Icons of the 60s Part 4 - The Who

This is my final post on Icons of the 60's (the 70's are next) and what better band to end with than the The Who? The organisers behind the London 2012 Olympics thought so too, as The Who were the final act of the closing ceremony. Read on to explore the Godfathers of punk's legacy.

 

Formed in 1964, by members Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon, The Who were infamous for their energetic live performances and instrumental destruction. They sold over one hundred million records, and scored seventeen top ten albums and twenty seven top forty singles. Their contributions to rock include the power chord, the windmill strum, the Marshall stack and the guitar smash.

 

Other notable musicians from the decades that followed had nothing but praise for The Who, U2's Bono stated that "More than any other band, The Who were our role models." Queen's Brian May expressed in a simple statement that "They were my inspiration." Whilst Wayne Coyne (from The Flaming Lips) elongated his explanation commenting "I already believed in rock & roll, but seeing The Who really made me feel it. I knew I had to become a musician after that." Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder pointed out "The one thing that disgusts me about The Who is the way they smashed through every door in the uncharted hallway of rock'n'roll, without leaving much more than some debris for the rest of us to lay claim to."

 

Rolling Stone once said "Along with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, The Who completed the holy trinity of British rock." and they could not have been more accurate. The Who's legacy will continue.