“Authentic to the cause”: The five artists Pete Townshend calls true to rock ‘n’ roll
There are high standards, then there are whatever Pete Townshend holds himself to. The Who guitarist, in his pedantic ways, claimed there are only two bands in history that can rightfully be termed ‘classic rock’. One of them is The Rolling Stones, and the other is The Who. And despite placing this duo on a lofty pedestal, he’s also criticised the two over the years, too. In fact, there are works by his own band that he positively hates.
However, what you can glean from this is that Townshend is a man who holds the sanctity of rock ‘n’ roll dear. “I was the child of the guy who played saxophone in a post-war dance band. He knew what his music was for – it was for post-war and it was for dancing with a woman that you might end up marrying. It was about romance, dreams, fantasy,” he told Apple Music.
Adding: “Music, even today, is about much more than that. It has a function which is to help us understand what is going on in the world and to help us understand what is going on inside us.” Very few artists reconcile this with the fervour that Townshend thinks such a notion deserves. Partly, this is because making good music is hard—it’s tricky enough to pull some neat chords together and lay over a catchy melody, let alone worry about what it truly says about the world as well.
In his view, there are only a handful of stars capable of staying true to this grander message of rock ‘n’ roll, a message he defined as thus: “Rock ‘n’ roll may not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them.” It’s a pithy little quote that amounts to tomes of meaning. And Townshend figured five musicians honour it. There are very few people truly authentic to the cause: “David Byrne. Mick Jagger. Neil Young. Joni Mitchell. Deborah Harry.“
Those were the only living rock stars that he told the New York Times he admired. Of course, there are the likes of Bob Dylan from folk circles, but when it comes to the purity of the genre that spawned him, this select clutch are the only ones keeping the spirit pure and staying true to the cause.
He says that these folks are “authentic to the perceived, accepted ideal of a rock star. Now, online, you’ll see a throwaway statement — ‘rock is dead’ — which is something that we in our genre have been considering since the ’70s.“ But has rock merely mutated?
After all, Byrne wouldn’t really be considered your archetypal ’70s star. Even Townshend himself says he feels like a “counterfeit“ when he tries embody the traditional perceptions of the role. So, we’re dealing with something a little more nebulous, it would seem.
“It’s about sport. It’s about entertainment as a physicality. It’s about an endurance test,“ he says. “It’s a part of what I bring to my table. I want to be fit, I want to be strong and I want to be able to move and sing and play conventionally. I’m talking about a performance standard that has risen out of the ashes of the halcyon years of rock ’n’ roll.“ Few folks would ever view the craft of making music in such gladiatorial terms, but, in truth, that is the lore that rock ‘n’ roll harks back to—and it is hard to argue with his choices on that front.
