Back some 40-odd years ago, The Who were the loudest rock band in the biz and one of the best. They were four highly talented musicians, taking some of the most introspective and well-crafted songs of their generation and turning them into arena-sized anthems. It was quite the feat, especially considering they didn’t really like each other.
Mat Snow’s new coffee-table book takes a look at the band’s long history, starting even before the High Numbers days, when they’d break out brass instruments and play a few jazz numbers at gigs. He goes through the many highs and lows: the twin triumphs of Tommy or Quadrophenia, the abandoned Lifehouse project and Moons death in 1978, the band’s nadir in the early 80s and breakup; the reunions and new records which fail to match the impact of their early music. It’s been 50 years, nothing has stopped this band and admittedly, it’s an interesting story.
Really, the story of the band is that of two people: Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry. Townshend wrote nearly all of their music, but Daltry was the face of the band, shouting into the microphone and playing their starring role in the musical version of Tommy. The other two personalities – Keith Moon and John Entwhistle – both come off as minor players in the group, people who didn’t write songs and played key roles but weren’t as important to their success. Which is probably fair, although a little misleading.
The thing about The Who is their best music was cinematic in a way their peers music wasn’t. Sure, you could put the Stones or the Beatles over a movie and have it work, but Townshend’s finest moments as a songwriter almost work as movies themselves. There is a world in his songs and not just the realized projects like Tommy, either. On Who’s Next, his scraps from Lifehouse shine with energy, ambition and life: crashing guitar chords, thundering bass, propulsive drumming and Daltry’s emotive singing.
It’s a thing that’s hard to explain on paper and although Snow tries, I don’t think he’s quite successful at it. Where’s he more successful is retelling the history of the band. He explains their rise – owing partly to an appearance on a BBC show called Ready Steady Go – and struggle to follow up on the explosive single “My Generation.”
As Snow explains, it took them a few years and a few tries to get things right. The mini-rock opera A Quick One While He’s Away flopped; early singles like “Pictures of Lily” or “Magic Bus” lacked the same punch as “My Generation” and stalled on the charts. An appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival helped, but they were upstaged by Jimi Hendrix’s infamous guitar-burning finale. (It would’ve been nice to have some photos from this set, but that’s being picky).
Over the years, Snow has interviewed the band multiple times and his insight into them comes in handy as the book shifts to their most interesting and creative years. He explains what separated Tommy from their earlier records – Townshend working with the rest of the band to find music that suited the group, not just himself – and gets into the albatross it became for them all; it became so popular it was hard for them to move on from.
In one of his most interesting sections, Snow gets into the collapsed Lifehouse project, explaining what Townshend was going for, how he was going for it and why he ultimately wasn’t able to pull it off. One of the great lost records, this epic from 1971 predicted the Internet and virtual reality, touched on environmental disaster and personal alienation and had some of the Who’s best songs. But, as Snow writes, it was doomed from the start:
“No one really grasped what Pete wanted to happen or even was going on about… they did understand that Pete needed to give himself a artistic challenge that would speak to his spiritual preoccupations as well as his creative ambition to stimulate the stream of great songs The Who needed to move on from Tommy and sustain their career.”
But, as would happen throughout their career, egos and personalities got in the way. John Entwistle recorded a solo record; Roger Daltrey tried to talk sense into Pete and Keith Moon descended into a haze of booze, pills and groupies. It was eventually cut down into Who’s Next – a clever title for a band trying to follow up on a classic – itself an instant classic.
Throughout the 70s, things got even crazier for the band. Snow takes readers through movies, stage musicals and out-of-control vices. In particular, Moon struggled with his addictions, passing out during shows and relapsing several times before his death in 1978. The band carried on, releasing a handful of records, but broke up in the early 80s. Snow gets into their messy end – he calls 1984’s Who’s Last listless, a pretty strong criticism for a celebratory book like this – and their endless reunions, reformations and re-releases.
There are moments where things seem odd, like when events are referenced well before they’re introduced in the text, but the oddest moment off comes when Snow deals with Townshend’s 2003 arrest. It’s a weird story to begin with, but Snows makes Townshend seem like a muckraking journalist (Snow claims Townshend was trying to make a point about banks) instead of a foolishly naïve person making a colossally stupid decision. And Snow’s insistence on giving props to the late 90s/early 2000s version of the bands is odd, to say the least: does 2006’s Endless Wire really “reward each new listen?”
Running a shade over 200 pages, Snow has lots of room to get into the band’s history and he does an ample job, both explaining their history and putting their music in context. It’s well supplied with photos, ranging from everything from old 7” singles to shots of the band in full flight to a fun photo of Daltrey screaming at a press conference.
While the band’s voices are notably absent – the only time Townshend is quoted at length is at the book’s end, for example – there is still a lot of information here. It would’ve been nice if it came with a CD of their greatest hits or a Spotify playlist, but again, that’s nitpicking. I don’t think it’ll turn you into a fan if you aren’t already, but the converted will probably love this.
