In a Rolling Stone review, Lenny Kaye described Quadrophenia as “The Who at their most symmetrical, their most cinematic, and ultimately their most maddening.” After a few listens, I agree with Kaye’s characterization. Quadrophenia is essentially two a-list songs that bookend a double album—that’s the symmetry. In between “The Real Me” and “Love Reign O’er Me,” The Who deliver their best rock opera—that’s the cinematic quality. And, like Joyce’s Ulysses or Davis’ Bitches Brew, Quadrophenia’s genius is almost impenetrable and, therefore, maddening. 

Produced by The Who and written completely by guitarist Pete Townshend, Quadrophenia was released on October 23, 1973 and has since sold over a million copies in the United States. 

Quadrophenia self-identifies as a rock opera set to the backdrop of the mod/rocker cultural conflict of the mid-60s. While cultural historians, like Stanley Cohen, have debunked the veracity of the mod/rocker conflict, what it boiled down to was a clash of two sub-cultural mindsets. Rockers wore leather, listened to rock music, and rode motorcycles. Mods wore frilly clothes, listened to rock music with a swing, and rode Vespa scooters. If Austin Powers and James Dean went fisticuffs at a pub one night, you’d pretty much have a mod/rocker conflict. Behind this backdrop, Townshend tells the story of a mod named Jimmy in the midst of a coming of age struggle. 

For me, Quadrophenia works first as a musical work and second as a narrative work. I am drawn to the power of the singles, the instrumental segues that recast the motifs from the singles, and the hooks of the songs in between. “Bell Boy” and “Cut My Hair” often get stuck in my head after I listen to the album in its entirety. I recognize the narrative within Quadrophenia, but also hear a collection of songs that work independently of a story. 

Townshend recognized Quadrophenia as the last great album from The Who. It’s definitely the last record with focused drumming from Keith Moon. Granted, many post Quadrophenia albums, like The Who by Numbers and Who Are You, are fine recordings. The difference is that The Who never pursued anything grander in scope than Quadrophenia. That contrast says less about the integrity of the band and more about the monstrous ambit of The Who’s finest hour. 

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The Who makes three appearances in this album exploration. The Who has made magnificent albums, but, so often, compilations cherry pick the best single moments from those albums. An anthology cannot express the width and breadth of an epic like Tommy or Quadrophenia. Who’s Next contains the Greatest Hits staples “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Baby O’Riley,” and “Behind Blue Eyes,” while offering a solid host of album cuts. As with My Generation, it’s been easy for me to pass over Who’s Next because its singles are so ambitious. 

Produced by The Who and Glyn Johns and released on August 14, 1971, Who’s Next has sold over 3 million copies. While the album works just fine as a traditional album, Who’s Next was culled from the ashes of a concept album that was to be called Lifehouse. Lifehouse was to be a futuristic rock opera and follow up to their highly successful rock opera, Tommy. Townsend’s writing process was, in part, feeding biographic data into nascent computer technology.

The most notable difference between Who’s Next and earlier Who albums is the use of the synthesizer. Townsend intended for the arpeggiated synthesizer parts to be in the foreground on many tracks. The synth offers compelling textures to a spacious and bombastic album. Keith Moon’s drumming challenges all who would subsequently get behind a drum set. Chances are, no drummer will ever approach the drums with such explosive musicality. Daltrey’s vocals on “Behind Blue Eyes” are splendid and Entwistle’s vocal, performance, and writing contributions are significant. 

The Who’s Next album cover is as iconic as its music. Entwistle, Townshend, Moon, and Daltrey are standing near a trash pylon, each having just peed on it and each zipping up his fly. Legend has it that the band just happened to be passing by the area and randomly chose the site. Three years prior, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey debuted and featured a dark monolith that eluded explanation. No one knew what it meant. The Who didn’t care what it meant, what with having pissed on a similar monolith. 

I love the space and size of the album. It’s one of the first rock albums that sounded huge from the opening notes through the end. The synth parts on “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” hypnotize me every time I hear them. Daltrey gives rock n’roll one of its best vocal howls at the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” At one point, someone licensed the song “Bargain” to a car commercial and it ruined the song for me. Whenever I hear it, I see slow motion wheels peeling out in the desert. That’s not a blemish on the album itself, just in how it’s been used. 

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The Who’s prodigious catalog of amazing music makes it easy to overlook the brilliance of their debut album, My Generation.¹ When I think of The Who, my first thoughts go to Pete Townshend’s iconic guitar windmills, Keith Moon’s ferocious drumming, and Roger Daltrey’s epic vocal howls. My Generation reminds me that–before the grandeur of their 1970s stadium glory–The Who were the champions of the mod scene. Their performances of original songs and U.S. R&B classics, all captured on My Generation, were the soundtrack of many a mid-Sixties Austin Powers-esque party in the London swinger scene.

Released on December 3, 1965 and produced by Shel Talmy, My Generation shows off Pete Townshend’s songwriting, Keith Moon’s innovative drumming, John Entwistle’s melodic approach to low end, and Roger Daltrey’s vocal fire. It’s an all out tour-de-force—four creative energies creating something greater than themselves. “My Generation,” the album’s notable single, is nestled at the end of side one, surrounded by only three cover songs, two of which were penned by the enigmatic James Brown.  

For whatever reason, My Generation and its contemporaneous singles, “I Can’t Explain” and “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” found a special place in the mantle of mod culture. Mods were a special subculture of London that dressed well, listened to sophisticated music, took lots of amphetamines, and drove Vespa scooters. Their archenemies were the Rockers, who dressed in leather and drove tough motorcycles. The mods were likely drawn to Keith Moon’s flamboyant drumming and the band’s sophisticated harmonic core. 

My Generation is an album I regret not listening to sooner. It shows the heavy influence of American R&B on a rock band that would later go on to push the boundaries of the concept album and deliver quite a live show. But even on this first offering, The Who push to the outer limits of what had been done with music in 1965. Moon’s drumming is the heaviest yet seen anywhere up until that point. The closing song, “The Ox,” contains distorted guitar tones that predate and sound similar to Jimi Hendrix’s sound. 

The Who captured something remarkable with My Generation. Townshend’s songwriting and Moon’s drumming stand out as the most notable elements of the album. Yet Entwistle and Daltry deliver an elegance as well. The weakness of the album is “A Legal Matter,” which has Townshend singing lead vocals on a song bemoaning being married and the droll day to day life of raising children. The song seems out of place on an otherwise mod album. If the 1960s weren’t so single oriented, including the two singles that preceded My Generation in lieu of the album’s minor blemish would have improved the album for me.   

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Bonus: Live footage of “My Generation” from 1965. Note how awesome Keith Moon’s drumming is.