Released: 1965
Lovers of the theory that everything begins life as a single organism can point to My Generation as substantive proof. True, in the sixty years since it was released British guitar music has been impacted by many other influences both foreign and domestic. Even now however when a group of teenagers grab their guitars and start doing their thing, three times out of five it’s the ghost of Roger Daltrey’s attitude that they’re fuelled by.
Like all great proselytizing it was simple, repeatable and memorable. Straining at the leash, Daltrey was everyone who’d ever had a truncheon unjustly wrapped round their head, an inch from telling everyone over 30 to go fuck themselves. Working with the primal outsider’s medium Pete Townshend took the blues and shook them loose, freeing them to run riot on the beaches at Brighton and anywhere else that hormones and tribalism gathered.
We should agree on My Generation being far from just a song. It’s legacy can be traced straight through to the Sex Pistols’ No Feelings and God Save the Queen, Rock N’ Roll Star by Oasis, even the frenzy of Arctic Monkeys I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor. It’s elemental DNA is comprised of youth, rebellion, having an enemy. To activate simply throw in the paranoia of an island mentality, add the stiumlants du jour and stand well back. Rule Britannia – and may it always shake and stir you.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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