The Albums of 1966: The Who Sings My Generation (U.S. Version)

Release Date: April 25, 1966 

Members: Roger Daltrey (Vocals); Pete Townshend (guitar, vocals); John Entwistle (bass, vocals) Keith Moon (drums)

Produced by Shel Talmy

Side One: Out in the Street; I Don't Mind; The Good's Gone; La-La-La-Lies; Much Too Much; My Generation

Side Two: The Kids Are Alright; Please Please Please; It's Not True; The Ox; A Legal Matter; Instant Party (Circles)

The Who's debut album arrived in America a few months after its release in the United Kingdom, signaling the British Invasion was far from over. The "Maximum R & B" sound of The Who put them alongside The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, launching one of the most legendary journeys in Rock history.

Heavy chords open the record with "Out in the Street", played with rapid fire rhythm accompanied with hyper backup vocals. Then a James Brown cover, "I Don't Mind" swings along gently sounding like "Heart of Stone" by the Stones. "The Good's Gone" taps into the masculine angst The Who that would become their trademark. "La-La-La-Lies" is a teenage heartbreak song, "Much Too Much" hints at the future sound of the band.

"My Generation" is one of the most iconic rock songs ever written. All four members brought their personalities into the group, and "My Generation" exemplifies the power of the quartet. Entwistle's thundering bass and Townshend's staccato guitar borders on menacing, while Moon's drumming sounds like artillery fire being unleashed. A song about identity, defiance, and repressed rage at the social structure, also foreshadowed punk (as many have pointed out). It's also distinctly British and expresses in a new way what the Angry young men were writing about in the previous decade.  

"The Kids Are Alright" also reached iconic status, somewhat more introspective than the other tracks on the record. The narrator still likes his girl even if she dances with other guys in a sly commentary on the mod scene. "Please Please Please" returns to the R&B sound, in another James Brown cover. "It's Not True" borders on pop song and goes down easy enough, "The Ox" sounds improvised, the only instrumental on the album and a foreshadowing of incoming psychedelia. In "A Legal Matter", a sort of story song about a young man backing out of a marriage. Ironically, the closing track "Instant Party (Circles)" got tied up in litigation between the band and producer Shel Talmy after The Who produced their own version for release. Notable for Entwistle playing trumpet, the track is a cacophony of sound. 

Like the Beatles debut Please Please Me, My Generation captures a band coming into its own. The confrontational tone on the record is tempered by its tenuous grasp at self-knowledge. The primitive emotions on the record hint at the possibility of evolution once freed from the chains of youth and societal expectations. In time Townshend's writing would expand into more social criticism and even transcendence, all of which can be found here in its infancy.