The Who Best Songs

Among the old guard of bands that conquered America during the British Invasion of the 1960s, English quartet The Who is generally cited as the most exciting and most innovative of the lot. Equal parts power and precision, The Who set a high standard for musicians everywhere that aspired to craft a rock and roll train that sounded like it was always just about to scream careening off its tracks.

The rock and roll circus comprising lead vocalist Roger Daltrey, guitarist / vocalist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon had already assembled under its tent in completed form by 1964. Right out of the gate, as an early promotional gimmick, the band would regularly decimate one or more of its own instruments onstage at the end of each live show. Fortunately for the group (or perhaps primarily as a result of their violent promo tactics), fame came calling quickly.

The Who charged out of the gate to instant success in the UK, but their first American single, the Kinks-like "I Can't Explain" (1965), barely grazed US charts. Over the course of the next two years, subsequent single releases in the US made similarly meager commercial headway, but the group's very unique, loud and energetic approach -- best embodied in pre-punk expressions of class warfare like "My Generation" and "Substitute" -- identified The Who as a distinctive ingredient in the melting pot that was the mid-Sixties British Invasion.

When the Invasion gave way to The Summer Of Love in 1967, The Who scored the only American Top Ten single of its storied history, the breathy and slightly Birds-y drug anthem "I Can See For Miles." In 1968, the group further capitalized on a contemporary counterculture credential with the gypsy-fied jugband ode to dope, "Magic Bus." Throughout its first four years of existence, the quartet endured a confusing industry status with its various messy contract obligations involving multiple record labels. But those behind-the-scenes obstacles were largely resolved in time for the band's first truly important worldwide album release: 1969's brilliant concept piece, Tommy.

Based upon a fanciful countercultural tale of a severely handicapped boy becoming a cult leader and saviour, Tommy dominated freeform FM radio through 1970 and recruited legions of new fans. Townshend's earnest and propulsive acoustic anthem "Pinball Wizard" headlined alongside a bombastic, theatric "See Me, Feel Me" and the lower-charting "I'm Free". The album's melodic theme, exemplified by "Overture" and popular radio cut "We're Not Gonna Take It", undoubtedly inspired Canadian trio Rush's monumental "2112" less than a decade later. Also coming into their own on this double-album were rich and dreamy arrangements of complex choruses of vocals, of which The Who became the principal purveyor in the rock world until the arrival on the rock scene of their fellow countrymen, Queen.

It's not often that a live album will solidify the stature of an up-and-coming band, but the triumphant performance captured for 1970's Live At Leeds accomplished it nonetheless for The Who. A cover of an early Sixties rabble-rouser, "Summertime Blues", was one of the heaviest, bass-broasted 45s released during the era. The band's emerging signature Seventies sound, meanwhile, was on display in the year's other US single release, "The Seeker".

The high-water mark of The Who's career arrived in 1971, with the appearance of Who's Next. Easily one of the most important documents in the history of classic rock, all but one song on the entire album has received heavy airplay on rock radio for decades. Supporting tracks like "Getting In Tune" and "Going Mobile" retained the warm and earthy feel from the Tommy days. Conversely, piano saga "The Song Is Over" looked longingly ahead to the band's next concept-to-be. AOR mainstays "Bargain" and "Behind Blue Eyes" finally anointed Daltrey as one of the premier voices of the genre, delivering on the promise of coming into his own as the legendary presence that he had always been firmly hinting at prior to Next's release. "Bargain" also unleashed Moon, whose flourishes elevated and punctuated every stanza of Daltrey's romantic determinations.

Who's Next, though, is considered an all-time classic for its bookends. Townshend coined perhaps the final opus of the Flower Power era in the Eastern-tinged "Baba O'Riley"; the modal organ progression that provided the nervous energy of the tune fashioned an indelible audio effect that no other prominent artist has ever even attempted to facsimile. The track is grandiose from start to conclusion, and is lauded as one of the relevant anthems in music history. Not to be outdone, the album closes with the equally monolithic "Won't Get Fooled Again", which juxtaposes an industrial keyboard incantation against a barrage of monstrous percussion attacks and vicious raw guitar riffs that frame off a lengthy Daltrey diatribe, that disgustedly laments the demise of the same era that the LP's opening statement seemed to canonize.

After issuing another pair of single-only hits in 1972 (the Koom-Bai-Yah singalong "Join Together" and the oscillator'd "Relay"), The Who unloaded yet another mammoth double-disc concept album, Quadrophenia (1973). An adaptation of various experiences from Townshend's youth, the album was nonetheless a huge hit on each side of the Big Pond. Entwistle smothered the popular rave-up "The Real Me", while Daltrey and Townshend blustered through the tempestuous ballad "Love, Reign O'er Me". The friendliest radio take, "5:15", sported a horn section belting over a funkless James Brown-inspired idea.

In the wake of their gigantic-scaled projects of the early Seventies (topped off by the 1975 movie adaptation for Tommy), the original quartet scaled back considerably on their final two studio albums. The Who By Numbers (1975) passed along the breezy "Slip Kid" and smarmy "Squeeze Box", and 1978's Who Are You's title track became an overplayed 45 on a turntable with a stuck needle. Mere weeks after the latter's release, Moon died of a prescription drug overdose.

The band soldiered on into the early 1980s with replacement drummer Kenney Jones, to considerable continued success. "You Better You Bet", "Athena" and "Eminence Front" all joined the ranks of The Who's classic rock staples, but after 1982 the group ceased being a viable creative force. Its surviving members enjoyed modest solo careers and occasionally reconvened for stadium tours belting out their hits. Ironically, The Who's lasting legacy often portrays them to successive generations as a band identified with a generation long past. It will likely be the adoring hordes of musicians that faithfully preserve The Who's true legacy for future generations.