The Who have always been a full-blown enigma in a business normally insane to begin with. Of all the pop groups that surfaced in the British Isles almost a decade ago, they were considered one of the most unlikely to continue for long, as incessant punch-outs and constant mutterings about breaking up from within indicated that they were four totally incompatible individuals seemingly bent on mutual self-destruction. The force that held them in each other's orbits for ten years is perhaps the best observable example of the rock band gestalt, the strange magic that enables very ordinary people sometimes to form a whole that is not only greater than the sum of its parts but actually supports each one. (p. 48)

Townshend is one of the few great artists rock has produced—but that's not an easy thing to be, for rock's message is basically anti-art. At its most...