Now I am dying to know

It strikes me more and more how much the American notion that capitalism is a good system (and somehow inherently democracy-aligned) is based on analysis that completely ignores the degree to which the American economic engine relied on chattel slavery and inhumane exploitation of foreign workers.

Would you agree that Who’s Next is great but Lifehouse would have been a mess?

I’d argue that you need the miscues to get the good stuff. It is the reaching that creates the work. An artist doesn’t know what the good stuff is. Even mature Shakespeare wrote some stinkers.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com one last thought. Something that stands out to me as I reflect on Townshend is how much he was the poet of inner-confusion … even the love songs. There isn’t the lust-based stalker vibe of so much 60’s pop love songs. it is much more “who am I? how does the world work”

Fwiw and to provide context of my taste , Pure and Easy (his demo version) might be my favorite track of his/theirs.

I’d argue the brilliance of a lot of his work is the fruit of that tension. The mess captures something deeply relatable because of the confusion rather than in spite of it. There is a compelling striving to make sense of the world and to not be alone without succeeding that sticks with you.

The well-documented inability to gauge merit without racial/ethnic/regional bias seems like something that should be common knowledge but isn’t.