Apparently, the emergence of punk during the 1970s represented a caesura in the history of modern popular music because it marked the final triumph of “the people’s music” – the equivalent of “the audience invading the stage”, according to the music journalist Ian MacDonald. Ever since The Beatles, MacDonald claims, the professional songwriters of the music industry had seen their preeminence threatened by self-trained amateurs writing their own songs. Punk represented the apotheosis of this development, basically because most of the punk bands sucked as musicians, but they still wanted to (and now could) participate and ‘say something’. So they did whatever the fuck they wanted with their instruments – to a degree, of course, because despite this apparent anarchy, punk had a defining, austere, abrasive, actually somewhat minimalist style.
What does this brief digression into punk rock have to do with The Who’s My Generation, an album that predated the emergence of punk by a decade? Well, according to Pete Townsend, The Who were the godfathers of punk, and My Generation represented the first stirrings of an identifiably punk sound and aesthetic. Having now listened to it, I’m not sure how much punk there really is on this album. A lot of it is pop rock or maudlin blues – the buzzsaw-esque guitar sound of The Clash or The Sex Pistols is conspicuous by its absence, though it does raise its head on some of the rockier songs. Maybe calling The Who the “godfathers of punk” is more of a commentary on their style or attitude, because they had some of the energy of punk, in terms of their swagger, abrasiveness, self-destructiveness, and tendency to smash things up on stage.
Fuck knows. Anyway, whether or not you consider it the advent of punk, heavy metal, or whatever, My Generation is another one of those pioneering sixties albums that everyone recommends, but which I doubt I’ll ever subject myself to again after this review. In 2023, it sounds dated and second rate in a way that the Beatles stuff of the same era does not. Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”, for example, is basically a Who song, written thirty years after My Generation – but it’s utterly superior to anything on this album. Of course, because it came later, and the Who were revolutionary, etc. etc., but why would I ever listen to the inferior product? There’s simply no reason to revisit this stuff, unless you want a history lesson, which I do, apparently.
The furthest I will go is to admit that half of this album is kind of interesting. The rockier, more cocksure, one might say punkier songs are undoubtedly the highlights, especially those that sound so thoroughly of their time. The opener “Out in the Street” quite effectively conjures the spirit of mid-60s Britain as we like to imagine it, a raffish mod strolling through London on a Saturday evening as the sun is setting and the bars are filling. Very swinging sixties, but not much peace and love here – more a dirty, coquettish, Stones-esque obstreperousness.
The same can be said of the songs that might be considered ‘social commentary’ (another phenomenon that punk would go on to fully embellish). Obviously, the title track is great and timeless, and it’s clear why this would make such an impact in the 60s, after a world war and a decade of cookie-cutting suburban boredom. Must have been particularly pertinent in Germany, where all of the stern-faced elders were in fact ex-Nazis. Either way, it captures the dawning of an identifiable youth culture (and the very concept of being a teenager) which might be plausibly located in the 1960s. “The Kids are Alright” is not very punky, but its lyrics are a kind of social commentary, presumably about hippies fleeing the urban sprawl to return to the land, where the kids are alright, and where communal love reins.
Then there are the nastier hard rock numbers. “It’s Not True” is amusing: a raucous, swaggering attack on the press with some delightful lyrics. Definitely a step up in sophistication from another broadside against the press, the Stereophonics “Mr. Writer”, which was written over three decades earlier and is anemic and inarticulate by comparison. “A Legal Matter” is about a divorce, in which an embattled husband flees his battle-axe of a wife and the drudgery of their marriage. Fantastic lyrics, and the sound is satisfyingly abrasive. “The Ox”, meanwhile, sounds like Black Sabbath before Black Sabbath existed. Not very listenable, but maybe historically significant.
Unfortunately, if you look away from these proto-punk songs, the rest of My Generation sucks. In my opinion, it all starts to go badly wrong when they abandon the rambunctious rock and indulge in maudlin, white-boys-play blues, with whiney lyrics about failed relationships that look like they were written for teenage girls – or, perhaps, written by teenage girls. Here I would include “I Don’t Mind”, “The Good’s Gone”, and “Please Please Please”. Maybe the record company stepped in and reminded them where the money was, but Christ, “Oops I Did it Again” is more sophisticated than this drivel.
This persists throughout the album’s punishingly dull middle section. “Much Too Much” sees Daltrey complaining that his girlfriend’s love is too ‘heavy’, perhaps because she’s obese, or maybe this is the forgettable 60’s rock equivalent of TLC’s “Waterfalls”. “La-La-La-Lies” takes aim not at some unreliable harlot, but at a backstabbing friend, like a poor man’s version of Depeche Mode’s “The Things You Said”. If you think about what Bob Dylan was writing at around the same time, this High School shit is embarrassing.
With all that said, the dichotomy I’m suggesting here between interesting and enjoyable rock songs vs crappy bluesy relationship songs doesn’t quite hold up with respect to the closer, “Instant Party”, which fits into neither category. It’s about some poor unfortunate soul being destroyed by his obsessions. It could be about forlorn love, it could be about a burning and dangerous ambition, it could be about an addiction – and The Who were plagued by plenty of those throughout their long career. Either way, it’s a great and disturbing end to the album, and an unsettling premonition of the various disasters and tragedies that would befall the band throughout the following decade and beyond. Maybe they actually invented post-punk…
Overall, I find the tinny sixties production of My Generation to be eminently off-putting, even when the songs are interesting. I don’t know if it’s even fair to link it to the sixties, because Rubber Soul, recorded the same year, sounds much better, much cleaner than this. Not every band had the resources or innovative élan of The Beatles, of course, but I’m not a music historian, I’m just a punter, so the charm of this album is rather lost on me. What I will say is that the hard, loud sound you can hear on “Out in the Street”, the title track, and some of the other, heavier songs probably does represent the invention of something new and enormously influential in music. Does that mean they invented punk and heavy metal? Well, they certainly chipped in, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
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Highlights: “Out in the Street”, “My Generation”, “Instant Party”