![\"Pete](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pete-Townshend-The-Who-Musician-Guitarist-2025-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Thu 27 November 2025 17:30, UK <\/p>\n
When Pete Townshend<\/a> first joined The Who, he was never that concerned with their longevity all that much. <\/p>\n As far as he was concerned, bands of their calibre only stuck around for a few years, so it was a logical conclusion for him to throw caution to the wind and then end up back at art school a few years after the singles dried up. But while the public had a bit more to say about the band\u2019s classics, Townshend felt that a lot of records weren\u2019t near the standard they set for themselves.<\/p>\n Then again, no one is a better critic of an artist\u2019s work than the artist themselves. As much as people like Oasis hype themselves up as one of the greatest bands in the world, even they are sure to have their days when they are a little bit insecure about whether they\u2019ve created a masterpiece or a piece of auditory trash whenever it\u2019s time for them to throw their songs out into the world.<\/p>\n But while Townshend always saw his job as a songwriter as a craft, it wasn\u2019t like he was going to make anything subpar for the hell of it. Tommy and Quadrophenia are brilliant rock operas that tell fantastic tales from beginning to end, and when you look at the rest of the band, they respond in kind to nearly every single power chord or pick scrape that Townshend ever made on record.<\/p>\n Even when Townshend had one of his ideas completely mangled, the band still found ways to work around it. We\u2019ll never know what Lifehouse<\/a> could have been like if it was released as intended, but Who\u2019s Next is still one of the most airtight set of songs in all of classic rock, especially when they hit tracks like \u2018Behind Blue Eyes\u2019 and the mammoth closer \u2018Won\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u2019.<\/p>\n Although Townshend could have taken all the credit if he wanted to, he never forgot the power that they had as a band before anything else. Roger Daltrey was the best voice to sing all their songs, and with John Entwistle and Keith Moon driving the rhythm section, they were practically unstoppable when making albums like Live at Leeds. So when Moon passed away, Townshend felt that the band weren\u2019t being entirely truthful when they started making albums like Face Dances.<\/p>\n