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The Who: My Generation Deluxe Edition (Polydor) ****

Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 2002

BEFORE NEW, larger sound systems ushered in rock in 1966-7, there was beat music, a tighter, more driving sound based on pushing club-scale amplification to its limit. Beat music began in the north of England, but soon a rival line of lean and hungry bands from London emerged: The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Graham Bond Organisation and, fiercest of all, The Who. Their key appearance on Ready, Steady, Go! to promote their urgent first single, 'I Can't Explain', was the culmination of an effort by The Who and their managers, Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert, to break into the British charts. From then on, the group were made.

Total word count of piece: 408

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