Who's Next/Achtung Baby — Going Bigger

Two legendary bands, at seemingly the height of their respective greatness, 20 years apart. Yet neither were satisfied with the enormity of their success and wanted to go bigger, newer and yes, even better.

And somehow they did.

The bands were The Who and U2. The years were 1971 and 1991—two absolutely monstrous years in music. And they each put out an album that signaled far and wide that the bands that the masses once new had changed. And a different era was underway.

Who’s Next. Achtung Baby. Absolute 100% bona fide game-changers. Any list of the greatest and most important albums in rock-n-roll history has these two albums on it. And if it doesn’t, the list is incomplete, almost stupidly so.

And here’s one more beautiful thing The Who and U2 had in common with these albums. The bands knew they were entering untouched territory, and they knew they had to let the listeners know that from the very start. 

So from the first seconds of opening tracks of those two albums, “Baba O’Riley” and “Zoo Station”—both amazing tunes, to be sure—our speakers and our ears were flooded from the get-go with sounds we had never heard from either band before. And holy cow did it get our attention. And still does today, to anyone listening.

Think about it. 

The epic synth drone which lifts “Baba O’Riley” up to some space-age plain the second the needle drops on Who’s Next was a brand new frontier for The Who. They had done some fine albums and all those great and taut Maximum R&B singles and then in 1969, with Tommy,  they invented the rock opera and created an album that seemed to almost swallow their identity…mostly in a good way. But they needed to move on and looked even bolder, brasher. Even bolder and more brash than Tommy had been two years earlier; after all, The Who had dabbled splendidly in longer-form narrative before Tommy (“A Quick One While He’s Away” in 1966, “Rael” a year later). But they had never, EVER tried anything like this before. 

And those sounds that open “Baba O’Riley,” that hypnotic and circular Lowery organ pattern which seems to have been dreamed up as much by Arthur C. Clarke or Stanley Kubrick as by Pete Townshend, damned if it didn’t work and take the listeners on an uncharted journey. No one could have expected it, but within seconds we couldn’t imagine music without it.

Fast forward 20 years. Now how about the volcanic industrial sound that drops into our laps about three seconds into “Zoo Station,” a sound so thunderous and forboding it almost sounds like the musical version of The Big Bang. This was not "traditional U2", awash in reverb and shimmering delay and spiritual and political forthrightness we had come to know and deeply love, played majestically from Boy through The Joshua Tree. This was cataclysmic sonic mayhem, all metal and stone and echoes and shadows and distortion. U2 had conquered all worlds by 1991, even trotting out the highly subversive and (according to at least this writer) highly underrated multi-media experiment of Rattle and Hum in 1988. But now, much like The Who in 1971, they needed more, and they got more. 

And much like “Baba O’Riley,” it all sounded like world-building, because it was. For “Baba” it was a gateway into the aimless, miasmic plasma of the 1970s and out of the (fictitious) Age of Aquarius. For “Zoo” it was a guillotine to the Reagan-Thatcher years of despotic, plastic self-virtue (laid in musical form by years of empty-headed Aqua Net-pasted glam metal) and an invitation to blaze new trails across previously neglected human wastelands. In every sense of the word this was music of change.

And neither exactly occurred in a vacuum—both came out at momentous times in rock-n-roll history amidst staggering competition, and still were able to not just stand on their own, but stand victorious and proud amongst the very very best musical offerings of their respective years. Or most any years.

I mean, 1971. Look. LOOK at the kind of the music their counterparts were offering:

• Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
• Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
• Joni Mitchell – Blue
• Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
• John Lennon – Imagine
• Sly and the Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On
• David Bowie – Hunky Dory
• Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
• Carole King – Tapestry
• Allman Brothers –At Fillmore East

I mean. I mean!

Not to be outdone, 1991? Well…again, just look:

• Nirvana – Nevermind
• Metallica – Metallica
• R.E.M. – Out of Time
• Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend
• Michael Jackson – Dangerous
• Public Enemy – Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Back
• Dinosaur Jr. – Green Mind
• Pearl Jam – Ten
• A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory
• P.M.Dawn: Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience

Those are a couple of Murderer’s Rows of musical years, and sure, maybe some of those albums were as good as Who’s Next and Achtung Baby, but none of them—NONE of them—were better. 

Both offered a promise of a new day, a new musical awakening, with those opening tracks, and both delivered. Because of course it didn't stop there. In addition to the epochal starters each album contained arguably the respective bands’ greatest songs (“Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “One”), some statement of purpose masterpieces (“Behind Blue Eyes,” “Song Is Over” for the Who, “Mysterious Ways,” “Until the End of the World” for U2”) and, yes, some familiar musical territory done with as much muscle and gritty agency as ever (“Bargain” on Who’s Next, “Even Better Than the Real Thing” on Achtung Baby).

They were gutsy moves. Two of the greatest bands ever, each having reached pinnacles they couldn’t have imagined when they were starting out years earlier. Each wanting more. And each getting it.

It’s unfair to offer that they never would be that good again, because how do you top sheer once-in-a-lifetime masterpieces? Hell, if they didn’t equal those efforts they came pretty close—All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Quadrophenia, The Who By Numbers, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb—and that’s saying more than something. But those efforts they churned out in 1971 and 1991 remain sui generis works of art. And if there’s one thing that art does, it lives. Does it ever.

The Who and U2 live forever in those opening generational strains of “Baba O’Riley” and “Zoo Station.” The music explains why, as it always has.

I Saw Her Standing There

I actually find the Who—despite being one of the five greatest bands in rock history—a bit hit or miss when it comes to their covers. When they're on, they're phenomenal but, for some reason, many of their covers are just kinda okay. And when you're dealing with a band of their stature and ability, just okay is not something that really passes muster.

But this...this is pretty damn glorious. And its tossed-off character makes it clear that had they practiced it even a tiny bit and then given a damn about the final performance—meaning, if any three of them, much less all four of them were sober—it could literally have been the greatest cover of any Beatles song ever. And that is a high damn bar to clear.

After the Fire

DT and I were talking a while back about post-Keith Moon Who LPs, as well as subsequent solo albums from various Who members. And I recalled that the Pete Townshend-written Roger Daltrey track "After the Fire" was really good.

But what I didn't recall was that the video itself gives Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" a serious run for its money when it comes to Most 80s Video Ever.

Sure, that's some earnest damn emoting at the beginning there, but then, Roger's always been a heart-on-the-sleeve singer. (And, if biographies are to be believe, guy.) And, yeah, you might think that one dramatic whiparound was enough, never mind seven. That's right, seven; I slowed the video down to half-speed, just to make sure my tally was right—although, admittedly, on the last one, he does a 270, rather than a 180, so I'm not positive if it counts. But what makes the opening work for me is how much drama he gets out of...lighting a match. Yeah, he later uses that match to spark a genuine conflagration, but that's in the future. At the moment the match is lit, it's just a surprise Spanish Inquisition-like appearance of...a match. And not even one of them really big mamajamas, neither; it's just a simple bog standard match, like used to be on the counter for the taking in restaurants and hotels and convenience stores. And yet the gravitas, the drama—it is simply glorious.

And I remembered right: pretty sweet tune.

Pet Sounds

Best debut single by a Canadian band ever. 

Pictures of Lily

I've liked very few of David Bowie's covers: he's one of those artists whose own identity is so strong and, conventional and actual wisdom somewhat to the contrary, so sui generis that his covers rarely rise to the level of the original, much less surpass.

I'm not going to say this surpasses the original, since you can't surpass perfection, but taking it in a dream pop direction was pretty brilliant, as it works both sonically and thematically.

Magic Bus

Remember in Trading Places, in the climactic scene at the end, when Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd) and Valentine (Eddie Murphy) pull off the one of the greatest screw-you vendettas of all time by cornering the market on Frozen Orange Juice, making themselves rich while simultaneously bankrupting those evil Duke brothers?

Sure you do.

Well my favorite part comes between the :46 mark and the 1:00 mark of this clip, when Valentine nervously prods Winthorpe to make his move, only Winthorpe calmly and assuredly waits, waits, waits...and then POUNCES.

I love that. He knew exactly when the time was to make his move, not a moment sooner. He knew he'd be fine showing patience and biding his time; he knew the whole plan was safe and in place while he hung back and waited. And then when he did make his move...everything changed. For good.

I love that. Mayhap I've already said that, huh?

Anyway. Think about that, about the nearly uncommon patience to hold back for just the right moment, when you listen to this amazing little piece of rock-n-roll perfection. Particularly right around the 2:25 mark.

There is already so much to love about this surprisingly understated song up to that point. As Dave Marsh once said (I paraphrase) Pete Townshend pretty much puts on a clinic in what the right person can do with an acoustic guitar. Roger Daltrey's voice is commanding throughout, showing even a strain of sweetness on some of the verses. But Keith Moon...

...Keith Moon is only sorta there for the first two-thirds. I mean, he's definitely there. The woodblocks that set the jaunty pace for the song right from the beginning are all him, giving a slightly modified Bo Diddley foundation to it all. But what of the rest of it? The legendary fills? The crashing mayhem of constant cymbal abuse he brought to so many of their songs that became perhaps the defining characteristic of The Who's music? It's not really there. Moonie is hanging back, setting the pace but not really taking us on those majestic and terrifying Wonderland journeys he so often chose to do. Even when the music comes full flourish at the 2:05 mark, he's still missing out on a lot of the fun.

Only no, he's not. He's just playing possum. Biding his time. Fooling us all into thinking he's not here. Because at the 2:25 mark, GLORY BE does he make an entrance!

With no warning of an impending storm, Moon rolls in, literally, like the Tasmanian Devil we always knew he was. His playing is so violent, so chaotic, so jolting that it changes the entire marrow of the song. Which exists for its final minute on a plain it was not remotely near until Moonie picked up the sticks and gave his drums the what-for he knew they deserved. And it's perfect. "Magic Bus" is a great song for the first 2:24. It's an even greater song after that. Thanks for that, mate.

Just like the cool and confident Winthorpe, Moon knew the time was coming. But only he knew exactly when that time was. And what to do when it got here.

Substitute

A wonderful marriage. The punk was always implicit in the original version; all Joey and Johnny did was make it explicit. (The backing vocals from Pete Townshend certainly didn't hurt.)

Baby Don't You Do It

Good golly but these gents occasionally would commence with the musical kicking of ass. I'd love to know what Holland–Dozier–Holland thought of this assault.

Also a pretty clear template for "The Real Me."

1968: it was a very good year

I tend to get irritated whenever someone talks about music today sucks, and how much better it used to be and yadda yadda yadda. That's, of course, exactly what people said in 1956 about the golden days before Elvis, Chuck, Buddy and Little Richard appeared, and it's what Elvis said when the Beatles appeared and so it goes.

On the other hand, you run across information like just some of the albums released in the final few months of 1968 and it kinda staggers.

September 1968
The Who—Magic Bus
Miles Davis—Miles in the Sky

October 1968
The Jimi Hendrix Experience—Electric Ladyland
Traffic—Traffic

November 1968
Neil Young—Neil Young
The Beatles—The Beatles (The White Album)
The Kinks—The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
Van Morrison—Astral Weeks
Elvis Presley—Elvis (soundtrack to his comeback special)

December 1968
The Rolling Stones—Beggars Banquet

...okay. Okay, sure. BUT.

Yeah, I got nothin', except maybe to point out that just November alone would have made 1968 a damn good year. When you can list five out of the dozen plus major releases and Neil Young's solo debut is the weak spot by far? That's, uh...that's a pretty list. And, again, that's just from the final third of the year, so not even talking about, say, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, White Light/White Heat or Lady Soul, all of which came out in the month of January 1968. Crazy.

Sing us out, Raymond.

Selling Out

 So I ran across this very amusing piece a few days ago, and it reminded me of a series of posts I wrote to a mailing list back in the days of yore, when mailing lists were the main way people passionate about a given topic exchanged ideas and information—which is to say the prehistoric days around the turn of the century.

I don't recall what started the entire discussion, but it could have been the then-fairly-recent commercial for...an automobile, maybe?...featuring Peter Gabriel's song "Big Time." Or maybe it was Led Zeppelin definitely shilling for a car company. Or Pete Townshend...shilling for a car company. Before he sold perhaps his greatest song to a cheesy cop show. Which was before he sold perhaps his second greatest song to another cheesy cop show.

Whichever it was, it seemed just such a betrayal by one of our greatest artists, something I found shocking and upsetting. Ah, but I was so much older then...

Look. I get it. I do I mean, yeah yeah, it's all very meta, the way Gabriel is saucily taking the piss out of the entire venture by using that song, of all his songs, to shill a product. So mighty clever. As Pete Townshend, now vying with the Glimmer Twins for the poster boy of what used to be called selling out, once said:

For about ten years I really resisted any kind of licensing because Roger had got so upset when somebody had used "Pinball Wizard" for a bank thing. And they hadn't used the Who master—and what he was angry about was, he said that I was exploiting the Who's heritage but denying him the right to earn. Who fans will often think, "This is my song, it belongs to me, it reminds me of the first time that I kissed Susie, and you can't sell it."

And the fact is that I can and I will and I have. I don't give a fuck about the first time you kissed Susie. If they've arrived, if they've landed, if they've been received, then the message is there, if there's a message to be received. 

I think the other thing is, though—and I'm not trying to sideswipe this, this is not the reason why I license these songs, it's not the reason why I licensed "Bargain" to Nissan—it was an obviously shallow misreading of the song. It was so obvious that I felt anybody who loved the song would dismiss it out of hand. And the only argument that they could have about the whole thing was with me, and as long as I'm not ready to enter the argument, we don't argue. Well, I'm not ready to argue about it. It's my song. I do what the fuck I like with it.

[Emphasis added.]

Isn't that just adorable. "Sure, I took millions but you were all in on the joke, right? If you were a real fan, you'd have gotten it."

And that sums up Townshend so wonderfully right there, the way he manages to be absolutely right and completely wrong at the same damn time, even as simultaneously compliments and denigrates the hell out of Who fans. As counterpoint, I present this quote taking the opposite stance:

I had such grand aims and yet such a deep respect for rock tradition and particularly Who tradition, which was then firmly embedded in singles. But I always wanted to do bigger, grander things, and I felt that rock should too, and I always felt sick that rock was looked upon as a kind of second best to other art forms, that there was some dispute as to whether rock was art. Rock is art and a million other things as well—it's an indescribable form of communication and entertainment combined, and it's a two-way thing with very complex but real feedback processes as well. I don't think there's anything to match it.

[Emphasis again added.]

Let's see now, who said that? Oh, that's right: it was Pete Townshend. Calling his older self full of shit. (To be fair, Pete often calls himself full of shit, not infrequently in the same interview or even breath.)

So. Seems that once upon a time, at least, there was such a thing as the concept of selling out, and that some artists considered this a bad thing. Some of those artists later went on to do the very thing their earlier selves had claimed to find abhorrent. Life's a funny thing, innit?

First of all, let me point out the blindingly obvious, which is that the world has changed since I wrote much of this, 10 long years ago. For the majority of artists—including, yes, major gazillionaires like the Who and the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton and so on and so forth—the only way to get their new stuff heard is by licensing it to a commercial, and that goes quadruple for almost any act younger than U2. So I get that.

The concept of selling out is so old-fashioned that I'm not sure some of today's artists are even aware that it was even a thing, much less thought of negatively. So I may not like that the only way I'll hear a new song by, say, Camera Obscura or Real Estate or The War on Drugs is when they license it for a television show, but I get it. Hey, times have changed, the world moves on, and an artist has to make a living. I oh so very much get that. Trust me, I'm nobody and I've totally sold out more times and more cheaply than I can bear to remember.

But it seems to me that there's a big difference between writing a song with a commercial in mind (Stevie Wonder's commercial for a local soda of which he was extremely fond) and a song which, theoretically, was written from the heart (say, "Bargain").

The first is a simple act of craftsmanship and has a long history, and if that history isn't normally thought of as noble, well, at least some truly great artists have contributed to it. And when it's simply an exercise, there's seems to me no great crime against High Art, whatever that may be—it's just providing a service, and if the end result is of a high enough quality, we're all better off: there are always going to be commercials, so better good commercials than bad and, really, is it all that different than Bach writing The Art of the Fugue as a try-out for a club he wanted to join?

The second one, however, seems to me a betrayal of everything that truly great rock artists believe in and stand for. I'd have no moral qualms with Pete Townshend or Peter Gabriel giving up rock to write commercials; I'd be saddened, maybe, but otherwise, hey. But to write a song from the heart and sell it to the fans with the implicit promise (and I believe that promise is indeed implicit in everything those guys said in the first few decades of their careers) that this means something to me, this is what I really feel, this is a small slice of my soul...and then sell it to a soulless corporation for a big chunk of change, when neither of those guys is exactly on their way the poorhouse, seems a despicable act.

Do you really believe that's not the exact pose the Rolling Stones were attempting (quite successfully) to sell in the 60s and 70s? In retrospect it's pretty clear that Jagger, at the least, was almost certainly never some true believer—but they worked hard to embody the total rock and roll image, which included giving The Man the finger. But if you don't believe that they tried to make their audience believe that they somehow embodied a higher version of Integrity than the pop stars of yore, as well as the business men of the day, you're either kidding yourself or don't know your rock history. 'cuz that's exactly to a T what those middle-class kids posing as rebels were doing.

Now, do I deny that it's their right to do whatever they want with their work? Of course not. In fact, let's say that again, for those in the back, just to be perfectly clear: it's their work and they have every right to do whatever they want with it.

You know what? To make this unmissable, let's say that one more time:

It's their work and they have every right to do whatever they want with it.

But. For them to deny that every fan who gave them their money and spent hours and hours listening to their work, work that was presented as one thing, and then to turn around and sell that same piece and allow it to be used in such an utterly different and contradictory way, is a rejection of those very ideals that made them attractive to us fans in the first place. It's a con job. It's saying, here, check out this thing—it's a small slice of my soul. And you take it as such and perhaps it forms a small part of who you are. And then ten years later they sell it to an SUV commercial. That's bait and switch. It's a fine technique for making money. It's impossible to reconcile with Art or Truth.

Once again, as Townshend himself said: "Rock is art and a million other things as well: it's an indescribable form of communication and entertainment combined, and it's a two-way thing with very complex but real feedback processes."

It's a two-way thing. You give us your music, we give you our money, but in rock and roll that's not where the deal ends. There's, as Pete Townshend himself said, more—there's feedback and an identification thing that is perhaps unique to rock and which most of the great bands have acknowledged and utilized. Townshend himself obviously did (and this is not the only time he said something along these lines, just the one that was close at hand). Or at least he did before H+P offered him a couple million.

Look, he and they all have the right to do it. But that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. I'll still enjoy their music and sometimes be touched by it and often marvel at their artistry. But I can no longer believe that they are the pure artists they would have (or have had) us believe they are.

And here's the thing: if artists as diverse as The Doors, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, R.E.M., The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Pearl Jam have all refused to license their songs (it's extremely notable that McCartney has no qualms about licensing the songs of others he owns—Buddy Holly, for instance—but refuses to let the actual Beatles recordings be used) giving up in some cases mind-boggling amounts of money, then the very notion that there's something distasteful about the practice isn't absurd. You can disagree with my argument and maybe you're even right, but these artists obviously agree with me to some extent. And when someone passes up tens of millions of dollars to avoid doing it, it's something that needs to be at least given the benefit of some thought rather than dismissed out of hand.

Now. You'll note that all my examples are of extraordinarily wealthy rock stars. I don't begrudge Gary US Bonds whatever he made for those beer commercials in the early to mid 1980s, or Southside Johnny, who did one as well, or B.B. King for whatever he's done—XM Radio? Sirius? And maybe a hotel commercial too, right? And diabetes medication. And a fast food chain. And maybe a few others. God bless you, good sir, say I.

But do you really think at any point in the past twenty-five years that any of them (toss Etta James in there too) has in their best year made even a third of what, say, The Stones have made in their worst year? When real life (paying the mortgage, say) runs up against ideals, real life wins. I mean, duh. But when you're sitting on a hundred million in the bank, I kinda feel like staying true to the ideals you espoused which got your that fortune in the first place just isn't asking too much.

Neil Young clearly feels the same way, given how openly he savaged his friend Eric Clapton in an award-winning video:

As pal DT once said,

Robert Klein once joked, you may recall, that imagine how set for life Neil Armstrong would have been had he stepped onto the lunar surface and exclaimed, "Pepsi Cola!" Some moments need to exist for themselves, and art needs to exist for itself. If it's good enough or, hell, even mainstream enough, it will take on another life and turn into a moneymaker. And to that I say, "Groovy."  

Two last points and then I'll allow this self-righteous rant to die a merciful and deservéd death. The first is Tom Waits seems to agree with me and, as a general rule of thumb, if Tom Waits agrees with you, you're probably on the right track:

Songs carry emotional information and some transport us back to a poignant time, place or event in our lives. It’s no wonder a corporation would want to hitch a ride on the spell these songs cast and encourage you to buy soft drinks, underwear or automobiles while you’re in the trance. Artists who take money for ads poison and pervert their songs. It reduces them to the level of a jingle, a word that describes the sound of change in your pocket, which is what your songs become. Remember, when you sell your songs for commercials, you are selling your audience as well.

When I was a kid, if I saw an artist I admired doing a commercial, I’d think, “Too bad, he must really need the money.” But now it’s so pervasive. It’s a virus. Artists are lining up to do ads. The money and exposure are too tantalizing for most artists to decline. Corporations are hoping to hijack a culture’s memories for their product. They want an artist’s audience, credibility, good will and all the energy the songs have gathered as well as given over the years. They suck the life and meaning from the songs and impregnate them with promises of a better life with their product.

Finally, I think Berke Breathed's Bloom County summed it up nicely—and when in doubt, always go with a drawing of a penguin:

Going Mobile

My imaginary friend Chris is an interesting guy. When it comes to musical tastes, we have a lot of crossover, being huge fans of Elvis, the Beatles, R.E.M. and Übërsphïnctër, as well as various and sundry other artists. But we also diverge wildly in a lot of places, in no small part thanks to our earliest musical experiences. We both grew up listening to lots of Top 40 as little kids, but whereas I grew up thoroughly steeped in classic rock, thanks to the influence of my older siblings, my imaginary friend Chris shifted into punk at roughly the same time. So we can geek out over Revolver minutiae until the cows come home, or the glory that was the Captain & Tennille, but I can't really knowledgeably discuss, say, Minor Threat and he isn't really all that familiar with Lynyryd Skynyrd or Steve Miller or the J. Geils Band.

He's also an outstanding musician, playing all the major rock instruments, including being a great drummer, so when I found this, I thought, like me, he'd find it powerful interesting.

As usual, I was right. But to my semi-surprise and kind of delight...he'd never heard the song before. This song that I'm sure I've listened to at least 200 times was completely new to him. And his first exposure to was by listening to simply Keith Moon's incredible isolated drums.

Listening to it with my ears, ears that always know exactly where Moon is at any point, really emphasizes Roger Daltrey's assertion, of how Moon sounded chaotic but was actually playing along to the lyric. You can hear how weird some of his playing is, like when he kinda turns the beat around for eight bars, or how he'll occasionally abandon the cymbals entire (if briefly). You can marvel to just how tight his quick triplet rolls are, how often he syncopates his crashes, as well as how his spots of, let's be honest, slop are just on the right side of feel.  It's lovely and something of a revelation. And as my imaginary friend Chris perceptively noted, Moon's like a Dixieland instrumentalist, where he's soloing 95% of the time and yet rather than it causing everything to fall apart, it somehow actually holds everything together.

And then Chris listened to the drums in context. And he was amazed, never having guessed from the sound of Moon's drums what the final product would sound like. And he said that if you pulled out Moonie's drums, "Going Mobile" might just sound like an early 70s singer-songwriter tune that lopes along merrily.

Well, thanks to the magic of YouTube we can check out that assertion.

...and yeah. Until the guitar freakout starting almost exactly halfway through the song, it actually wouldn't have been terribly out of place as the uptempo track on an early 70s singer-songwriter LP. (Also, that's some asskickery being doled out to Pete's poor acoustic, and we are all the better for it.)

Summertime Blues

I got into The Who sometime at the end of 7^th grade—it followed my initial forays into rock-n-roll in 1980-81 that began with The Beatles and then morphed into The Doors, because I was in 7^th grade and that was the law! And then I tested the waters of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith and Lynyrd Skynyrd and, a short time after that, The Rolling Stones.

But then came The Who. And along with The Beatles, who I’d gotten into in the Summer of 1980 prior to 7^th grade and became a full-on fanatic about (chronicled here), this was the only band in my pre-age 18 years that I developed a legitimate obsession with. Sure, I would later become obsessed with Peter Gabriel (at age 18-19) R.E.M. (at age 19-20) and the Replacements (also age 20). And my deep and abiding love of Bruce Springsteen rightfully began sometime around my 17^th birthday, but even Bruce was a slow build that took place over 3-4 years before finally exploding in the late 1980s. 

But this was different – like with R.E.M. and the Replacements would become and the Beatles were before them, this was a band whose music I just had to gobble up all at once. Once I’d listened to three, maybe four tracks that my friend’s older brother played for me (“My Generation,” “Happy Jack,” “Magic Bus” and, I think, “Pinball Wizard” – all of which came from the 1972 compilation Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy), I had to hear not just more, but all. There wasn’t a moment to waste. I had to hear it all.

I went to Marty’s Music Mart in my hometown (Bloomfield, CT – the store would later sell out to the up and coming Strawberries chain, which remains the single most awesome record store chain in history and there can be no argument about that) and bought the new Face Dances and the decidedly old Live at Leeds. Why did I start there? I think it’s all they had. In the next few weeks I would add Who’s Next, The Who Sings My Generation, compilations The Kids Are Alright and the aforementioned Meaty, The Who By Numbers and Who Are You. Tommy I would receive as a Bar Mitzvah gift from my brothers, and Quadrophenia would later be purchased with Bar Mitzvah money. Some of the earlier albums were (forgive me, industry) recorded off of friends’ records, like The Who Sell Out. I even bought It’s Hard the day it came out in 1982. I was a full-on Who junkie.

What was it that appealed to me so viscerally? I think it was the danger, something I didn’t hear in the Beatles (although later, when I developed a better ear, it was there plain as day) and certainly not The Doors (that was faux danger, and by the time I hit 14 I was done with them). There was a ferocity about them that somehow didn’t take away from their musicality. The stories and the lore—the smashed instruments, the insane Keith Moon, Roger Daltrey’s muscles, the fact that they were recorded as the loudest band ever, even the tragedy in Cincinnati—added a layer of menace that, having not heard a trace of punk rock yet, was entirely new to me. Daltrey’s scream at the apex of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” was the single scariest and coolest thing I’d ever heard. John Entwistle’s lightning fast bass fill during “My Generation” made me want to play the bass just to learn how to do that (I never did). Everything Keith Moon did wowed me. Every power chord that Townshend hit inspired me. This was my band.

And it’s funny, because the other day I was trying to think back on the song that started it all. With so many bands I can pinpoint the very song that got me hooked—with the Beatles it was “Come Together,” with R.E.M. it was, oddly, “Time After Time,” with the Replacements it was “Talent Show” and with Bruce it was “Hungry Heart.” But The Who? I never really could recall.

Until last week, I did. And it should have been obvious, because it came off the first album of theirs I ever bought. The interesting thing was it wasn’t their song, but a cover. A live cover.

Great rock-n-roll cover songs is a favorite topic of mine. I love reading lists about the Greatest Covers ever. I love seeing these songs that were re-done so perfectly that the covering band basically came to own them. “Twist and Shout” just became a Beatles song. “All Along the Watchtower” just became a Jimi Hendrix song. Even “Jersey Girl” is more associated these days with Springsteen than its estimable author Tom Waits.

But for my money, this is my favorite cover song ever. And no, it was never done in-studio. Which is maybe why it eluded many “Best of” lists. But this is the sound of a band taking a truly great rock-n-roll song—to me this is a legitimate contender for the first punk rock classic ever written—and making it all their own.

Just listen to it. Moonie seems to take flight about halfway through, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he actually did. Daltrey’s voice is as commanding as any lead singer's has ever been. The Ox gets to do his playful on the chorus, yet gives the song a spine made of pure steel. And Townshend’s work on those little staccato fills between the verses is simply stunning. Not to mention the high harmonies, the inimitable power chords and, lest we forget, maybe the most shocking, turn-on-a-dime key change I have ever heard (at the 2:25 mark).

I’m not exactly the Who fanatic today I was from, say, 1981 to 1985. That would be impossible. But there’s a reason I loved them so and always will admire them. And there’s a reason they belong on the shortest of short lists of the Greatest Rock-n-Roll Bands ever.

“Summertime Blues,” which had been done to sheer perfection a decade earlier by Eddie Cochran yet somehow they seized for their own, explains why.