The Who - were they really any good, or all that important?

Seems like in the 80s, they were touted as both a great band, and alos quite important. And yet, even on the classic rock stations, I rarely hear their music, or hear anyone make reference to them.

I like most of what I've heard of them (and have a number of albums), and think they did pretty good stuff - but yet, I've never found them overly compelling in the sense that I feel the need to revisit them or re-listen to them very often. Certainly, Quadrophenia is great, and I can think of a few other songs that totally rock (but I can't think of the names right now).

maybe their real legacy is that their instrument smashing antics and excessive volume inspired a generation of rockers. Or maybe it's that after keith moon died, they didn't "have it" any more.

I just don't know.

What's you opinion?

(and please don't think I'm starting this to dis The Who - it's a legitimate question as I've long been interested in just how important The Who were in the grand schema of rock, and how others see them musically, since I do have a bit of a bias)

However, I like the "Who's Next" album a lot.

perceived sincerity and integrity. Well, in light of their past twenty odd years...do I really need to go on?

I still do, truth be told.

I think The Who was pretty important in the grand scheme of rock much in the same way The Kinks were--as pre-punkers.

I really like their music, but the album of theirs I like the best is "The Who By Numbers", which had a softer sound than usual and grittier lyrics full of brutual observations about human nature.

Anyone else prefer that album of theirs over others?

Yes, that one is always overlooked, but I like it the best nowadays, though I have gone through my Tommy, Quadrophenia (loved the original LP, hated the movie), Who's Next phases.

Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy certainly a nice collection of the early singles.

And the original "Live at Leeds" without all of the extended "Tommy" crap, just the original one LP thing, was a great hard rock guitar headache record, with Entwistle and Moon at their primes.

A very uneven band. Townshend less able to filter out his bad ideas as the years after Moon's death went on.

I don't know how important it was, but it was an amazing concert.

But in the grand scheme of things, they are rock royalty. Don't forget, they made big splashes in the sixties and seventies. So you left out a bit of the relevant Who history because they were a large part of AM and FM for a good part of those decades.

early 80s, anyway

In the 80s I was getting into playing guitar, and also very much getting into rock history and searching through the old stuff of the early days, picking up old Yardbirds, iron Maiden, janis Joplin, etc., records. Including The Who.

But I remember hearing the Who a lot as a kid, but then in the 80s as I was getting into the earlier years, and especially into the newer guitarists of the 80s, in reading many, many interviews, I came across very few - a bare handful - of bands and guitarists who mentioned The Who, or even Pete Townsend, as an influence.

That's why I'm so confused about The Who.

...Iron Maiden sandwiched between The Yardbirds and Janis Joplin. Nice work. :yourock:

As to your original question I would say good not great and only moderately influential. Just my $0.02 worth.

And thanks for your $.02 :-)

it is a much more interesting juxtaposition with Maiden in there. :)

said they called themselves the worst band in the world.

I first saw them live at the Richmond, VA. Mosque in 1967. They were very loud and extremely tight, and were playing a lot of stuff from 'The Who Sell Out', and earlier stuff. There were a couple of teasers for 'Tommy' which was in the works at the time. The show totally blew everyone away, of course we were all tripping our brains out at the time.

The next year we saw them perform 'Tommy' for the first time in the States, at the Fillmore East. The Joshua light show did the visuals, and the opening act was Chuck Berry. Fucking incredible show.

For the next four or five years, if the Who was within 400 miles, I was there. I think they started getting stale in the mid-70s. It got a little overblown for my taste, but the early stuff was truly amazing.

I'm pretty sure they were important, though. I think they were.

The Who also represented a specific class of teenage listener in England, the urban disaffected youth of Eastham. The Who brought a Jerry Lee Lewis - like danger back into British rock and roll, and from their American blues influences, brought a new dynamism to the genre dominated by The Beatles and their soundalikes (i.e. Dave Clark Five...). Songs like My Generation flew in the face of parent/adult friendly contemporary pop. Later albums would skewer the hippy generation (The Who Sings Magic Bus), and commercialism (The Who Sellout). Sellout is especially memorable for the sense of humor demonstrated by repetitive commercial tracks embedded in the album, one dressed as a beautiful love song, "Odorono", a song about deodorant.

The first of the British bands to avoid love songs and sappy sentiment too, consider the lyrics to The Kids are Alright:

That's fine, I know them all pretty well
But I know sometimes I must get out in the light
Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright
The kids are alright

Sometimes, I feel I gotta get away
Bells chime, I know I gotta get away
And I know if I don't, I'll go out of my mind
Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright
The kids are alright

I know if I go things would be a lot better for her
I had things planned, but her folks wouldn't let her

I don't mind other guys dancing with my girl
That's fine, I know them all pretty well
But I know sometimes I must get out in the light
Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright
The kids are alright

Sometimes, I feel I gotta get away
Bells chime, I know I gotta get away
And I know if I don't, I'll go out of my mind
Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright
The kids are alright

Not exactly the syrupy sentiment of "I wanna hold your hand". Pete Townsend's taste for the epic, as demonstrated with the amazing A Quick One (while he's away) also launched the first salvo into rock and roll songs lasting longer than three minutes. His ability to take the format of an opera and use that format to hang the album Tommy also helped pave the way for other bands to create epic thematic records.

Further, Townsend's nod to his childhood, though put into present time, Quadrophenia tacked both fashion and urban poverty as seen through the eyes of a speed addicted Mod slowly coming to the realization that childhood eventually ends.

I hadn't thought it before, but yeah, they didn't do any simpleton "boy/girl love" saccharine songs, and are to be commended for that. :-)

You've now piqued my interest to revisit them.

Though I also agree with another poster that Townsend was losing focus post-Moon.

You've also reminded me to remember that, as with all bands that aren't coporate shit, that their context - their origins - are quite important in terms of analzying their oeuvre.

...let it go when Moon died.

I would easily put them in my top 10 of all time. Easily.

Do yourself a favor and watch "The Kids Are Alright" movie. It is a terrific insight into the band and their music.

:)

They were amazing and one of the all-time greats.

DO NOT KNOCK THE WHO. THey are good, nice raw rock sound... I love it

when Who's Next came out.Also did a lot of Tommy stuff.This was at Memorial Auditorium in Dallas and the crowd went insane;people hanging off rafters and screaming their heads off.

Around that time they were the best touring band there was, including Led Zepplin,with the exception of whoever Hendrix was jamming with at the time.

Wheels started coming off when Moon died,but yeah,they were an important band and had a lot of influence on the music of the time.

It says it all - and it's even more relevant nowadays than it was in the 70s.

But I think Pete Townsend is quite a creative individual. I like a lot of his solo stuff.

and decide for yourself. They rocked!

The Who created a fresh and powerful new sound amidst the pop-influenced British wave of the mid-to-late '60s. Townshend's use of power thrash chords and Entwhistle's amazing bass lines were truly a revelation.

The Who always had a distinctive sound, and few bands were capable of mimicing their virtuosity. From 'My Generation' to 'Emminence Front' the Who continued to break new ground with each album.

I certainly would pay to see any modern-day rock band who could even come close to creating the equivalent of 'Behind Blue Eyes'.

Alas, I have heard none.

had an amazing opening synth line. Maybe on an ARP synthesizer?

They were a good rock'n'roll band, not afraid to do their own thing, and they had an amazing stage act.

It would be hard to over-estimate their influence on a generation. I had friends who saw Tommy dozens of times and kept every torn ticket. They were a voice of rebellion for a time. Each generation has its own voice of rebellion so perhaps this is why you don't hear them so much any more. Believe me, they were the soundtrack to many a life back in the day.

. . . one cannot realize the popularity and impact the movie and album had. They were HUGE. "Tommy" kind of dominated pop culture for what, in retrospect, seems like a year.

Amazona is correct! :)

In the 80s, The Who got a good bit of airtime on what was becomming known as "Classic Rock". Somewhere, I've got a copy of my local station's 1000 greatest classic rock songs (I think from 1985), which I asked them to send out of curiosity and the need to catch some sleep during one of those three-day weekends. There's The Who's stuff all over it.

I think they don't get the proper airtime for several reasons. The biggest is that their audience in the 70's and into the 80's were a bunch of teenagers who were not invested in AOR or hard rock. They were more mainstream, and so as adults, they don't necessarily patronize "classic rock" format stations. (The fact that The Who's music was about, and directed to, teenagers, probably made them fade a bit quicker as well). The people who do listen tend to lean away, or increasingly away, from some of the more "mainstream" AOR-type bands of the 70's (Eagles, Steve Miller Band). You could say the same thing about some of the bands that The Who rose up with, such as The Yardbirds and The Kinks. They live in a no-man's land between "classic rock" and "oldies"/"good time oldies", and the narrow play-lists exclude them. In most of the southeast, furthermore, "classic rock" is dominated by southern rock bands, squeezing The Who out even further.

Your post is quite helpful in putting them in context and figuring out why they lost out in the radio wars. I can see where they aren't really oldies, and aren't "classic rock". Pre-punk, as someone else said it, I think sums it up nicely (or if not pre-punk, certainly the paradigmatically equivalent to pre-punk). I love your summation as teenager music, which definitely fits with the other poster's comment about their geographic birth in England, playing music for fellow youngsters.

I'm still surprised, for as big of a band as they were, how few rock people I've come across in readings who say they were influenced by the Who, or Entwistle, or Townsend.

I don't dislike their stuff, but was never a big fan, either. Never bought any to listen to at home, never went to see them.

If I remember, The Who split up at the beginning of the 80s, reuniting for a tour at the very end of the decade. The people I heard getting excited about seeing them at this point were all younger than I; they would have been pre-teens and younger in the 70s when The Who was really active; I was just a kid myself, born in 1960.

Pete is a true genius IMO, and like many geniuses is flawed. He is able to show his flaws and sometimes they are not pretty. He is also able to make fun of himself. Listen to "Who Are You" or "I'm A Boy". I love the way Pete plays guitar. He is surprisingly lyrical at times and rips off little gems all the time amidst all the thunder and lightning. Entwistle played bass as a lead and was wonderful. Keith Moon is my favorite kicker ever. Sometimes I like to listen to Who tunes and just concentrate on what he is doing. Roger is one of the rock God vocalists, totally in tune with his material. If you can get your hands on "Who Came First", Pete's first solo, or "Rough Mix", Pete with Ronnie Lane, they are worth a listen. I feel fortunate to have seen them while Keith was still alive.

There'd never have been a Jam, never have been a Green Day, never have been an Offspring .. etc etc.

So yes, they were that good, and that important.

I have immense respect for John Entwhistle...

Never understood all the hoo-ha over Keith Moon, though. I found him to be overly and unnecessarily busy in his playing, and all that leering and mugging was simply nauseating.

From about 1965-71, The Who was one of the four or five greatest rock and roll bands in the world. I strongly recommend the group's 1971 "best of" compilation, MEATY, BEATY, BIG & BOUNCY. It contains almost everything by The Who that matters! :headbang:

I always thought they were cartoonish at first and then became overwrought and pretentious with their stupid Rock Operas. They don't suck but they are certainly overrated and given more credit than they deserve. Is there anything less tolerable than that horrible keyboard part of "Won't get fooled again"? I don't think they have a single album that could be considered "perfect" which is requisite to being one of the gods.

The Kids are Alright version of Baba O'Reilly remains their finest moment.

That station comes on with my alarm clock, and I seem to hear Who songs fairly frequently. For a while, they were playing "Squeezebox" a lot. Lately, it's been "Behind Blue Eyes."

Very clever, great tunes, a fantastic album with a theme. One of the best albums of the late 60's.
Did you know Pete Townsend was heavily influenced by the early English composer Henry Purcell?
Not to mention every member of the Who were incredibly talented musicians.

so good.

love them.

dunno or care how important...

Quintessential 4 piece band along with The Mighty Zeppelin - but the Who relied much less on studio overdubs than Zep. Quad and Who's Next are the best of their stuff. Who's Next originally was supposed to be a "concept" record like Tommy and Quad - it will always be one of the greatest rock albums ever. Who Are You is also a pretty terrific record. To me their appeal is this unlikely combo of four very different souls into this great, brawling, wreckless amalgam called the Who. They epitomize the spirit of R n R.

...years after whoring "The Who" with Kenny Jones from The Faces on drums, Townshend finally admitted that Moon was the heart, center, core, raison d'etre for The Who. He was the attitude, he was the star of the band. Without Moon it was three guys who used to be a band. With Moon they were important...fucking important.

I always felt that Townshend's own sense of SELF-importance was a pain in the ass. I also questioned how many versions of "Tommy" the world needed. I still like the song "Pinball Wizard" but I can no longer stand another friggin' note of "Tommy."

The Who Sell Out...Live At Leeds...Who's Next...Quadrophenia...four albums that are every bit as important as anything released by the Beatles, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, etc. etc. etc.

Just one guy's opinion.

:toast: