The Rockologist: The Beach, The Sea, and The Who

When I was growing up in the seventies, I can honestly say that there were few artists that affected me in quite the same way that the Who did.

On the surface, you had the fact that these four guys made one hell of a big noise. Yet in spite of the unhinged chaos that characterized their live performances, there was something lying underneath all of that which made complete, perfect sense.

The sheer, off the rails power of the Who's live concerts was certainly a major part of it though. Even today, when you listen to something like The Who Live At Leeds — which I will maintain to my grave was, and is, the single greatest live rock concert album ever made — there is no getting around how raw and primal these guys sounded, even by todays modern punk-rock standards. In terms of pure, unbridled, and unrestrained noise, nothing before or since comes even remotely close.

But underneath all the ungodly racket, there was a perfectly ordered sort of sense to it — even if that sense comes in the sort of chaotic wheels about to fall off the wagon way it does. On albums like Tommy in particular, Townshend's bludgeoning power chords play in perfect counterpoint to Entwhistle's fluid bass runs. And even in the case of Moon the Loon — for my money, the greatest pure rock drummer who ever lived — the all over the place drumming could actually serve as an instrument of melody, just as much as it could one of simple, primal beat.

For anyone who doubts me about this, I would direct you towards the song "Underture" from Tommy, where Moon's fills are every bit as crucial to that songs melodic structure as Townshend's simple, stunning chord progressions.

But beyond all of that, were Townshend's songs. When I was a teenager growing up in Seattle, if Alice Cooper ("Public Animal # 9") and David Bowie ("Rebel, Rebel") fed the sort of fuck all disdain for any establishment authority I felt, Pete Townshend's songs were the ones that fed my actual soul. From "My Generation" to the "teenaged wasteland" of "Baba O'Reilly," nobody captured all the confusion, alienation and angst of youth the way Townshend did.

Article Author: Glen Boyd

You'll find Blogcritics assistant music editor Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares on his personal blogs The World Wide Glen, and The Rockologist. In a previous life, Glen was a music professional and journalist whose work has appeared in The Rocket, SPIN, Pulse!, and The Source. …

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