“My Generation” is a song by the British rock band The Who, which became a hit and one of their most recognisable songs. The song was named the 11th greatest song by Rolling Stone magazine on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and 13th on VH1’s list of the 100 Greatest Songs of Rock & Roll. It’s also part of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for “historical, artistic and significant” value. In 2009, it was named the 37th Greatest Hard Rock Song by VH1. The song has been said to have “encapsulated the angst of being a teenager”, and has been characterized as a “nod to the mod counterculture”. (More from Wikipedia)
Link Wray’s influence is front and center on a good 50% of the records that I play, because he is credited with introducing the “power chord” on electric guitar to rock and roll, a technique whose effect is often enhanced by distortion.
Writing for Allmusic, Cub Koda calls the power chord “the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists”. I will spare you the technical details – not least because I don’t really understand them myself – but Ray Davies of the Kinks (in their classic “You Really Got Me”) and Pete Townshend of the Who (in “My Generation”) helped popularize the power chord in the early years of the British Invasion. When Townshend is performing his famous windmill guitar technique, he is typically playing power chords.
(February 2013)
