Who's Better

Besides Dylan, I’ve also been listening to a lot of The Who lately, although I hardly just discovered them. The Who were very unique in the annals of the giants of the classic rock era. By using the criteria of one or two word descriptions, Zeppelin would be “crafty genius”; the Stones – “swagger”; and The Who – pure“power”. The sound that those four individuals were able to generate out of those four instruments and voices was staggering. Together, no one (besides The Stooges perhaps, minus the songwriting craft) has ever captured the energy of The Who in the same way. The four album cycle of Tommy, Live At Leeds, Who’s Next and Quadrophenia was as dynamic as had ever been up to that point or since.

I can only imagine what it must have sounded like to be standing front and center within the first several rows at a Who concert. The Replacements and Jason & The Scorchers are the closest I’ve ever come to witnessing the power that they surely generated. Moon was all over the fucking place on the drums. His arms flailed around his kit like the blurry rotors of a truck engine, all the while maintaining the solid foundation of the song. Entwhistle was the same way on the bass, albeit within a more sensical and concise structure while remaining rock solid and stoic as a statue. Daltrey found himself as a singer with Tommy and cultivated that energy and passion throughout the remainder of that lineup’s existence. And Townshend is often overlooked as a guitarist in deference to his songwriting abilities. He was unique in that he didn’t rely on flash or screeching leads to convey his point. He was able to generate a sound that was blustering yet commanding with a way of grabbing the collective nutsack of an audience and feeding it to his instrument.

So go back and listen to those aforementioned albums in order to hear the almighty power of The Who.