatory (some of them were actually meant to be released on the original album, until they were encouraged to write some more originals). "Heat Wave," "I'm A Man," "Shout And Shimmy," "Anytime You Want Me" are all great. Check out Daltrey's a-capella version of "Anytime You Want Me." He was already a really strong singer, rivalled only by The Small Faces' Steve Marriott. I'd go so far as to say it's the ONLY Who album that's listenable all the way through. Later singles are generally perfect, but otherwise, Townsend over reaches and loses what made The Who so exciting -- the immediacy of their hooks, the surprisingly pretty melodies that were always given an explosive beat-down by Moon before they've overstayed their welcome.

I didn't know there was a special edition of My Generation. I think I only have the Mono one, and haven't played it in about 10 years.

Never bettered "The Who Sellout" though.

He was more successful at running over chauffeurs.

.

holy cow the "my wife" on here. pete is nuts. 2nd song. about 3:10 in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G1FqWPcO-k

nice and crunchy in 1975. they were trying to save us from punk rock.

for some reason youtube started recommending me clips of the who live where all you hear is entwhistle's bass

it is florid! i don't really like the who after "sell out" (blame the singer) but you have to admit JE had super-nimble fingers

he really did. he was one of a kind. i think. maybe there were others. he played that thing like a flamenco guitar sometimes.

In the last month, I’ve bought both a Hiwatt amp and a 20” cymbal.

The Houston show from that tour was officially released on DVD as Live in Texas 75 and it's pretty great. Cheap too - you can buy a new copy for $10 from Amazon. I feel like it's the kind of thing that would've been a bigger deal 30 or 40 years ago but it kind of got lost in the shuffle when you had a million concert DVD's flooding the market in the '00s. (I didn't even know about it until several years ago.)

^^Terrific DVD, taken from the camera feed for the jumbotrons at the first concert held at the Summit (now Lakewood Church).

Moonie had some fun afterwards:
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/keith-moon-houston-party/

The article is pretty thin about what actually happened, but I remember back when Entwistle died, our local Classic Rock station took listener calls all night, and a woman who was there called in with a version of events. She said the label had a big afterparty and -- in honor of "Squeeze Box" -- they hired several strippers as entertainment, dressing them in accordions (and nothing else!) and staging them on a dais in the middle of a hotel ballroom. The group & their entourage show up, Keith is like, "Right on!" and hops up on the dais with the girls and begins stripping himself.

Meanwhile, the county sheriff's department is also on the hotel grounds, hoping for an easy drug raid and headlines aplenty. They bust in moments after Moon joined the girls on the dais, and...they just stopped, freezing at the sight they never in a million years could have predicted that is now in front of them.

Supposedly there was some palm greasing once everyone came to their senses, and no arrests made or charges brought up.

Pete just donated all of his synthesizers to the University of West London
https://www.uwl.ac.uk/study/study-facilities/the-townshend-studio

Cool.

The Who's Roger Daltrey told a London audience that, in addition to losing his hearing, his vision is going too.

Daltry’s announcement comes six years after the rocker made his ongoing hearing issues public. In 2018, he told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he was “very, very deaf” and reads lips and uses monitors for each ear on stage to keep up with the music. “The trouble with these ear things that I wear is that I am very, very deaf. And I advise you all—all you rock-and-roll fans—take your fucking earplugs to the gigs,” he said on stage in 2018. “If only we had known when we were young​ … we ​are lip-reading.”

(AV Club missing an "e" in his last name.)

That is very sobering. (Hearing loss I've gotten used to; blindness terrifies me.)

Townshend's name is misspelled in that article as well. The death of copy-editing really pisses me off; if I'd done anything with my journalism degree, it would have been that.

I just assume half the stuff on that or other sites is written by AI.

Dummies firing Zak Starkey after 30 (!) years. His own cheeky pre-confirmation post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIXFvfGxnmB/

Appreciate their commitment to being unpleasant & moody weirdos until the very end, stay golden

lol

News Flash! Who Back Zak!
He’s not being asked to step down from The Who.

There have been some communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with, and these have been aired happily.

Roger and I would like Zak to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line up and he has readily agreed. I take responsibility for some of the confusion. Our TCT shows at the Royal Albert Hall were a little tricky for me. I thought that four and a half weeks would be enough time to recover completely from having a complete knee replacement. (Why did I ever think I could land on my knees?) Wrong!

Maybe we didn’t put enough time into sound checks, giving us problems on stage. The sound in the centre of the stage is always the most difficult to work with. Roger did nothing wrong but fiddle with his in-ear monitors. Zak made a few mistakes and he has apologised. Albeit with a rubber duck drummer.

We are a family, this blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen. It’s over. We move forward now with optimism and fire in our bellies.

As for Roger, fans can enjoy his forthcoming solo shows with his fabulous drummer, Scott Devours, who it was rumoured might replace Zak in The Who and has always been supportive of the band.

I owe Scott an apology for not crushing that rumour before it spread. He has been hurt by this. I promise to buy him a very long drink and give him a hug.

Pete Townshend
19 April 2025

Hah, still messy as ever.

As mentioned before, they're clearly really old now and while it's enjoyable how much Roger and Pete have embraced their advanced age onstage, I do wish I saw them during the few years Entwistle was still alive and Starkey was drumming for them. Would've been 1999-2001 I think. The DVD of the Teenage Trust show at Royal Albert Hall in 2000 is great - I could do without one or two guest stars, but otherwise it's the best release to feature that configuration of the group. The CD edition has a few bonus tracks but the DVD actually sounds better and can be found for peanuts.

Should say Teenage Cancer Trust

Yeah. Time does none of us any favors going forward, but looking back ... wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dlN55SoF4Q

I can't remember if it's the 2000 Royal Albert Hall show or one of the U.S. shows from 1999/2000 that you can find on YouTube, but when Townshend introduces Starkey, he openly credits him for "breathing new life" into the band, which seems uncharacteristically generous of him.

i saw them in 1999 with Entwistle, and Starkey on drums, at Bridge School Benefit. They were magic - and they did Boris The Spider which sent me to the moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSlk0G3aGhk

I kind of wish Townshend would do a solo acoustic show but I feel like he’s no longer interested in touring alone.

when i saw them in the early 2000s townshend doing ‘drowned’ acoustically was the highlight by several miles and miles - he had a bit of a chat and talked about writing, ‘i’m free’ (? Or maybe ‘sensation’)) in Sydney and played a snippet

Ok it must’ve been Sensation

"Sensation" was written about a girl Townshend had met on the Who's tour of Australia in early 1968

For a while at least I had seen both Townshend solo acoustic *and* Roger Daltrey solo before I ever saw the Who!

I saw The Who on their first farewell tour in 1982. In my mind they are a band that is perpetually saying farewell.

*Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and the B-52’s were the opening acts when I saw The Who, two other acts who have difficulty saying farewell.

I actually think every album by the B-52’s had some top-shelf tracks, even the last one. Their debut is still hands-down their best, but most of them are thoroughly enjoyable and even their worst isn't terrible.

Re: Zak's temporary "firing," I wonder what Ringo was doing during all of this? Consoling his son - maybe telling him how he dealt with the reality of never playing in the Beatles again - or maybe getting on the phone with his peers and be like "wtf man, that's my boy you fired!"

zak was probably preparing to be one of the four drummers in the all-starr band

https://giphy.com/gifs/the-godfather-coda-u6EiPNT9dLDrU7ZQuF

oh pff, stupid link

Townshend has been pretty open about the fact that Daltrey runs the band. Pretty obviously borne out by dopey tour formats like symphonic accompaniment, doing Tommy and Quadrophenia over and over…or even continuing touring at all… he can't face life without the Who, even though he's quite deaf.

And the reason Townshend continues to do Who tours, which he is also open about, is that he manages his $$$ poorly, and playing these dumb tours entertaining Who shitheads is easy money. Three years ago, there was a longform interview in which he talked about how he blew all his money in the 70s away very quickly, and he sold his publishing in 2012, many many years before the gold rush that saw his peers benefit far far more than he.

He not only doesn't care about doing a solo tour, but he doesn't bother to formally release new music, and until the mid 90s, you would have thought that he above all his peers would continue to have a creative drive he would want to share with an audience who would be receptive to new Townshend material. But he's satisfied to only go through the motions.

Zak Starkey is the Billy Martin of the Who.

it’s all getting rather silly at this point. cmon lads

They're gonna hire Josh Freese!

Daft band

Fool me twice, won’t get fooled again

meet the new drummer, same as the old drummer

They're gonna hire Josh Freese!

too funny

Appreciate their commitment to being unpleasant & moody weirdos until the very end, stay golden

― chr1sb3singer, Wednesday, 16 April 2025 19:07 (one month ago)

I thought this revive would be about Townshend turning 80. So anyway, Happy Birthday, Pete!

ok now hire him back again

I'm Freese, I'm Freese and I'm waiting for you to follow me

Happy birthday, Pete!

Will they die before I get old?

I learn from the Daily Mail that Zak Starkey is a member of a supergroup called Mantra of the Cosmos, whose members include "Happy Mondays vocalist Shaun Ryder, 62, Oasis guitarist Andy Bell, 54, percussionist Mark 'Bez' Berry, 60, and Noel Gallagher, 57".

Which raises the question of how all these musical figures who were in their twenties when I was a teenager can now be in their fifties and sixties unless I too have aged along with them unless I too have also aged, breathe in.

Zak Starkey should release a bitter, musically monotonous concept album album war, and then sue the other members of The Who to stop them using the name The Who.

I wonder what Ringo was doing during all of this?

Per Zak, Ringo said to him, 'I’ve never liked the way that little man runs that band,' apparently referring to Roger Daltrey.