One of the major bands of the rock & roll era, the Who straddled the gap separating art-pop and hard-rock, creating kinetic, exploratory music that expanded the lexicon of rock & roll. Arriving during the second wave of the British Invasion, the Who came out of the UK's R&B-besotted Mod scene and married that groove to the crunching power chords pioneered by the Kinks. After their debut single "I Can't Explain" cracked the UK Top Ten in 1965, the band quickly gained a reputation for their volcanic live performances, which could escalate into Pete Townshend shattering his guitar while Keith Moon pushed over his drum kit. This volatility represented a new, dangerous streak within rock & roll and Townshend channeled this angst and upheaval into his original songs, starting with the epochal "My Generation," where Roger Daltrey sneered "I hope I die before I get old." Townshend's provocations extended into playing with the form and sound of the pop single during the mid-1960s, an artistic restlessness that led to the groundbreaking conceptual 1967 album The Who Sell Out. Despite their innovations, the Who didn't become superstars commercial success until Townshend wrote Tommy, a rock opera released as a double-LP in 1969. Tommy brought the Who a new level of acclaim and success, particularly in the United States; the country helped turn the group into one of the biggest bands of the 1970s. Despite the commercial success, intraband tensions and excess ran high within the Who, culminating in Moon's accidental death in 1978. Townshend, Daltrey, and bassist John Entwistle carried on with the band, releasing two subsequent albums before launching a farewell tour in 1982. The split didn't last long. The group launched a tour in 1989, the first of many temporary reunions that eventually coalesced into a permanent arrangement in the late 1990s. From that point on, the Who was a regular concern, continuing even after Entwistle's death in 2002. New records may have been sporadic--Endless Wire became their first record in 24 years in 2006 and another 13 years passed before they delivered Who in 2019--but Townshend and Daltrey continued to tour with the Who well into the 2020s.
![The Who - Discography<span style=color:#777> 1965</span>-2019 [FLAC] 88](https://l.t0r.site/cover/65994571.webp)
