\'The best book on The Who.
Above all, he tells of how The Who confronted their lost youth as it was echoed in punk..
Guided by contemporary commentators - among them George Melly, Lawrence Alloway and most conspicuously Nik Cohn - Stanfield describes a Band driven by belligerence, and of what happened when Townshend, Daltrey, Moon and Entwistle moved from back-room stages to international arenas, from explosive 45s to expansive concept albums.
It is a story of ambition and anger, glamour and grime, viewed through the prism of Pop art and the radical levelling of high and low culture that it brought about - a drama that was aggressively performed by the band.
Peter Stanfield lays down a path through the British pop revolution, its attitude and style, as it was uniquely embodied by The Who: first, under the mentorship of arch-mod Peter Meaden, as they learnt their trade in the pubs and halls of suburban London; and then with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two aspiring filmmakers, at the very centre of things in Soho.
He can see for miles.\' Barney Hoskyns, author of Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion and creator of Rock\'s Backpages\'Ours is music with Built-In hatred.\' Pete TownshendA Band with Built-In Hate pictures The Who from their inception as the Detours in the mid-sixties to the late seventies, post-Quadrophenia.
Stanfield digs brilliantly into The Who\'s transgressions, their up-ending of pop music into art-rock and proto-punk. . . the closest thing to Pop art British music has ever produced.\' Bob Stanley, author of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop\'with impressive eloquence, A Band with Built-In Hate situates \'60s Britain\'s most volatile and incendiary group at the heart of pop\'s wild vortex . . .
He smartly states the case for peak Who as transgressive .
Stanfield understands that they were built entirely around opposition - they didn\'t want to be The Beatles or The Stones; they didn\'t even want to be The Who most of the time. \'The best book on The Who
