The Who: The Complete Guide to Their Music

Story und Songs kompakt

by Chris Charlesworth, Ed Hanel

Updated and redesigned editions of the classic guides to the music of the world s best known acts. Written by experts, each book examines every song in a given artist s recorded repertoire, making it an invaluable guide for collectors and fans alike.

Genres: Music

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 1995

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Who were a special band and the fact that they turned as so many others from their generation into a hideous parody of death warmed up which you couldn’t have paid me enough money to sit through a concert of doesn’t alter that. Each of the four members had a huge personality and Keith Moon was the drummer which meant that the drums was the lead instrument. Townsend showed how to play rock guitar without any screaming tedious ten minute solos. They were intense and sharp and knowing and they had a subject, which the Beatles didn’t. Townsend was presented with his great subject by their manager Kit Lambert – write about your audience, he said, it’s a teenage phenomenon. Meaning Mods. So from the first record in 1964 as The High Numbers – I’m the Face and Zoot Suit to Quadrophenia in 1974 that’s what he did. In one way and another he wrote and wrote about the pain of being not in the in-group, the pain of being in the in-group, the horrible competitive shit of teenage life, the ecstacy and the herpes and the cigarettes stubbed out in your fried egg. Then he wrote about being a tedious rich raddled rock star who’s so self-loathing that all he can do is crawl into a bottle every night and watch his life disintegrate from there, and he did that pretty well too, although you couldn’t dance to that sad song.
The Beach Boys had their Californian teendream lifestyle to celebrate, and The Who had the Mod actes gratuits and psychological cul-de-sacs to observe. (I exaggerate because Brian wrote plenty of depressive songs in the midst of the sunshine, and The Who always played out of pure joy even as they were articulating frustration and futility.)

WHAT YOU NEED BY THE WHO

1) My Generation cd reissue with bells and whistles
2) The Who Sell Out cd reissue with bells and whistles
3) Quadrophenia – this is The Masterpiece. I can prove it.
4) borrow someone’s copy of the box set “30 Years of Maximum R & B”
and copy all the rest of the good stuff. Three cdrs should cover it.

WHAT YOU DON’T NEED

1) Tommy – it was always shit
2) anything after Who by Numbers (1975)

This guide is nice fanboy fodder, I’m a hopeless music fanboy, I hoover this stuff up. But you do not have to.

Note – Beatles were Vacuous Shock

Compared to the The Who and The Beach Boys, both of whom hit the ground running, the Beatles appear lyrically vacuous almost until Revolver (1966). But that’s only one aspect of music. Us rock geeks with a literary turn of mind are all in love with lyrics & so they get too much attention.