History YMMV / TheWho

* FandomBerserkButton:
** Don't call into a classic rock station and request "The Who's Teenage Wasteland". Not only will they not play it, but they may come to your house and work you over. The title is "Baba O'Riley."
** It's quite irritating to many fans if you make it clear you only know a particular song of theirs from its use on a version of ''Series/{{CSI}}''.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Several, but the version of "A Quick One" from ''Music/TheRollingStones' Rock and Roll Circus'' featured in ''The Kids Are Alright'' stands out. Part of the reason the Stones sat on the footage for several years was because they couldn't take being upstaged by a rival band in their own film.

--> "The next act is so big and so legendary, it takes all of these heroes [of the September 11th attacks] to introduce one of the greatest bands in the world! A band that loves New York and they are loved by New York!! You ready?? FROM ENGLAND, THE WHO!!!"

* EpicRiff: "My Generation", "Baba O'Riley", "I'm Free"...and a few others.

** It's also quite irritating to many fans if you make it clear you only know a particular song of theirs from its use on a version of ''Series/{{CSI}}''.

* GrowingTheBeard: ''Tommy''. Prior to this, The Who had been a fairly run-of-the-mill pop band, with their best songs being mostly non-album singles. After ''Tommy'', they became rock legends.
** Their live performances became this between '67 and '68

* TheWoobie: The main character of "Behind Blue Eyes", no doubt.
** JerkassWoobie: "No one knows what it's like, to be the bad man..."
** Tommy from the eponymous album. First he's rendered deaf, dumb and blind after he witnesses a murder as a young child. Then he gets tortured by his cousin. Then he's given tons of drugs by the "Acid Queen", then gets molested by his Uncle Ernie. Eventually his sight, voice, and hearing are restored, and he becomes a Messiah figure to the fans he gained playing pinball. His followers turn on him shortly after.

* FandomRivalry: With Music/LedZeppelin. This generally boils down to which individual members were the "Greatest of All Time" on their respective instruments. Other issues include which band was more influential and who was truly the best live. It probably stems from Keith Moon and John Entwistle declining Music/JimmyPage in recreating Music/TheYardbirds as a supergroup before Led Zeppelin was even around.

* AlternateAesopInterpretation: Proposed by Pete himself: the message of "Won't Get Fooled Again" is essentially "Revolution is futile because the person in charge will always make it harder for everyone below them," but he's proposed that a more positive way of looking at it is "Don't even bother listening to the boss. You control your own destiny." YMMV on how much this can apply to you personally.

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: In a symbolic way. Jimmy Page was looking to re-form Music/TheYardbirds and had asked Keith Moon and John Entwistle about who he could get. Moon joked that he and Entwistle could join but that the lineup "would go over like a fucking lead balloon." From that Page got the band name Music/LedZeppelin, though Moon was technically right: the initial {{Supergroup}} lineup of Led Zeppelin did not work out.

* ReferencedBy: Now has its own page: [[ReferencedBy/TheWho Referenced By: The Who]]

* NeverLiveItDown: Pete Townshend getting caught with child pornography while researching sexual child abuse in the early 2000s. It doesn't help that it came about just as several noteworthy members of Creator/TheBBC were being outed for years of sexual misconduct with minors, making Pete's "research" claim seem flimsy to some. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement And that's all we're going to say about it]].

* NeverLiveItDown: Pete Townshend getting caught with child pornography while researching sexual child abuse in the early 2000s. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement And that's all we're going to say about it]].

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The end of "I Believe In Everything" from Entwistle's first solo album suddenly breaks into the whole band (including an incredibly drunk-sounding Keith Moon) singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

* ReplacementScrappy: Kenny Jones was seen as this when he superseded the late Keith Moon, not only because Moon left such big shoes to fill, but also because Jones's drumming was far more reserved than Moon's famously anarchistic style, which many fans felt dampened their edge.
* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Woodstock. While they were playing "See Me, Feel Me," [[CueTheSun the sun rose]]. The band had a lighting rig - one of the ''first'' used in rock concerts - constructed to replicate the effect for future performances.

** "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" were the among the first rock songs to feature synthesized patterns. Now it's common in every pop song.

* TheWoobie: The main character of the song ''Behind Blue Eyes,'' without a doubt.

** Tommy from the eponymous album. First he's rendered deaf, dumb and blind after he witnesses a murder as a young child. Then he gets tortured by his cousin. Then he's given tons of drugs by the 'Acid Queen.' And then he gets molested by his Uncle Ernie. Eventually his sight, voice, and hearing are restored, and he becomes a Messiah figure to the fans he gained playing pinball. His followers turn on him shortly after.

* FandomBeserkButton:

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: The line "Hope I die before I get old," in "My Generation", after the deaths of Keith Moon and John Entwistle. In another FlipFlopOfGod, Townshend took in the '90s to claiming that "oldness" is a state of mind, not a descriptor of physical age.

** Tommy from the eponymous album

** Oh hell, just take your pick! "My Generation", ''The Who Sell Out'', ''Tommy'', ''Music/WhosNext'', ''Quadrophenia'', and so on...

* CrazyAwesome:
** Keith Moon. According to Music/AliceCooper, only a fraction of the rumors about rockers like Ozzy, Iggy Pop, and Alice Cooper are actually true. ''All'' the stories about Keith Moon are true... and you've only heard a '''fraction''' of them.

* AlternativeAesopInterpretation: Proposed by Pete himself: the message of "Won't Get Fooled Again" is essentially "Revolution is futile because the person in charge will always make it harder for everyone below them," but he's proposed that a more positive way of looking at it is "Don't even bother listening to the boss. You control your own destiny." YMMV on how much this can apply to you personally.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: When Pete and Roger were honored by the Kennedy Center in 2008, the video montage placed emphasis on their reuniting to support the police, firefighters, and soldiers who volunteered in the aftermath of 9/11. Later on, during Rob Thomas' performance of "Baba O'Riley," the stage opened up to reveal hundreds of firefighters and policemen/women, singing along (and fist-pumping) to the "teenage wasteland" section.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: When Pete and Roger were honored by the Kennedy Center in 2008, the video montage placed emphasis on their reuniting to support the police, firefighters, and soldiers who volunteered in the aftermath of 9/11. Later on, during Rob Thomas' performance of "Baba O'Riley," the stage opened up to reveal hundreds of soldiers and policemen/women, singing along (and fist-pumping) to the "teenage wasteland" section.

* ArchivePanic: A career spanning over 50 years and different versions of each album, plus many non-albums singles, live albums and rarities/demos/outtakes etc. have lead to this. But fear not! Multiple guidebooks exist with overviews of all of their music. Subverted though, as their studio discography only has 11 albums, which is not much for the time they've been making music. It's the non-studio album releases that make the archive so big.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Several, but the version of "A Quick One" from ''Music/TheRollingStones' Rock and Roll Circus'' featured in ''The Kids are Alright'' stands out. Part of the reason the Stones sat on the footage for several years was because they couldn't take being upstaged by a rival band in their own film.

** "A Quick One, While He's Away" is this for Pete Townshend. He initially wrote it on a whim as a light-hearted story about affairs and a love triangle. But years later, he started seeing it as a metaphor for the sexual abuse and other bad experiences he suffered while living with this grandmother as a child. In his autobiography, he claims that he might have subconsciously written the song as a way to cope. Because of this, it is not played live anymore.

** "A Quick One, While He's Away" is this for Pete Townshend. He initially wrote it on a whim as a light-hearted story about affairs and a love triangle. But years later, he started seeing it as a metaphor for the sexual abuse and other bad experiences he suffered while living with this grandmother as a child. In his autobiography, he claims that he might have subconsciously wrote the song as a way to cope. Because of this, it is not played live anymore.

** "A Quick One, While He's Away" is this for Pete Townshend. He initially wrote it on a whim as a light-hearted story about affairs and a love triangle. But years later, he started seeing it as a metaphor for the sexual abuse he suffered as a child and that he subconsciously wrote it as a way to cope. Because of this, the song is not played live anymore

* MagnumOpus: Either ''Tommy'', ''Live at Leeds'', ''Quadrophenia'' or ''Who's Next''. There's also a small number of people who allot this status to the ''Live At The Isle of Wight'' album.