1965 was a year where music changed forever. In America, three groups were changing the game. The Byrds basically invented the genre of folk rock. Bob Dylan shifted his sound to match The Byrds. And The Beach Boys were experimenting with using the studio itself as an instrument.
The Brits were trying to catch up with their American counterparts, but fusing their experimentation with a catchy and rocky sound. The Beatles were changing the game with their albums during that year, and The Rolling Stones had an incredible run of singles that would really hit a few years later. In the same category as these British bands was a group of ex-factory workers called The Who.
The Who were baffling. They would purposefully destroy their instruments on stage. They combined the angry style of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and the catchiness of The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love.” They were connected to America’s Black music scene, but they didn’t appropriate it like Elvis Presley or The Rolling Stones did.
The Who were very much a singles band, and when they made their debut album they used it as a way to elevate the two singles they were most proud of: “My Generation” and “The Kids Are Alright.” While the rest of the album is paced strangely and kind of hard to get into — the songs are very good, just not anything special — the two songs the album is built around are two of the greatest songs ever made.
“My Generation” is singer Roger Daltrey’s thesis statement. He stumbles and stutters his way through the anthemic lyrics which, for some reason, makes it much cooler. His vocals are both powerful and strange. The song runs at three minutes and 43 seconds, which made it way too long to be released as a single in the U.S. at first, but after bootlegged copies from the UK started circulating, their label folded and released it. It would become a huge hit. This song, with its loud overdriven outro and anti-establishment lyrics, made it the original blueprint for punk.
The other standout, “The Kids Are Alright,” is equally as exciting as the first. This song, with its DIY aesthetic and its hook, made it incredibly influential on punk and eventually grunge. This song would inspire some of the darkest grunge songs by artists like Sonic Youth.
The Who’s “My Generation” became an instant classic. When The Who became a world-class touring act in the early 70s and were making rock operas, “My Generation” felt like the past. But when The Who and their stadium rock peers were public enemy number one to the punk crowd, this album felt like a completely different artist from the future.