The Who's Studio Catalogue

MORE than any other band, The Who at their best seemed like four perfect points of the compass, each as important and vital as the other. Pete Townshend played the guitar and wrote the songs; he gave the interviews and seemed like the in-house theoretician. But appearances notwithstanding, he was never the band's leader - that was always the little tough guy with the blond curls swinging the microphone. Roger Daltrey was a hard nut, so accustomed to settling matters with his fists that the others had to kick him out of the band unless he promised to stop beating them up. It was a life-changing moment for him - "It was no choice whatsoever. The band meant everything to me."

The Who had a rhythm section, just like other bands did - but the actual rhythm in their music, the heart of the beat, was held down by the guitar player. And he was playing the biggest, most powerful chords heard anywhere since the last few measures of Beethoven's 5th symphony. The actual rhythm section players were soloing non-stop around that mighty foundation. And while John Entwistle and Keith Moon may not have been the best rock players on their respective instruments - though that is a position I'll willingly entertain - they were, and still are, the most distinctive. By an order of magnitude. 

In their finest moments each of the four band members was somehow pulling with equal and maximum force in all directions at once. They were always some rough beast completely out of control. There was, and there has never been, anything like them. "I Can See For Miles." "Anytime Anyhow Anywhere." "Won't Get Fooled Again." And any time they ever stepped on a stage.

But there was always more to the band than that. What distinguishes the Who from a band like Led Zeppelin - who could arguably be said to match them in terms of having four equally powerful and distinct musical personalities - is the range and quality of the songwriting. When it came to the songs, the Who smoked just about everybody. There have been just a handful of rock songwriters as gifted and as original as Pete Townshend. He is surely one of the strangest and most fascinating musicians of his time - a man of immense talent and intelligence, wildly ambitious (and wildly pretentious,) but also a man regularly consumed by self-loathing, and perpetually filled with nagging doubts about the value of his work, and indeed, its very right to exist. He was and is a man with a deep taste for the mystical. It was often only his band that kept him in contact with planet earth. It may have held him back in some ways, but it grounded him and gave him purpose. He's never been the same without it.

The original version of the band is gone forever, of course. It's been gone for a very long time. It died with Keith Moon more than forty years ago. They tried for a while to keep it going with Kenney Jones of the Faces in Moon's chair. Hey, the Rolling Stones had just filled a vacancy in their lineup by pinching someone from the Faces. But Daltrey quickly found that he wasn't in sync with Jones as a drummer and the band sputtered to a halt. As a songwriter, Townshend has been lost without his group, and he's been lost now for most of the past forty years. They reunited on stage at regular intervals and Daltrey's voice has gradually frayed around the edges as he belted out the old hits with nothing new to sing. They were, they all freely admitted, only in it for the money these days, even if Entwistle - utterly incapable of living within his means - was the only one who actually needed the dough. And Entwistle's long gone now as well.

But at their peak, no one could touch them. No one. Dig out some of those old videos. And then try to tear your eyes away. Just try. You can't, not if rock and roll means anything to you, anything at all. The Who, ladies and gentlemen. The greatest band I have ever seen. 

13. It's Hard (Sep 1982)

This was the sound of the band's first incarnation fizzling out, on their second record since Moon's death. Daltrey thought it should never have been released, but the record company wanted product. The band doesn't sound bad, but Townshend's songs add up to very, very little indeed. Townshend had long wanted to explore some new musical directions, something he had long found difficult with this band. He indulges that desire here and "Eminence Front" is actually pretty good, if utterly unlike the Who (Pete Townshend discovers funk? Sort of.)  But Townshend didn't want to tour anymore and after this  album he found himself unable to come up with any more material for the band. He ended up paying for Jones and himself to be released from their contracts. A year after this came out, he announced he was leaving the band. This sure did look like the end.

12. Endless Wire (Oct 2006)

So more than 30 years after the depressing finale of It's Hard they made this, even though Townshend and Daltrey were the only ones still standing. It really doesn't feel much like a Who album. It feels like another Townshend solo project, just with Daltrey present to do some of the vocals. As Townshend solo projects go, it's pretty good, although Daltrey is not in very good voice.

11. Face Dances (Mar 1981)

At the time, Kenney Jones seemed like the obvious and only possible replacement for Moon, but he and Daltrey never clicked on a musical level. Still, the main problem with the record is that the songs simply don't amount to much. By this time, we had simply come to expect more - and better - from Townshend. And he had produced a very fine batch of tunes indeed. But not for the Who. His best songs could be found on Empty Glass, the very fine solo album he'd released the year before. The problem was, those songs didn't really suit The Who. They had to make do with his leftovers, they knew it, and they weren't too pleased about it. But it's simply a fact that none of the songs on Empty Glass, not even the rockers, made sense as Who songs. Which left this bunch. "You Better You Bet" is insanely catchy and the closer "Another Tricky Day" is the best thing on the record. But in between those two poles, the best songs by far are Entwistle's two storming numbers (composed because he was sick of "My Wife" and wanted something new to sing on stage.)

10. WHO (Dec 2019)

This was quite a bit better. Like all albums in the CD age, it runs a little too long. But although Entwistle and Moon are long gone, this somehow sounds a lot more like the Who. Or at least it sounds like a band - let's be honest, it's never really going to sound like the Who so long as Keith Moon remains in his grave. But by this point, Daltrey and Townshend had worked so long with their regular touring musicians (Zak Starkey and Pino Palladino) that this sounds like a record by a band rather than a Townshend project. It's somewhat concerning that "Break the News", which is actually the best song on the record, was written by Townshend's brother. But Daltrey was in better voice this time and Pete really had managed to come up with an  interesting batch of tunes. It's taken him more than 70 years to get to this point but at last, at long last  - Pete Townshend has nothing left to prove. He's just making some music. And it's much better than anyone had any right to expect. 

9. Who Are You (Aug 1978)

If the previous record, The Who By Numbers, was all about Townshend worrying about his place in the world, this one - their last with Keith Moon - seemed to be Townshend worrying about his band's place in the world.  "I write the same old song with a few new lines / and everybody wants to cheer it." Townshend had begun looking for new kinds of music to play, and Moon would have a great deal of difficulty finding his place in some of these songs. He was unable to cope with "Music Must Change" at all, and doesn't even play on it. It's Entwistle who wrote the most Who-like numbers, "Trick of the Light" and "Had Enough," (the latter sounds like it was left off Quadrophenia by mistake); he also contributes the sci-fi nightmare of "905." The record attempts to explore some new musical paths and is only intermittently successful. But after all its steps and missteps in all its various directions, the record closes with a bang. The title cut is is one of the band's last great moments on record. It's Townshend's memory of a drunken evening with a couple of Sex Pistols, who to his immense disappointment looked up to him as a great rock idol. He had hoped to be declared redundant instead, as if that would somehow free him from all the burdens he had imposed upon himself.  "How can I measure up to anyone now, after such a love as this?"

8. My Generation (Dec 1965)

The Who burst onto the scene in 1965 with three brilliant singles: "I Can't Explain", "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere", and "My Generation." All had made the Top 10 in the UK. None had caused even a ripple on the other side of the Atlantic. The last of them, the biggest hit, would become the title track of their debut album, released a few weeks before the end of this remarkable year. "My Generation" (the song) was unforgettable - iconic, anthemic, and undeniable from the moment it dropped to this very day (and all the days to come) - the stutter, the bass solo, the key changes, the chaos of the ending. And My Generation (the album) is as ferocious a collection of rock music as could be heard anywhere in 1965, largely because of the teenaged maniac behind the drum kit. It starts to run out of steam towards the end a little, as the band begins to run out of original material, but it closes with a rush - the panicked "A Legal Matter" and the crushing power of "The Ox." What a debut. And if you don't believe me... "why don't you all f-f-f-f..."

7. A Quick One (Dec 1966)

The Who's original management team, Kit Lambert and Christopher Stamp (legends in their own right), had newly realized the financial rewards attendant upon performing original compositions. They therefore urged each band member to come up with two songs for the second album. This despite the fact that Daltrey and Moon were not, and never would be, songwriters. Moon's "Cobwebs and Strange" previews his contribution to Tommy, with plenty of wild drum interludes thrown in. His "I Need You" is a surprisingly tuneful Beatles pastiche. Daltrey could only manage one tune.  But John Entwistle came up with two instant classics, both brilliant, both utterly unlike anyone else. "Whiskey Man" was a delusional alcoholic's lament for his imaginary friend. "Boris the Spider, " the saga of a spider who comes to a sticky and unpleasant end, with an unforgettable bass riff, would be part of the the band's live show from that day to this. They're actually more memorable than any of Townshend's proper songs, although "So Sad About Us" is pretty damn great anyway. But the guitarist stepped up with his first extended piece, the title track. It was billed at the time as a "mini-opera." It joins six valid song fragments into a unified whole, with a narrative, weird shifts of tone and perspective, and inspired playing and singing. It would demonstrate, not for the last time, that few rock musicians know better how to build to a big ending than Pete Townshend. The Who would perform it at the Rolling Stones Rock 'n' Roll Circus the following year. It stole the show - from the Stones themselves, from John Lennon's ad hoc supergroup - so thoroughly and so convincingly that the Stones buried the film for almost thirty years.

6. Tommy (May 1969)

Lambert and Stamp always encouraged Townshend to indulge his pretensions, and it led him in all possible directions. Some were profoundly brilliant, some were profoundly silly. Some - like the first full-length rock opera - were both at once. I've always thought Tommy was a little over-rated. The story, let's face it, is extremely silly. And because it's an "opera" it's filled with numbers that exist mainly as linking devices or to advance the narrative. Which makes them dependent on their place in this silly story. (Townshend can get mystical and wax profound about the concept of a deaf, dumb, and blind boy who perceives the world through "vibrations" - but I find it silly. Sorry.) For the most part, it's an acoustic record (as far as the guitars go), and while Townshend is a wonderfully distinctive acoustic player, I miss his electric playing and wish there was more of it. These caveats aside, the highlights are incredible. Everybody knows about "Pinball Wizard, " written to guarantee a good review from pinball fanatic Nik Cohn. It's a track so great that it takes its absurd precept and simply steamrolls right over it. John Entwistle plays huge bass note power chords as Townshend builds an undeniable, unforgettable chord sequence (all based on alternating suspended fourths and majors. So obvious no one else thought of it.) There's the awesome piece of pure power that is "I'm Free." There's Entwistle's creepy contributions. There's "Sparks," and "Amazing Journey." And, especially, that miraculous finale. The Who, and Townshend especially, always thought of themselves as connected to their audience in a way that was unique to themselves. They weren't just another band. They weren't stars putting on a show for the people. They were the people, too. They just happened to be the ones on the stage, representing them. When they sang "listening to you, I get the music" it meant something. It meant everything.

5. The Who By Numbers (Oct 1975)

After two wildly ambitious concept albums, and a third that had failed to materialize (but generated an astonishing record out of its leavings), Townshend found himself - as usual - lost and confused. This resulted in a truly remarkable set of songs, but it doesn't seem quite as much like a Who record. This is mostly because Keith Moon had gradually lost his place at the centre of the band's sound, partially because of his own issues with drugs and alcohol, partially because the needs of the songs had changed. He was fading away, and it could have been any good rock drummer playing on these tracks. But the songs are, without exception, all winners. Townshend has finally run dry, he has no more big ideas, and it simply doesn't matter. There's something awesome about "Slip Kid, " the opening track - it sounds quite literally like The Who by numbers, the kind of thing they can and do crank out on automatic pilot. And they make it sound easy, effortless. Yeah, for them, maybe. Not for anyone else.  Townshend's got no extravagant concepts or theories to put forward here - just a bunch of sharply observed, and generally self-lacerating, pieces. Some of them - "Dreaming From the Waist," "However Much I Booze," and "How Many Friends" are at once as good as anything he's ever written and deeply disturbing in that they cause you to seriously worry about the author's capacity to deal with life. He sounds like a man in a great deal of trouble.

4. Quadrophenia (Oct 1973)

This, I believe, was their last true last blast of glory, the last record that truly sounds and feels like the fucking Who. Townshend remained obsessed with the Mod sub-culture that the band had emerged from, and here he elaborates his tale of a confused young mod into an allegorical story of his own band. It's  a concept utterly ridiculous in its pretensions, totally breathtaking in it its audacity, and completely successful in its execution because he wrapped it all up in some of the finest hard rock music ever written, played by a band at the absolute peak of their considerable powers. It's more coherent and far more consistent than Tommy. This means that, among other things, no individual songs rise above the whole the way "Pinball Wizard" does on the earlier opera. But these are, almost without exception, truly great songs themselves. They function so well as part of the whole that there is little desire to ask them to stand by themselves - but any band would kill their relatives to come up with songs as great as "The Real Me," "The Punk and the Godfather" or "5:15." And the power of the playing is stunning.

3. Who's Next (Aug 1971)

It was going to be called Lifehouse, and it was Townshend's most ambitious idea yet. The concept was utterly mad, an attempt to fuse some of the thinking Townshend was absorbing from his Sufi gurus with pure science fiction (a futuristic world where people live in pods like something out of The Matrix and all experience is virtual rather than real) and there was something about a musical note so pure that... it gave its author a nervous breakdown as he discovered no one around him had the faintest idea what he was on about. Eventually the band simply recorded eight of the songs from the aborted project (along with a new tune from Entwistle) and settled on that as their new album instead. It's just the Who's next, that's all. It's not that big a deal. It's one of the greatest rock albums ever made, but not as big a deal as it was supposed to be. Pete Townshend has the bluest eyes this side of Paul Newman (or Bob Dylan) and "Behind Blue Eyes", may be his bitterest confession of all. It's also one of Keith Moon's last great moments on record - halfway through, he suddenly comes crashing in and simply kicks the song into a totally different emotional territory.  Townshend was the first rock composer to truly integrate the synthesizer into his music, rather than merely use it for sound effects. His synthesizer is the basis for the opening and closing tracks, and what tracks they were - the haunted "Baba O'Riley" looking askance at the wasted lives all around him, and the bitter finale, the mighty "Won't Get Fooled Again," as great a song and recording as rock music has produced. And as great as this album is, it might have been greater still if two of the best songs from the Lifehouse project had been included. (One issue was that the Who's versions of "Pure and Easy" and "Let's See Action," fine as they are, didn't quite measure up to Townshend's remarkable demos, as released on his solo album Who Came First.) But these are mere quibbles. All this and this isn't even their best?

2. Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy (Oct 1971)

 A bit of a ringer, I admit. But like all British artists who emerged in the 1960s, the Who drew a distinction between their singles and their albums. Unlike, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones though, the Who's singles generally made little impact in North America. Which made this somewhat random selection of some of the singles from their first six years an essential introduction to the band for anyone who wasn't already a stone Who fanatic (like your author.) For the most part, these songs were all largely unknown to North American audiences. It begins where they did, the full frontal assault of "I Can't Explain" with the sharpest guitar chords anyone had ever heard (and Moon's two quick triplets as the band pauses before the chorus... help!)  It's followed by "The Kids Are Alright" which somehow rocks furiously while being utterly gorgeous. There's the immortal statement of purpose that was "My Generation," the "anthem they sing at Who football matches" Townshend would one day quip. There's the unrestrained chaos that was "Anytime Anyhow Anywhere." The strange, wild narratives of "I'm a Boy" and "Pictures of Lily."  The bizarre juxtaposition of Beach Boys harmonies and Keith Moon going berserk all over his kit, also known as "Happy Jack." And better than all of these was the single that they opened 1966 with, the one that they used it to kick off their eye-opening set at Monterey in 1967, the remarkable "Substitute" ("I look all white but my dad was black.") Only one of the songs in this collection had managed to crack the US Top 10. But that was the very best of them all, the greatest track this band ever did record, the jaw-dropping "I Can See For Miles." To this day, it remains as powerful a piece of music as has ever been made by anyone. Indeed, I'm pretty confident that it was the finest single ever to come out of England. 

1. The Who Sell Out (Dec 1967)

Perhaps it's precisely because he's so serious (and often so pretentious) about his work that Townshend has often been acutely aware of how ridiculous the whole enterprise can be. So all the while, along with the high-flown concepts and the extravagant theories, Townshend had provided very different kinds of songs: a boy masturbating to a long-dead pinup girl, another boy dressed up in girl's clothing by his mother, a weirdo sleeping on a beach, and sundry anthems of inarticulate confusion. It's a crucial part of the band's personality. (Most of Entwistle's material for the band fits neatly on this side of the aisle as well.) On no other album is that duality better seen. There is a concept here, of sorts - it's an affectionate evocation of the wonderful pirate radio stations that had sustained the British pop scene, and had just been legislated out of business. The jingles and commercials are, remarkably enough, as fresh and as enduring as the songs themselves. And the songs themselves - the psychedelic rush of the opening "Armenia City," the twisted tale of manhood that is "Tattoo", the full power of the band roaring behind "Relax" and "Our Love Was", and the exquisite "Sunrise," as gorgeous a song as Townshend would ever write. The album had been previewed by a single, the mighty "I Can See For Miles," of which I can say little more than I have already without lapsing into gibberish. And it closes with another of Townshend's bizarre multi-part concept pieces. But he kept this one below six minutes, and though the story is incomprehensible, the music was so great that Townshend shamelessly recycled some of it for Tommy. There isn't a weak moment on the record. Not one note.