The Who, discografia: da “A Quick One” a “The Who Sell Out”
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The Who: from "A Quick One" to "The Who Sell Out"
At the end of 1965
the music charts of the United Kingdom
were dominated by light pop songs
and marked by the presence
of "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles,
which included "Norwegian Wood"
and especially the classic "Michelle".
You can therefore imagine what a huge
effect the entry of this song into the charts
had on the English public.
"My Generation"
Guitar distortion, drums pounding
and decidedly messy, choruses
definitely not aligned with the style of the Beatles
and the typical vocal harmonies, a song
that's even stuttered... something that has broken
completely away from the musical tradition
normally present in the charts.
But, even more
completely shocking for that time,
are the lyrics of this song.
The opening says: "People try to put us down,
just because we get around, things they do
look awful cold,
I hope I die before I get old".
Total shock,
represents the generational anthem,
the revolt of youth against the elderly,
against the adult world, the revolt of the slums
against the British system. This is the force
of the impact that the Who offered
in the first year of their musical
production, and the ability
therefore to impersonate precisely
the revolt of the youth
and the revolt that was part
of the beginning of rock'n'roll. Ten years later rock'n'roll found
its rebellious force precisely in England
through the Who.
It was completely different from what was happening in the United States:
in 1965 they were in the midst of the hippie revolution,
but the revolution was soft, "peace and love";
in England it wasn't, the guys smashed everything,
that's what they wanted, because life
in the slums, in the English slums, didn't give much hope for the future.
And the nihilism of the Who
was reflected in the violence of their
live performances as well. The Who
were famous, became famous, because at the end
of their performances they vented against their own instruments,
and thus in a supreme gesture of self-destruction they
smashed everything,
especially Pete Townshend, with his guitar...
Actually, this gesture, so powerfully
evocative and demonstrative, started almost by accident:
one night, in a London club,
from the too low ceiling; Pete Townshend was
performing one of his legendary and acrobatic jumps,
which was one of the icons of rock in the 60's and 70's,
and ended up hitting the neck of the guitar against
the ceiling, of the club, and this irritated him
terribly... he slammed his guitar on the ground, kicked it
and left the stage. A negative reaction was expected
from the audience, who instead were absolutely,
totally enthusiastic
at what they had seen. And at this point,
from this moment on, this final scene became one of the trademarks
of the Who production, at least in the first period.
The first period which alternated
musical productions, violence, strength,
like those that we have seen and have, to say it better,
heard in this first fragment, to others
that instead are closer
to another genre of typical
English productions of that period, a little like
the Kinxs. Later in the first productions,
in 1966, the Who
moved to create
musical representations that were
more than anything else ironic, and in some way,
so to speak, always recounting
the world of English adolescents,
but from another point of view. We'll listen to a fragment
of "Pictures of Lily",
which is actually a story,
a song that talks about young masturbation.
"Pictures of Lily"
Here it is: as you have heard
the song appears a lot softer, a lot simpler,
also with references to the psychedelia of the era.
Where is the force in all this?
It's exactly in Townshend's ability to create
elementary choruses, extremely simple,
and therefore greatly memorable as well;
and the union of this composing ability of Townshend
with the expressive force especially
of the rhythmic part, the wild drumming
of Keith Moon, which was very
exaggerated in its violence,
in its force in regards to the drums,
the use of the toms of the drums, the rhythm
always swinging the bass of John Entwistle,
guaranteeing the musical spaces
necessary for singer Roger Daltrey
to show his ability.
Ability which was exalted especially
when it was unleashed
to a certain vein, we'll call it, animalistic in its expression:
the shouts, the gasps
of Roger Daltrey formed a part as well,
undoubtedly, of the history of rock.
In 1967,
after having just released "A Quick One" in 1966,
from which we heard before
"Pictures of Lily", in '67 the Who
marked another important
moment of their production.
"The Who Sell Out" was an album that foreshadowed
the future developments of the Who's
production, and actually was designed
exactly like
a program from a pirate radio station of the period,
with a whole series of songs, even
interspersed with ironic advertising jingles,
and therefore having the perception of
this continuous flow
of songs. All of the sketches are
very interesting, they are close
also to the concept carried out
by Frank Zappa, but above all,
it has in the final part
a song, "Rael",
that lasts almost ten minutes.
This fact is very interesting because
the expansion of time already signals the attempt
of Pete Townshend to go beyond the song format
and construct something else.
"The Who Sell Out" is a concept album,
strongly indebted to, however, like we've said,
the psychedelic movement also,
that rock was undergoing
at that time. We'll listen to, from "The Who Sell Out",
"I Can Seen for Miles", which was also
their biggest success
in the United States,
that they knew thanks to this album.
"I Can Seen for Miles"
To tell the truth, nobody in the Who was a true virtuoso
of their instrument, though everyone
posed, and was capable of creating
their own particular style in using
their expressive medium, in particular
Pete Townshend who invented, rather, derived in some way
from...... a style very barbaric, so to speak, in the use
of the guitar, and his gestures as well,
this swinging of his arm in a dramatic manner
was always recalled
as exactly the attempt to give
a sense of force to his musical expression.
In terms of strength, Keith Moon certainly wasn't
second, as we have already said,
in the use of the drums,
and also the vigorous strumming
and the use of the bass by John Entwistle
gave a rhythmic substance
to the musical expression of the Who
that was very very strongly recognizable.
It was to say right away that the four personalities
on stage represented something
highly explosive,
incredibly enthralling
for the audience, even if, it's well known, the four
have never gotten along on a personal level.
Roger Daltrey represented the frontman,
so to speak, with
an attitude that was a little sexy in some ways,
even if his way was a little animalistic
it immediately places him in the
...how can I say it...
esthetic of the urban subculture
bands... he certainly wasn't a dandy, Roger Daltrey,
and also his, at times, twirling
the microphone above his head
for exactly this sensation
of force and masculine
expression that was a little excessive from some points of view,
was certainly not particularly dainty.
There was contrast, on the other hand, with
the appearance of Pete Townshend,
who was long, thin, with an aquiline
nose, certainly not the beauty of the group,
but he was a little intellectual.
The other two behind pounded like crazy.
This sensation
of an almost constant dispute,
like within a good English family,
continued over time
and found its harmony only
on stage.
The stage, on which
the Who were absolutely masters:
a few legendary performances
have also been
filmed, for example in
a film of Monterey Pop
in 1967, the first big rock festival
of the modern era,
which sees the Who, the only players
of the English scene,
go to Monterey Pop in California,
to play near all the leaders of the alternative
scene, of the hippie scene
and the psychedelia of that period.
Well, the end of their playing
of "My Generation",
with which they closed
their performance, shocked
the American audience, which was absolutely not accustomed to it,
they didn't know what they were about to see: the destruction on stage
of Pete Townshend's
guitar, slammed with extreme violence until
it shattered on stage,
and with Keith Moon who kicked
and threw all the drums,
and then the technicians came on stage, surprised
by all the violence, trying to save the instruments
because there were other bands who still needed to play, at the end
a firecracker even exploded (everything by now had been artificially
created, to give the impression
of maximum violence) and Eric Burdon
of the Animals, who was present at that show,
ended up saying:
"Well, it was the musical representation of a rape".
Here, perhaps the violence of the Who,
in that early phase, was really their distinctive
trait and which
marked forever an era,
that however was already ending, in the sense that
after the show
we talked about, this
expressive form reached its maximum
in a United States music
program "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour",
in which the explosion of Keith Moon's
drums at the end caused partial
temporary hearing loss for Pete Townshend,
because the explosion was so strong that it was
absolutely uncontrollable, the Who,
to a certain extent, changed form:
ending their adolescent phase and entering
into a more mature phase, which we will visit shortly.