The Who

The English band that spent sixty years arguing with itself in public and made some of the loudest, smartest rock records of the century doing it. Formed in London in February 1964 out of a group called the Detours, and briefly renamed the High Numbers, the Who became the house band of British mod before Pete Townshend decided the form was too small for what he wanted to say. My Generation arrived in December 1965, The Who Sell Out in 1967 as a fake pirate-radio broadcast complete with adverts, and Tommy in 1969 as a rock opera nobody had asked for and everybody copied. Who's Next followed in 1971 and Quadrophenia in 1973.

The four of them should never have worked together. Roger Daltrey sang, Townshend wrote and destroyed guitars, John Entwistle played bass as a lead instrument and barely moved, and Keith Moon drummed as though the song might get away from him. Moon died in 1978 and Entwistle in 2002, and Daltrey and Townshend have carried the name forward through farewell tours, reunions and open disagreement about whether they should be doing it at all. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Very few bands have been this loud and this literate at the same time, and none of the others managed it for this long.