It's true, as Townshend suggests in Who Are You, the group's last album, that the new wave is going back to what the Who did 15 years ago. But that's the point. New wave returns to basics, to raw adolescent throb, stripping away the superstructure Townshend has spent 15 years trying to build. This is, after all, the creator of the rock opera. Yet too often what he's ended up with is adolescent throb with orchestra. It's not that Townshend is incapable of creating adult music, his Rough Mix album … speaks to his own generation as directly as My Generation did 15 years ago. It's more that he seems to view the Who as a means of intellectualizing the teen experience for the benefit of today's teenagers, and thus continuing his communion with them….

Putting the Who back onstage is one way Townshend can continue to indulge his obsession with youth...