The album which set The Who on their way to rock and roll stardom, this is often seen as one of the defining mod albums of the 1960's. The album cover shows the band as fresh-faced young mods, vastly different to their rough rock persona they'd acquire in subsequent years. As a debut album, it's absolutely superb with a good mix of a few blues covers, coupled with mostly original songs. The surprising thing about this album is how 'poppy' many of their songs sound. It's easy to forget that in their early years the band was mostly a singles band and many of the songs here feel like such things, such as 'Substitute' or 'Pictures of Lily'. Yet, even in these early days there is still a raw, loud sound often associated with The Who in the background thanks to Keith's manic drumming. Roger's voice is light years away from his lion's roar of later years and this unfortunately affects the two James Brown covers which are the weakest efforts by far. Along with the previous album on this list, the title track is the very best. One of the greatest rock songs of all time, Pete's lyrics show the full force of 1960's youth culture anger with brilliant lyrics such as the infamous line, 'I hope I die before I get old.' Coupled with some simply insane drumming from Moon and the magnificent bass solo from Entwistle, it's not a bad way to break onto the music scene at all. Best Song: 'My Generation'- a generation's anthem, still popular today.
I'm Will an 18 year old archaeology student at Durham University. I have a particular interest in the wonderful world of Doctor Who as well as science fiction, fantasy and geekdom in general.
