Tuesday, August 4, 2009

It's Baba O'Riley, not Teenage Wasteland

I need to vent in this entry.

The greatest song of all time is a little tune by The Who released in 1971 off of the album Who's next. It's called "Baba O'Riley." Every part of the song is amazing. Guitarist/songwriter Pete Townsend claims to have fed the birthdays, weights and other personal information of two people into a machine and it played back the synthesizer that is played throughout the song. That part might not be true, but I don't care, it sounds awesome.

Now imagine my anger when my favorite song is disrespected by being called "Teenage Wasteland." That isn't even the part that pisses me off the most. It's when I kindly tell the misinformed person that the correct song title is "Baba O'Riley," and they refuse to back down.

"Baba O'Riley is the name of the album it's on," is a popular argument I heard. At this point smoke is coming out of my ears and I'm ready to throw down. Just because Napster, or whatever music downloading program you use, tells you the song is "Teenage Wasteland," doesn't make it so! And just because a lyric is belted out a few times does not mean that is the name of the song.

Do some real research. Look on Amazon for an album titled "Baba O'Riley." You won't find it. you'll find plenty of songs under that name, but no albums. Hell, Wikipidea will even give you the correct information.

This is a most serious crime in my mind and deserves some sort of penalty. Maybe a guitar smashed over your back would suffice. The Who are kind of known for that as well.

If you didn't catch it right after 9/11, I recommend viewing the Concert for New York. The Who stole the friggin show and "Baba O'Riley," was amazing. Not only was the band spot on, but seeing the police officers and firefighters rocking and having a good time after such a tragedy was quite a sight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG_uDDEnzC4


Do I really have to give you a song of the day?

7 comments:

  1. Is the song of the day Teenage Wasteland?

    How do you feel that Rolling Stone ranked this song #340 of all time. Hey Ya! by Outkast is #180 so this list isn't exactly perfect, but just thought I'd bring it up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rolling Stone also gave Springsteen's Working on a Dream album four or five stars when it sucks. You're not funny.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry you did not like my attempt at comedy. That video was sweet though. Not too often that a band can rock like that in their 50's.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You know I love Springsteen, but Rolling Stone always gives him a minimum of 4 out fo 5 when he releases something. They drink the coolaid more than I do and you already know how I feel about that particular album (its garbage, but its an excuse for him to tour, so I'll take it).

    As for The Who, they can still rock even if Daltrey's voice is nowhere near as strong as it use to be. The concept of a rock opera such as Tommy was revolutionary for its time and Who's Next (the album which Baba appears on) is definitely a top 10 rock album of all time (Won't Get Fooled Again, Behind Blue Eyes, Bargain to name a few.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 1. Who uses wikipedia as a source, that's just ignorant.

    2. Why would you ruin the validity of your poll by adding the Green Lantern in it? At the very least, you should've put Iron Man or the Wonder Twins.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Iron Man is Marvel, Batman and Green Lantern are DC. So really Iron Man could not duel either of them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Marvel vs DC had a comic series in the late 90s, so it's possible. I think Batman fought Captain America, so maybe you should change it to that to uphold voting integrity.

    ReplyDelete