10 Bands That Started Hard Rock
6. The Who
As the '60s Revolution started to spread out, things seemed much more important than just a catchy pop song. Outside of the usual flower power schtick you were hearing from the Woodstock crowd, the subject matter of everyone from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones was getting a lot more hard-hitting, covering political topics that weren't nearly as acceptable as today. Though the Who threw their hat in the ring in terms of story songs, they hold the title for reaching the volume levels first.
In the early days, it would almost be difficult to pick out the Who's trademark Mod sound from the thousands of other bands on the scene...if not for the massive sound they made whenever they played. When Pete Townshend couldn't get the sound he heard in his head on the stage, he started to visit some of his friends in the amplifier business, who created some of the first Marshall stacks for him.
As much as something like My Generation might seem rudimentary on a regular acoustic guitar, it felt like it had the capacity to shake the Earth whenever it was blaring out of the Marshalls next to Keith Moon's thunderous drums. We may have seen these ambitions in full form on Tommy later on, but this is where your eardrums got their first real thrashing.