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For the past few years, the Grammys has served as a stunning example of the generational divide. This year’s show, as in years past, promised joint performances from some big names: Foster The People and Maroon 5 with the Beach Boys, Foo Fighters... Read the rest of this post

In a pre-London Book Fair auction, publisher Hodder and Stoughton has acquired the world rights to an updated and revised version of Freddie Mercury: The Definitive Biography authored by Lesley-Ann Jones. Although an exact number was not revealed, the deal is reportedly worth “high five-figures.”

According to The Bookseller, nonfiction editor Hannah Black negotiated the deal, securing world rights, with Mulcahy Conway Associates literary agent Ivan Mulcahy. A publication date has been set for 2012 to synchronize with the release of the Freddie Mercury biopic starring Sacha Baron-Cohen as Queen’s lead singer.

Jones (pictured, via) released the original version of her Freddie Mercury biography with Hodder and Stoughton in 1997. In the past, she has also written titles profiling pop star Kylie Minogue and supermodel Naomi Campbell.

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By Gordon Thompson

Forty-five years ago, in the anarchic world of mid-sixties British rock—with every major British act releasing records and storming the world—a unique record bullied its way into the British conscience that turned the conventions of the pop disk end-for-end.  Pete Townsend had penned a song that cut to the core of rock’s nervous system.  His inspirations had been the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”; but, “My Generation” set a new standard for minimum musical structure and maximum emotional impact.

In January of that same year, Brunswick had released the Who’s “I Can’t Explain” to an eager mod audience in London and a staged riot on the set of ITV’s Ready, Steady, Go! Come spring and the merry month of May, “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” celebrated the mods’ favorite mode of transportation, the Vespa motor scooter.  But the band’s principal songwriter, Pete Townsend and their manager, Kit Lambert, had wanted to capture something more viscerally anarchic as Swinging London entered its peak months.  The song’s accompaniment consisted of only two chords that rise in tandem as the arrangement gradually modulates upwards, leaving ample room for their musical imagination and building anticipation.

In many ways, Shel Talmy (who had produced hits for both the Kinks and of the Who) represented their best bet at finding the raw musical nerve they hoped to tap.  As an independent producer, he had significant control over what happened in the studio, which also meant that he could allow more freedom.  On the one hand, he had dabbled in the internal workings of both the Kinks and the Who when he hired session musicians to play on their recordings.  From Talmy’s perspective, hiring Arthur Greenslade to play piano on “You Really Got Me” or the Ivy League to sing backup on “I Can’t Explain” meant that, at the end of the recording session, he had a hit in hand.  On the other hand, Talmy would also be the man willing to let them play at the volume levels they employed in clubs to recreate a sound that their audiences cherished and from which corporate studios recoiled.

Townsend told Melody Maker, one of London’s music magazines, shortly before the recording’s release that the song was “anti middle-age, anti boss-class, and anti young marrieds” and that the “big social revolution” on their doorstep was that “youth, and not age” had become the most “important” factor in British lives.  Townsend had recognized that the bulge generation born during and in the wake of the Second World War was coming of age and that their sheer numbers meant they would have a significant say in the direction of culture.

The performance of “My Generation” broke several basic rules of pop music.  First, Roger Daltry purposefully stuttered while delivering the text, most notoriously when he tells the establishment, “Why don’t you all fffffff…”  Juvenile listeners anticipated an expletive, only to hear a line from a Rolling Stones hit, “ 0 Comments on The Who and “My Generation,” November 1965 as of 1/1/1900