The Who
The Who is a British rock band. They were noted for the dynamism of their live performances and for their thoughtful music, including Tommy, one of the first rock operas.
In its early days, the band was known as the High Numbers and played mostly rhythm and blues. They changed their name to The Who
and became the most popular band among the British Mods, a social movement of the early 60s who rejected the older style of music favored by the Rockers. (Later in their career the band would produce an album and film Quadrophenia, based on the story of the Mods and Rockers, particularly riots between the two factions at Brighton).
The Who's first hit was the Kinks-like "I Can't Explain" in 1965, but they vaulted to fame with their album, My Generation. The album included such mod anthems as "The Kids are Alright" and "My Generation", which contained the famous line, "Hope I die before I get old". Another early favorite, showing Townshend's way with words, was "Substitute", which included the line, "I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth." The hit single "Pictures Of Lilly" was possibly one of the most accomplished of all European contributions to psychedelic music.
From the beginning, The Who drew attention because all three musicians, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon played, in effect, lead parts, yielding music at once more cacaphonous and sophisticated than standard-issue rock tracks. The Who were natural showmen: Singer Roger Daltrey was a dynamic front man, twirling his microphone on the end of its cord while Townshend played windmill chords on his guitar with great sweeps of his arms, and the maniacal Moon bashed and crashed like no drummer ever before him. Through it all, Entwistle stood still and played intricate, innovative bass lines. At the end of their live performances in their first years, the band would sometimes smash their instruments and explode smoke bombs, signalling that they had given the audience all they had.
The Who were also notorious for treating their hotel rooms and dressing rooms the same way.
The band's gimmick of smashing their instruments backfired when they performed for a TV audience on the Smothers Brothers variety show. In order to give a more spectacular show for the audience, drummer Moon inserted an explosive device into his bass drum before the show began, and without the prior knowledge of the other members of the band. The drum exploded on live TV when the band smashed their instruments at the end of their set. Townshend was standing close to the drum when it exploded, however, and his hearing was permanently damaged as a result of the incident. Fans and defenders of Moon claim that Townshend's hearing damage came as a result of playing with the band for a long period of time, without wearing earplugs or other ear protectors.
The Who's shows have often had an extraordinary decibel output. For a period of time during the 1970s, they were listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest rock band in the world, though other bands have since taken the title from them.
Although they had great success as a singles band, the Who, or more properly their leader Townshend, had their sights set higher, and over the years their music became more complex and their lyrics more evocative and involving. Townshend also began wanting to treat the Who's albums as unified works, rather than collections of unconnected songs. The first sign of this ambition came in their album The Who Sell Out, which played like an all-Who playlist from an offshore radio station. The Who completed the effect by adding actual jingles and their own commercials. Tommy, the first commercially successful rock opera, followed. Townshend then attempted an even more ambitious concept album, the Lifehouse project. Although it was never finished, the Who included some of the project's best songs in Who's Next, which would become their most successful album. Who's Next was followed by the Who's final rock opera, Quadrophenia. Other later albums were more personal, and Townshend eventually transferred this personal style to his solo albums.
In 1978 the band released Who Are You, a move away from epic rock opera and towards a more radio-friendly progressive rock sound. Tragedy struck, however on December 3, 1979 in Cincinnati, Ohio when a stampede for seats at Riverfront Coliseum during a Who concert killed eleven fans (band members were not made aware of the deaths until after the show). The release of the album was overshadowed by the drug overdose death of Keith Moon. The band would release two more studio albums in the early '80s with replacement drummer Kenney Jones, and in 1980 embarked on the first in a series of farewell tours. The band stopped recording new material settled into intermittent forays on the nostalgia tour circuit as Townshend focused on solo projects. Just before the outset of one such tour in the summer of 2002, John Entwistle was found dead, also of a drug overdose. After a brief delay, this tour commenced with bassist Pino Palladino filling in for Entwistle. On January 13, 2003, Townshend was arrested by Scotland Yard on suspicion of possessing and making indecent images of children and of incitement to distribute such images, after pornographic images are found on his home computer.
After originally peforming as The High Numbers, the band chose to take a shorter name because concert posters at the time typically ran a list of band names, devoting one line to each band; They reasoned that even if they were at the bottom of the bill their name would be printed in larger type because it was short.
The Who's discography is very messy for several reasons, including the early use of different labels in the UK and the USA, the labels' habits of releasing collected materal as if it were a studio album, very long delays in the release of some material, and remastered CD releases that made changes far beyond the customary addition of bonus tracks. This discography is designed to give a fairly detailed overview of The Who's corpus without excessive distractions. It is something of a simplification despite its apparent complexity; visit the links for more details on specific albums.History
Band members
The Band Name
Structured Discography
| Year | Title | V? | Genre: | Concept material: | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | My Generation | √ | "Maximum R&B" | |||
| 1966 | A Quick One | √ | Pop Music (with a capital 'P'). | Includes 10-minute "mini-opera". | ||
| 1967 | The Who Sell Out | Psychedelia and satire. | Classic concept album; incidentally includes excerpts from an unfinished Rock opera. | |||
| 1969 | Tommy | Rock, plus some late psychedelia. | Rock opera. | |||
| 1971 | Who's Next | Rock. | Salvaged from the failed Lifehouse project. | |||
| 1973 | Quadrophenia | Rock. | Rock opera. | |||
| 1975 | The Who By Numbers | Rock. | ||||
| 1978 | Who Are You | Rock. | Includes a few elements of John Entwistle's unfinished Rock opera. | |||
| 1981 | Face Dances | Rock. | ||||
| 1982 | It's Hard | Rock. |
- V? : √ = The album had a title and track list that varied between the UK and USA releases.
- See the album links for more information.
- Recommended:
- My Generation, The Who Sell Out, Tommy\, Who's Next, and Quadrophenia.
- My Generation and Who's Next are the most accessible of the recommended set; the others will take some effort to fully appreciate.
- In any case, if you get the remastered CDs you should program your player to play only the original tracks until you have experienced the albums in their original form. See the links for the original track lists.
Period Collections
Notwithstanding their renown as a concept-album band, The Who had an active life as a singles band at least until 1972, when the single "Join Together" made the charts but was never released as part of an album. Their singles and various unreleased materials were occasionally collected and released as albums even while the band was still active, sometimes as stopgaps for years when no album was on the horizon.
The resulting albums are distinguished from the "Late Collections" (below) because they are collections of singles and other unreleased material of the relevant period rather than "greatest hits" or late "kitchen sink" collections. The material tends to be very good, and these albums are often thought of as Classic Who Albums along with the regular studio albums.
| Year | Title | Comments: | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | Magic Bus: The Who On Tour | USA only | Not a live album, as the title might imply. The material is chronologically localized, and includes several psychedelic goodies. | ||
| 1968 | Direct Hits | UK only | |||
| 1971 | Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy | A good history of the pre- Who's Next Who. Not available as a remastered CD, though most of the material appears as bonus tracks on the other remastered CDs. | |||
| 1974 | Odds and Sods | The title describes it best! |
- Recommended:
- ''Odds and Sods", preferably the remastered CD.
- ''Odds and Sods", preferably the remastered CD.
Live Albums
| Year | Title | Comments: | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Live At Leeds | Several variant editions exist; see the link. | ||
| 1970 | Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970 | Not released until the film came out in 1996; see the filmography below. | ||
| 1990 | Join Together | 25th anniversary reunion tour; accompanied by horn section, backup singers, etc. |
- All three of the live albums are available as two-CD sets including a performance of Tommy plus about an hour of other material. Live At Leeds is also available on a single CD without the performance of Tommy.
- Recommended:
- The remastered single-CD version of Live At Leeds.
- Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970, for a live performance of Tommy.
Late Collections
- ...
Other Albums
EPs
- ...
Filmography
Films
Other Appearances
Roger Daltrey also had a minor career in film and television, unrelated to his work with The Who, notably a role as Franz Liszt in Ken Russell's Lisztomania.
Who Songs in Popular Culture
Original recordings of the Who's music were used intermittently in various contexts unrelated to the band, starting with the use of a track from Tommy in a March of Dimes television commercial during in the 1970s. However, starting in the late 1990s there was a marked increase in the rate of such usage, summarized below.
Movie Soundtracks
Television Shows
Commercials
Many Who fans consider the commercialization of these songs to be a crass sell out on Peter Townshend's part, especially the use of the originally spiritual "Bargain" to sell SUVs.
Influences
- Meher Baba's spiritual teachings influenced Peter Townshend's songwriting after about 1968. He is credited as Avatar on the Tommy album.
