Currently British rock legends The Who are making their last rounds as a band on their farewell tour. Throughout their impressive career, they've racked up a lot of accolades. Roger Daltrey, the band's lead singer was honored with the Music Industry Trusts Award in 2016. The band earned 25 Top-40 singles and 15 Top-10 albums, countless tours, and tons of industry clout.
The band's guitarist, Pete Townshend, 80, made waves as well with his "unapologetic" guitar smashing antics and opinions. In fact, there was once a time he even dared to brandish the talent of one of the most beloved bands in history, The Beatles.
In an interview during the '60s, Townshend put forth his opinion on pop music and led him down a bit of a rabbit hole.
“What has got quality in the pop business?” he pondered. “What’s got quality in anything? It’s just a matter of standards. In the pop business, we’re lucky in that there are no standards.”
A young woman then asked if that applied to the beloved Beatles, who at the time were putting out their sixth studio album Rubber Soul.
“But wouldn’t you say the Beatles and people like that have a certain musical quality?” she questions.
“Actually, this afternoon, John [Entwistle] and I were listening to a stereo LP of the Beatles in which the voices come out of one side and the backing track comes out of the other,” Townshend said. “When you actually hear the backing tracks of the Beatles without their voices, they’re flippin’ lousy.”
This was more of a reflection on the state of recording The Beatles had to endure in their early career versus The Who.
Later on, Townshend professed his love for the Beatles like everyone else.
"I just loved them. They were joyful, they were funny," he said years later, while admitting, "They were more a pop group than I would have liked."
Related: Legendary Rocker, 81, Admits They’ve Been ‘Swindling Fans’ for Decades
What Paul McCartney Thought of The Who
On the flip side, Paul McCartney has repeatedly praised The Who. While introducing Townshend at the Les Paul Award ceremony in 2012, McCartney shared: “Congratulations on getting the Les Paul Award, we all know you deserve it. Because man, we go back and I have so many great memories of you and the band. Your music, seeing you on TV doing ‘My Generation,’ seeing you live playing. To this day, you’re just great.”
Years later, McCartney revealed that The Who even inspired The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” “I remember, with The Who, I read once that Townshend, he was talking to a newspaper. He said: ‘We just done the dirtiest, loudest, filthiest record ever!’ I went, ‘Wow, we gotta do that. We can get louder, filthier and dirtier.’ So I go into the studio and say this to the guys, and that was ‘Helter Skelter,’” McCartney recalled on Marc Maron’s podcast in 2018.
Clearly, despite Townshend’s early critique, there’s been nothing but mutual respect between these two iconic bands.
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