Bit of a parish notice this one, as you surely don't need the likes of me to tell you how good The Who were. That said, my opinion of them is somewhat unorthodox, in that I think they only started to get really good from 1971 onwards, and that what makes them so enjoyable is not their individual prowess as musicians, or even their much-vaunted dynamic interaction, but the thick, soupy, synthesized belching that formed the swampy underlay of their sound.
"Relay" is a classic example, blinking and buzzing and blowing steam like the kind of comedy mainframe computer owned by The Goodies, or the villains of Sixties spy movies like "The Billion Dollar Brain". The cameraman won't show their feet because they're all wearing wellies.
"Join Together" is another romp in the sewage bed, the thick clots of rhythmic effluent tugging at their ankles as they splatter themselves with fragrant clumps of harmonica and Jew's harp. I'm guessing that the mods had long abandoned them by this point...
"Who Are You" was their stinky masterpiece, a five-minute journey down the lower intestine, and perhaps the most flatulent record ever made. Contrary to popular belief The Who were at the absolute height of their putrescent powers when Keith Moon tragically died in 1978, and with the band thus debilitated, it was left to George Clinton alone to carry the methane-fuelled flame of colonic funk-rock into the Eighties.
As we say so often on this blog, we shall never see their like again....
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