ISSUE DATE: Dec. 17, 1979
THE BUZZ:
Time enough, in 15 years, for three new generations and a dozen new audiences. The Who has outpaced them all. Time enough for a bewilderment of pop styles to flare, settle, burn out. The Who has outlasted them all. Too much time for most rock bands to survive. The Who, in every sense of the word, has outlived them all, and outclassed them too.
The Who has sustained—indeed, defined—the vaunting, unstable strength that is the soul of rock, the barefoot boogie along the keen edge of the blade. There are lots of scars and some wounds that will never heal. The music remains intact, inviolate. No other group has ever pushed rock so far, or asked so much from it. No other band has ever matched its sound, a particular combination of sonic onslaught and melodic delicacy that is like chamber music in the middle of a commando raid. No other group, in return, has ever had so much asked of it by an audience which takes it as an absolute article of faith that, every time out, The Who plays for mortal stakes.
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