Great thread and I loved the Who growing up. The first concert I ever saw was The Who in the Astrodome in 1983. Just incredible. I saw them 5 times in 1989 on their farewell tour that was the second of many, and they still had it including an incredible show at the Meadowlands near the start of the tour and a show at the Oakland Coliseum where they played an hour long encore. I kind of wished they would've hung it up then though as I caught some of their later shows and they definately lost something after that. That is what makes The Who's music so great is that it explores the fullness of what it means to be a male in an uncertain and f^(ked up world. The Who has been such a big influence on so many other bands because they took on directly the sense of anger and frustration that many males feel. The Who's contemporarys,Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones and Cream all had a powerful sound and were arguably better pure musicians they also had a macho swagger to them but what set The Who apart was that while they affected the macho swagger they weren't afraid to look deeper at what it meant to be a man. Quadrophenia captures this best and IMO should be required listening for every teenage male. What is just as impressive is that while Pete Townshend captured teenage angst he could also capture a sense of male inefectualness in the face of approaching age later on in life in his solo work. To me the flip side of the angry young man in Quadrophenia is the frustrated man mourning his fading youth in All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes.
The Who is the best concert band. Ever. The Stones get more airplay, but they only had Jagger preening around the stage. Led Zep's music was good, but they were boring on stage. With The Who, you had Pete leaping, Roger twirling, Moon crashing, and the gravitas of Entwistle anchoring the chaos, not to mention the end of show destruction. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/b3mi-bKtDGA&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/b3mi-bKtDGA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> There are more iconic rock images in this one clip then Led Zep and the Stones have together. And I'm sorry, but in terms of musicianship, between the Stones, Zep, and The Who, Entwistle was by far the best one of the bunch and Moon was, in his words. "the best Keith Moon-like drummer alive." You could pick any number of Who songs, but just go listen to the bass and drums on "The Real Me." They will blow you away. Pete and Roger are no slouches either. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZUfD9190Aco&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZUfD9190Aco&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> They're my favorite band. If I could only listen to one album ever again, it'd be Quadrophenia... it's complex, it rocks, and every song is superb. One of my favorite non-popular Who songs is "Drowned," which has every element of classic Who-dom... Let me flow into the ocean Let me get back to the sea Let me be stormy and let me be calm Let the tide in, rush over me. Roger and Pete complement each other vocally... Roger tough, Pete more fragile... and they sing different parts on the same songs. Simply, The Who rock.
can you really say the who is more talented than led zeppelin or vice-versa? it just comes down to taste because as far as musicianship everyone in both bands are amazing. they're too different to compare. i prefer zeppelin because after the beatles nothing comes close to amazing me as much as a jimmy page riff/solo and a bonham beat.
Well, that's what our society has come to nowadays. Can't praise Yao without someone saying, "Yes, but he's not Hakeem!" Can't say that Silence of the Lambs is your favorite movie without saying, "But Hannibal was much better!" And I start a tribute thread for a band who I did not say was THE best, but my personal favorite and one of the top 5. So, someone has to come along and say, "Yes, but they don't compare to Zeppelin!" Whatever. You know, when it comes down to it, I think The Who would've been a really, really great band if Led Zeppelin wouldn't have been so much better.
1. Beatles 2. Zeppelin 3. Stones 4. The Who Cream, Floyd, Hendrix But the Who were the best live show. I saw an short documentary on the high definition music channel this past week on the Who coming back to the studio to make their first song together in 23 years , well Townshend and Daltry and he was talking about how they developed their stage persona. He was in Ealing Art college (with Clapton, Page and others) and they had these radical artist of the day come in as guest lectures. They mostly talked about art as destruction (the movement at the time) and one of these av ant guard dudes had the kids all going crazy by cutting a piano in half and yelling at them. He said the first time he smashed a guitar it was an accident, he was just shoving it into the amp to get feedback. He was sorry to have busted it because it was an Epiphone he really loved, and it wasn't even paid for yet. Wikki tells it a bit different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Townshend Also, Daltry's powerful voice has a theatrical sense to it that works even better live than it does recorded. I don't know anyone that can come close to him at pulling off rock as opera. Townshend told one funny story, he playing at a school function for one of his kids and all the kids are listening to him play. At the end they just stared at him, He asked them "didn't you Like it? " and one of the kids answered "Aren't you going to smash your guitar?" These song they produced on the documentary, Beautiful Boy (about Elvis coming to England) came out of a highly technical session but it looked like Kenny Jones was handling the percussion changes and subtleties with ease. How is it that the 3 best rock drummers of all time all came out of 1965 England, Moon Bonham and Ginger Baker. These guys beat it like nobody else and each one different from each other.
I think these comparisons are missing the point about the Who's music. The genius of The Who was never about how musically talented they were but what the richness of their sound and the complexity of their message. The Who were excellent musicians and they would showcase those abilities but relatively early on they were looking for building up their sound in other ways. So The Who sound never stayed as the guitar centric sound that marked Zepplin, Cream / later just Clapton, into something far more complex. For what I believe are the two greatest Who albums, Who's Next, Quadrophenia none of those really stand out as great virtuoso guitar or other instrument achievements. In fact they pale compared to Live at Leeds and in many cases the guitar, bass and drums are themselves subsumed into a rich texture of strings horns and synthesizers but that isn't what make those albums great.
Spot on. The richness of their sound is what always got me. They were the only band in rock history to make a three-piece instrumentation sound like an orchestra.
I just watched a 2 hour documentary on the Hi-Def music channel on Comcast (296) called Amazing Journey: The Who. It was very comprehensive and emotional in the last 45 minutes. If you are at all interested in the subject and you happen to see it on (Netflix?) I highly reccomend it. ( I was watching The Open and happened to flip over right at the start)
If they don't play "Pure and Easy" at my funeral, I'm going to spend the rest of eternity haunting people.
There once was a note, pure and easy, Playing so free, like a breath rippling by. The note is eternal, I hear it, it sees me, Forever we blend it, forever we die. I listened and I heard music in a word, And words when you played your guitar, The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering, And a child flew past me riding in a star. As people assemble, Civilization is trying to find a new way to die, But killing is really merely scene changer, All men are bored with other men's lies. I listened and I heard music in a word, And words when you played your guitar, The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering, And a child flew past me riding in a star. Gas on the hillside, oil in the teacup, Watch all the chords of life lose their joy, Distortion becomes somehow pure in its wildness, The note that began all can also destroy. We all know success when we all find our own dreams, And our love is enough to knock down any walls, And the future's been seen as men try to realize, The simple secret of the note in us all. I listened and I heard music in a word, And words when you played your guitar, The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering, And a child flew past me riding in a star. There once was a note, pure and easy, Playing so free, like a breath rippling by.
Again, stop comparing these two bands or bickering who is better. The Who is the Who Zep is Zep. Music like those two made can never be duplicated today, so just learn to appreciate each of them for who they were. /end of discussion
I don't like the whole VH1 rock honors thing because it just keeps regurgitating bands that have already been given more than enough props just because there is very little music being produced these days that is worth listening to....
