The Who

This remixed and expanded version of the very first album from the Who finds these proto-Mods worshipping slow, seductive American R&B and firing off some of the earliest shots of the second wave of the British Invasion with ripping anthems like "My Generation," "Can't Explain" and "Kids Are Alright," along with prickly snapshots of British life in the mid-1960s like "Legal Matter," without the preciousness of the Kinks. Instead, there is an undercurrent of brutality and recklessness behind their knowing smirks and high ambitions.

In their youth, before the operas and the arenas, the Who were an electric-soul band.
Maximum R&B: That's what they called the music on that famous Marquee Club poster, and
they meant it literally. On the original 1965 U.K. and '66 U.S. versions of My Generation, their
debut album, the Who's savagings of Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" and James Brown's "I Don't
Mind" and "Please, Please, Please" underscored the R&B roots of Pete Townshend'... More >