The Who

How could the Who have released an album called The Kids Are Alright without including
the original version of the song of the same name? Long unavailable, appearing only on the
British pressings of the Who's first album, it featured a broken, disorienting guitar solo
(Lindsey Buckingham's work in the middle of Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" is the
single analogue in rock) that Pete Townshend has never since matched. No dou... More >

I prefer the originals, but this isn't a bad sampler. All of the songs are good, many are classics, and the relative roughness of performance has its attractions even if the relative roughness of sound doesn't (most of them are from live dates never intended for vinyl). One thing I'd like to know, though--if he's so "vital," how come twelve of the fifteen Townshend compositions are from the '60s? (Grade: B)