Featured Album

- AUG 14, 1971
- Who’s Next : Life House (Super Deluxe)
- 109 Songs
- Who's Next (Bonus Track Version) · 1971
- Who's Next (Deluxe Edition) · 1971
- Who's Next (Bonus Track Version) · 1971
- It's Hard (Bonus Track Version) · 1982
- 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of The Who · 1969
- Who's Next (Deluxe Edition) · 1971
- 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of The Who · 1978
- Who Are You (Bonus Track Version) · 1978
- The Who By Numbers (Bonus Track Version) · 1975
- Who's Next (Deluxe Edition) · 1971
Essential Albums
- The onetime mods define ‘70s hard rock with these explosive performances.
- 1969
Artist Playlists
- From R&B-lovin' mods to the elder statesmen of rock.
- Who came next? Everyone from Van Halen to Blur.
- Take an alternate route through their amazing journey.
- The rock, soul, and surf mavericks that fueled the magic bus.
- Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend join Zane to discuss the new reissue of The Who Sell Out.
More To Hear
- Revisiting legendary shows in Super Bowl Halftime history.
- Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend talk about the deluxe edition of 'The Who Sell Out.'
- The origins of the Monterey Pop Festival and Coachella FAQs.
About The Who
Fans who hitched their wagons to The Who's star early on were in for a long, wild ride. After brief stints as the Detours and High Numbers, lead singer Roger Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle, guitarist Pete Townshend (all schoolmates in West London), and drummer Keith Moon released their debut single as The Who, “I Can’t Explain,” in 1964. The pop-art-meets-maximum-R&B commandos quickly developed into rock's most dynamic live act, and a string of galvanizing hit singles—including "My Generation," "Substitute," and "I Can See for Miles"—followed, filled with guitars and drums sacrificed to the gods of feedback and distortion. (A prelude, perhaps, to The Who’s unparalleled post-show hotel-room demolition.) The band’s kinetic alchemy roiled throughout 1970's Live at Leeds, as Daltrey's working-class swagger and Townshend's windmilling power chords tottered on the rhythmic edifice of Entwistle's stealth virtuosity and Moon's inspired percussive lunacy. Their studio work displayed no less bravado and even more sophistication. Townshend's spiritually motivated Tommy took the rock opera mainstream in 1969, but it was 1973's Quadrophenia, a marvelous mirror gaze into their mod-movement roots, that became the musical masterpiece they would tour into the 21st century. Disillusionment and depression fueled some of Townshend's finest music, including much of 1975's The Who By Numbers, but tragedy followed with Moon’s death in 1978. Townshend broke up the band five years later, only to reunite for a 25th-anniversary jaunt in 1989—for all his misgivings, the show had to go on. Entwistle died the night before a 2002 US tour, but Daltrey and Townshend forged ahead with a replacement, encouraged by Entwistle’s son. In 2019, more than half a century after The Who proclaimed "I hope I die before I get old," the band released Who, a raucous rumination on the fates of aging rock stars.
- HOMETOWN
- London, England
- FORMED
- February 1964