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Currently British rock legends The Who are making their last rounds as a band on their farewell tour. Throughout their impressive career, they’ve racked up a lot of accolades<\/a>. Roger Daltrey, the band’s lead singer was honored with the Music Industry Trusts Award in 2016. The band earned \u00a025 Top-40 singles and 15 Top-10 albums, countless tours, and tons of industry clout.<\/p>\n The band’s guitarist, Pete Townshend<\/strong>, 80, made waves as well with his “unapologetic” guitar smashing antics and opinions. In fact, there was once a time he even dared to brandish the talent<\/a> of one of the most beloved bands in history, The Beatles.<\/p>\n In an interview during the ’60s, Townshend put forth his opinion on pop music and led him down a bit of a rabbit hole.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat has got quality in the pop business?\u201d he pondered. \u201cWhat\u2019s got quality in anything? It\u2019s just a matter of standards. In the pop business, we\u2019re lucky in that there are no standards.\u201d<\/p>\n A young woman then asked if that applied to the beloved Beatles, who at the time were putting out their sixth studio album Rubber Soul.<\/p>\n \u201cBut wouldn\u2019t you say the Beatles and people like that have a certain musical quality?\u201d she questions.<\/p>\n \u201cActually, this afternoon, John [Entwistle]<\/strong> and I were listening to a stereo LP of the Beatles in which the voices come out of one side and the backing track comes out of the other,\u201d Townshend said. \u201cWhen you actually hear the backing tracks of the Beatles without their voices, they\u2019re\u00a0flippin\u2019\u00a0lousy.\u201d<\/p>\n This was more of a reflection on the state of recording The Beatles had to endure in their early career versus The Who.<\/p>\n Later on, Townshend professed his love for the Beatles like everyone else.<\/p>\n “I just loved them. They were joyful, they were funny,” he said years later, while admitting, “They were more a pop group than I would have liked.”<\/p>\n Related: Legendary Rocker, 81, Admits They\u2019ve Been \u2018Swindling Fans\u2019 for Decades<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n On the flip side, Paul McCartney <\/strong>has repeatedly praised The Who.<\/a> While introducing Townshend at the Les Paul Award ceremony in 2012, McCartney shared: \u201cCongratulations on getting the Les Paul Award, we all know you deserve it. Because man, we go back and I have so many great memories of you and the band. Your music, seeing you on TV doing \u2018My Generation,\u2019 seeing you live playing. To this day, you\u2019re just great.\u201d<\/p>\n Years later, McCartney revealed that The Who even inspired The Beatles\u2019 \u201cHelter Skelter.\u201d \u201cI remember, with The Who, I read once that Townshend, he was talking to a newspaper. He said: \u2018We just done the dirtiest, loudest, filthiest record ever!\u2019 I went, \u2018Wow, we gotta do that. We can get louder, filthier and dirtier.\u2019 So I go into the studio and say this to the guys, and that was \u2018Helter Skelter,\u2019\u201d McCartney recalled on Marc Maron\u2019s<\/strong> podcast in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clearly, despite Townshend\u2019s early critique, there\u2019s been nothing but mutual respect between these two iconic bands.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Sep 26, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Currently British rock legends The Who are making their last rounds as a band on their farewell tour. Throughout their impressive career, they’ve racked up a lot of accolades. Roger Daltrey, the band’s lead singer was honored with the Music Industry Trusts Award in 2016. The band earned \u00a025 Top-40 singles and 15 Top-10 albums, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2052582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[25403,349471,381360,32894],"class_list":["post-2052581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-paul-mccartney","tag-pete-townshend","tag-pop-business","tag-the-beatles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Famed-Rock-Guitarist-Now-80-Once-Called-The-Beatles-Flippin.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2052581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2052582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2052581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2052581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2052581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Paul McCartney Thought of The Who<\/h2>\n