‘Ours is music with built-in hatred. Pete Townshend
Peter Stanfield's book "A Band with Built-In Hate" tells the story of The Who's journey from the Detours to the late seventies, focusing on their ambition, anger, glamour, and grime. It explores the band's pop art and radical levelling of high and low culture, as well as their aggressive performance style. Stanfield describes how The Who confronted their lost youth as it was echoed in punk.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 11 July 2022
Publisher: Reaktion Books

‘Ours is music with built-in hatred. Pete Townshend A Band with Built-In Hate pictures The Who from their inception as the Detours in the mid-sixties to the late seventies, post-Quadrophenia. It is a story of ambition and anger, glamour and grime, viewed through the prism of pop art and the radical levelling of high and low culture that it brought about – a drama that was aggressively performed by the band. Peter Stanfield lays down a path through the British pop revolution, its attitude and style, as it was uniquely embodied by The Who: first under the mentorship of arch-mod Peter Meaden as they learnt their trade in the pubs and halls of suburban London; and then with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two aspiring filmmakers, at the very centre of things in Soho. Guided by contemporary commentators – among them George Melly, Lawrence Alloway and most conspicuously Nik Cohn – Stanfield describes a band driven by belligerence, and of what happened when Townshend, Daltrey, Moon and Entwistle moved from back-room stages to international arenas, from explosive 45s to expansive concept albums. Above all, he tells of how The Who confronted their lost youth as it was echoed in punk.

Ours is music with built-in hatred. Pete Townshend

A Band with Built-In Hate

pictures

The Who

from their inception as the Detours in the mid-sixties to the late seventies, post-Quadrophenia

It is a story of ambition and anger, glamour and grime, viewed through the prism of pop art and the radical levelling of high and low culture that it brought about – a drama that was aggressively performed by the band

Peter Stanfield lays down a path through the British pop revolution, its attitude and style, as it was uniquely embodied by The Who: first under the mentorship of arch-mod Peter Meaden as they learnt their trade in the pubs and halls of suburban London; and then with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two aspiring filmmakers, at the very centre of things in Soho

Guided by contemporary commentators – among them George Melly, Lawrence Alloway and most conspicuously Nik Cohn – Stanfield describes a band driven by belligerence, and of what happened when Townshend, Daltrey, Moon and Entwistle moved from back-room stages to international arenas, from explosive 45s to expansive concept albums

Above all, he tells of how The Who confronted their lost youth as it was echoed in punk

Weight: 366g
Dimension: 138 x 214 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781789146462