The prog-rock album Pete Townshend called a “masterpiece”
Pete Townshend has rarely been quiet about much for very long. His ability to speak with vicious clarity both helped and hindered him in his quest to become a pop star. It helped in all the ways a column-inch grabbing caustic tongue can, but also hindered him, as a lot of his ire over the years has been aimed at his fellow bandmates. But, in truth, The Who were on the right path fairly quickly.
In 1965, The Who joined the British invasion with the release of their debut single, ‘I Can’t Explain’. While the song’s success in reaching the UK top ten was impressive, it was soon eclipsed by the monumental, generation-defining impact of ‘My Generation’. With Roger Daltrey stuttering the iconic line, “I hope I die before I get old,” and Townshend smashing his guitars onstage, The Who quickly became one of the most important bands in the countercultural movement of the 1960s, influencing both sides of the Atlantic.
Some successful pop acts of the time would make a couple of hits before fading into non-existence or obscurity. Fortunately for The Who, their early garage rock-adjacent singles were just the very start of something seismic, durable and artistically satisfying. After releasing their successful debut album, My Generation, in 1965, The Who left behind their early sound to embrace their instrumental dexterity and the profoundly spiritual and narrative-driven side of Townshend’s songwriting abilities.
A Quick One, released in 1966, was something of a launchpad which exhibited several aspects of The Who’s enduring legacy. Firstly, the song ‘Boris the Spider’, credited to bassist John Entwistle, was a breakthrough in rock music, widely considered the first heavy metal song. Of course, The Who was never considered a metal band, but their penchant for heavy beats and crashing solos inspired Paul McCartney to flirt with the emerging genre in the 1968 Beatles track ‘Helter Skelter’.
Secondly, A Quick One exhibited Townshend’s first recorded experimentation with tight narratives. The ten-minute suite ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’ is regarded by some as the band’s first rock opera, which paved the way towards Tommy‘s landmark success in 1969. Between these two operatic works, the band released The Who Sell Out, which captured the psychedelic zeitgeist of 1967.
With their involvement in so many musical ventures in the late 1960s and early ’70s, The Who could have easily been associated with various schools of rock. Thanks to Entwistle’s bass virtuosity, Moon’s percussive brilliance, and Townshend’s intricate themes, they could have shared space with prog-rock pioneers like Led Zeppelin. Although they were rarely labelled as such, Tommy was highly influential on the prog-rock wave, and their pioneering use of synthesisers in tracks like ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again‘ further aligned them with the genre’s experimental nature.
Speaking to The Toronto Sun in 2019, Townshend claimed that The Who’s 1970 album Live at Leeds “invented” heavy metal. The 15-minute live version of ‘My Generation’ certainly brought a new edge to the band’s sound prescient of imminent masterpieces of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. “We sort of invented heavy metal with Live at Leeds,” the guitarist said. However, many would argue that, since Sabbath already had their debut album out at the time of release, ‘Boris the Spider’ is a more likely candidate for the title.
The Who’s live sound in the late 1960s may have sounded metallic, but their studio work was definitely more comparable to that of emerging prog-rock artists. In 1969, many professionals and music fans began to compare The Who to Robert Fripp’s formative band, King Crimson. Like The Who, King Crimson valued complex composition and evocative themes and also had a huge influence on the heavy metal wave, especially with the enduring classic ’21st Century Schizoid Man’.
After just a few months of existence, King Crimson made a major breakthrough when The Rolling Stones invited them to perform at their iconic free concert on July 5th, 1969, at Hyde Park, London. The iconic concert was guitarist Mick Taylor’s first public performance with the Stones following Brian Jones’ dismissal and subsequent death. The occasion exposed Crimson to a congregation of half a million people. Keen to strike while the iron was hot, they entered the studio to record their debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King.
In the Court of the Crimson King remains King Crimson’s most seminal masterpiece, thanks to its harrowing, iconic album cover art and the similarly unsettling music within. As one of the most critically and commercially successful landmark albums of the early prog-rock wave, it is awash with originality and eclecticism, from the aggressive ’21st Century Schizoid Man’ to the bright and breezy ‘I Talk To The Wind’.
Just a couple of months after the album’s arrival, Rolling Stone asked Townshend to comment on King Crimson. His appraisal of the band and its debut album couldn’t have been more complimentary. “An uncanny masterpiece,” he announced. “Cautiously rampant guitar solos scream all over you, but never miss a note. Silent drums drum, and a million bloody mellotrons whine and soar like sirens down a canyon. Endless, or at least seemingly endless passages through extemporised classic non-effervescent secret-keeping become boring.”
After likening the maniacal vocal in ’21st Century Schizoid Man’ to that of a zombie (not Colin Blunstone), Townshend noted the record’s highly progressive nature. “You must have gathered its good,” he wrote. “Undeniably. But in some ways too good too soon if thats possible. You will only know what I’m getting at when you hear it for yourself, it’s akin to being a ritual it really isn’t. The ritual is future worship. The adulation of unnecessary perfection.”
