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The Who
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
The Who was formed in 1964 in London out of an earlier group, The Detours. The classic line-up consisted of the singer Roger Daltrey, the guitarist Pete Townshend, the bassist John Entwistle and the drummer Keith Moon. With The Kinks and the Small Faces, The Who was the band of the mods, the young people with scooters, sharp suits and a taste for soul.
Music and breakthrough
After I Can't Explain came My Generation in 1965, which reached number 2 in England and became the mods' anthem. On stage Townshend smashed his guitar and Moon kicked over his drum kit. Townshend began to think bigger and bigger. Tommy (1969) was a rock opera about a deaf, dumb and blind boy, and that same year the band played at Woodstock. Live at Leeds (1970) is regarded as one of the best live albums in rock. On Who's Next (1971) synthesizers are central, which was still new in rock at the time. Quadrophenia (1973) is a concept album about a young mod in the 1960s.
Influence
Moon died in 1978 and Entwistle in 2002; Daltrey and Townshend carried on. The film Quadrophenia (1979), with the riots between mods and rockers in Brighton, made mod culture popular again. Townshend also inspired The Beatles: when McCartney read that Townshend called I Can See for Miles (1967) the loudest and rawest song by The Who, he wanted to top it and wrote Helter Skelter. The Britpop bands of the 1990s looked back to The Who and the mods. In 1990 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Line-up
Core members only; touring and session musicians are not listed.
Classic line-up 1964–1978
- Roger Daltrey vocals
- Pete Townshend guitar
- John Entwistle bass
- Keith Moon drums
Kenney Jones era 1978–1982
- Roger Daltrey vocals
- Pete Townshend guitar
- John Entwistle bass
- Kenney Jones drums
reunion 1996–2002
- Roger Daltrey vocals
- Pete Townshend guitar
- John Entwistle bass
- Zak Starkey drums
Duo 2002–present
- Roger Daltrey vocals
- Pete Townshend guitar
Listening
My Generation · The Who, 1965Apple Music ↗
Discography
Studio albums
- 1965My Generation
- 1966A Quick One
- 1967The Who Sell Out
- 1969Tommy
- 1971Who’s Next
- 1973Quadrophenia
- 1975The Who by Numbers
- 1975Tommy (soundtrack)
- 1978Who Are You
- 1981Face Dances
- 1982It’s Hard
- 1993Tommy (soundtrack)
- 2006Endless Wire
- 2019WHO
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- Mixtape 2: Youth Cultures 1950-1980NL Reader
- Mixtape 3: The BeatlesNL Reader
- Mixtape 13: From Cassette to CloudNL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- British beat and the British Invasion Genre
Bands such as The Who belonged to the mods in London.
- Britpop Genre
Around 1993 British bands deliberately chose a different direction from American grunge: back to the Beatles, The Kinks, The Who and the mods.
- Tommy Album
The Who released Tommy as a double album and as one of the first rock operas on 19 May 1969.
See also
- A Quick One
- The Who Sell Out
- Who’s Next
- The Who by Numbers
- Who Are You
- Face Dances
- WHO
- British beat and the British Invasion