10 Perfect Albums That Started Heavy Metal

As far as Pete Townshend was concerned, rock was about more than just upbeat party music you could dance to on a Friday night. Though the Who grew up in the Mod scene of England, Pete had understood the power that moved something in your gut when you heard rock and roll, and creating the first rock opera with Tommy was his way of trying to put rock and roll on the same stage as classical music. Any rock band worth a damn is all about stage performance though, and The Who could still thrash the place to the ground when they wanted to.

Taking a break in between recording what would become Who's Next, Live At Leeds has some of the most raw performances that the Who would ever create onstage. Having already been seasoned veterans after their amazing turn at Woodstock, pulling into this English university was cause for mayhem, as the Who took old blues tunes like Young Man Blues and Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues and beefed them up to outlandish proportions, sticking to the original while also throwing in bits of sonic mayhem, from Keith Moon's drum fills to Pete going for broke on every single chord.

Without having many pieces of Tommy on the actual album, this was the Who's reminder to their fanbase that even though they could take themselves a little too seriously some of the time, they were still a damn good rock band. They had made rock an important part of art culture, but you don't need to be telling a story to tear an entire venue to the ground.