It also happened that Townshend’s caustic views came at a time when the demand for knowing such perspectives was at its peak. Townshend was always aware of the extra publicity his comments could gain The Who, the real scything words seemed to come straight from his heart.
While The Beatles and the Stones were keen to play the pop game, Townshend always saw fit to disrupt the normalcy of music.
“To me, rock was the Rolling Stones, and before that, Chuck Berry, and before that, maybe a few people who lived in fields in Louisiana,” Townshend said. “But I can’t really include the Beatles in that. The Beatles were over with Herman’s Hermits. That’s not rock & roll.”
The Beatles were ‘a pop phenomenon’ and ‘light music’ but not rock'n roll.
Townshend, never one to shy away from speaking his mind with tape rolling, said in a interview that The Beatles sounded “flippin’ lousy” when you head their music isolated from the vocals. It was nothing personal, of course.
Townshend was speaking to the Toronto Sun when he was asked about the deviation from the band’s early sound to the sonic nature of their most recent effort.
Instead of answering the question straight, Townshend saw this as the perfect opportunity to squeeze in a jab at Zeppelin: “It doesn’t sound like The Who from those early heavy metal years. We sort of invented heavy metal with (our first live album) Live at Leeds (1970). We were copied by so many bands, principally by Led Zeppelin, you know heavy drums, heavy bass, heavy lead guitar,” said Townshend, aiming at the iconic quartet.
“I don’t like a single thing that they have done, I hate the fact that I’m ever even slightly compared to them.”
He continued through gritted teeth: “I just never ever liked them. It’s a real problem to me cause as people I think they are really really great guys. Just never liked the band. And I don’t know if I have a problem, block too, because they, well that became so much bigger than The Who in so many ways, in their chosen field, I’ve never liked them.”
The Police-
Of course, Townshend would have a problem with The Police. The band fronted by Sting has always toed the line between pop, new wave and punk, and it’s a moniker that Townshend would happily apply to the group, but there is certainly one.
When New York’s WAXQ-FM tried to claim that The Police were themselves categorised under classic rock, Townshend couldn’t stand by: “They’re now calling The Police ‘classic rock.’ I don’t think so. The Police are punk. They’re a punk band. They’re not classic rock,” he recalled with a sneer.
The damning indictment may be on the polite side for Townshend, but there’s an undercurrent of disdain that’s unmissable. “You know, you’ve got the (Rolling) Stones and The Who. Classic rock – finished. It’s all over after that…this is just music. It’s not classic anything.”
