I'm listening to the Who as I type. They are going through the motions on "See Me, Feel Me" from Woodstock (great film clip if you are interested). This band has always intrigued me and I can say that there are very few other groups worth obsessing over. Yet, they are also a damned frustrating subject when on the topic of selling out.
They famously put out an album in the middle of the Flower Power era called "The Who Sell Out". "Tommy" soon followed. It was not the first rock opera, but it was famous enough to inaugurate a whole era of pretentious arena rock. Even the band knew this (why else would they jump back to their roots with "Live at Leeds"?). But the toothpaste was out of the tube. They put out "Quadrophenia", continued to crawl on after an essential member died in '78 (and if you do not know who that was, stop reading right here) and "Tommy" became a bad film and an overrated Broadway musical.
A true sell out, by any standard... And I still love them.
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