Word: rocke
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...learn what had happened until after the concert. They were shattered, and, for a time, considered that in some way they might be responsible. The Who knows as well as its fans that, since the group's beginning, it has always lived at the outer limits of rock. That is the dangerous borderland where the best rock music is made, the music that lasts and makes a difference. Elvis Presley lived there. So still do Chuck Berry and John Lennon, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke and Jimi Hendrix died there...
...neck of his guitar into his amp, while Daltrey slammed his microphone against the stage and Entwistle held tight to his bass, playing stubbornly on like a shipwreck's lone survivor trying to keep dry in a leaking lifeboat. There was too much discussion about how all this was rock's reflection of Pop art, happenings and autodestruction, how the demolition was an action critique of material values. But until the destruction came to be expected and then required, all this razing was never phony. Anyone in the audience could tell those instruments were extensions of, even surrogates...
...lost none of its power. Townshend may have refined the song musically, shaped the message a little more deftly, as in Won't Get Fooled Again, but the spirit remains the same and just as impossible to tame. That spirit turns Won't Get Fooled Again into rock's best and most furious political manifesto. Its sardonic observations on the bicameral process ("The parting on the left/ Is now the parting on the right") and the bitter truth of its conclusion ("Meet the new boss/ Same as the old boss") make it a fine anthem for any election year, anywhere...
...Beatles fell prey to divisiveness, disarray. The Rolling Stones traveled fast, turned gangrenous. The Who kept its distance, stayed strong by staying stubborn, contentious. Buoyed by the great breaking wave of British rock during the '60s, the group managed to swim clear. "We've sometimes been able to hide behind bands like the Beatles and the Stones, who got so much flak," Townshend says. "Yet we were significantly stronger than other contemporaries. Stronger in live performance, for example. And much more daring with material...
...vital now, the new songs are as powerful as anything the punks or the new wave set down. There are other supergroups, like the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac, who turn out a kind of well-tooled pop that beats The Who in the charts. There are even other hard-rock groups, like Led Zeppelin, that lay down a kind of sugar-lined bombast that can razzle-dazzle the record buyer. The Who's cumulative sales exceed 20 million records. The members' individual wealth?Townshend, Entwistle and Daltrey are all millionaires several times over?is nothing to sulk about, even...