My Generation by The Who released on the Brunswick record label, 1965, value £600

ONLY a few years ago this album was valued at £150, now it has increased four fold. The above album image is of the UK pressing. If you have one of the group standing beneath Big Ben with the title The Who Sing My Generation, you will have a copy of the USA release, also collectable. It took quite a while for the band to achieve success in America so a lot of the albums were returned to the UK.

Formed as the Detours, then The High Numbers, manager Peter Meadon dressed them in stylish outfits hoping they would appeal to what became known as a 'mod' audience. After recruiting Keith Moon as a drummer they became known as The Who. Their first two record releases I Can't Explain and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere were huge hits. On November 5, they released My Generation which became their debut album as well as a 45rpm single. Pete Townsend who was only 20, wrote and produced most of the music. He assiduously began courting controversial publicity and became known as 'the angry young man' of the pop world. An admirer of the artist/painter Gustav Metzger's auto destructive artwork, he often used his guitar as an instrument of rage as he smashed it against the speakers, floor and amplifiers. This derived from when Townsend accidentally broke the neck of his guitar in a low ceilinged club much to the delight of the crowd and on occasion he would even set fire to it.

My Generation with Roger Daltrey's stammering intonation and Townsend's smash and grab guitar chords became the song that defined the sixties. Daltrey sang the song with a slight stammer, several reasons have been given for this: one theory is that Daltrey was depicting a kid who had taken too many amphetamines; Pete Townsend who wrote the song said, My Generation was simply about a young man trying to find a place in society who was very lost. Years later, Daltrey admitted to actually having a stammer at the time but it was now under control. This song contains the famous line "hope I die before I get old." Drummer Keith Moon did, dying of a drug overdose in 1978 at the age of 32. How prophetic?