[The Who's] music is their own easy tribute and memorial and not a flood of words. And yet the Who are about words, and images, and memories. They are about success and failure on an epic scale….

Somehow their presence with us is a reassuring constant, and they introduce a point of unity, a common ground of agreement in a rock world that is often split by dissent and riven by petty jealousies. In the midst of all squabbles, I don't know anybody who likes rock that doesn't like the Who.

There may be those who say they peaked with "I'm The Face," or feel they never wrote or played anything significant before "Quadrophenia." But of all the long-lived bands spawned in the amazing Sixties, the Who are the most loved and respected….

[The] Who, more than the Kinks or Stones, are big brothers to us all. There...