The Who’s Pete Townshend Once Said He’d “Trade 150” of This 80s Glam Metal Band for “One R.E.M.”

As superhuman as rock stars can look while they’re performing on stage, regular ol’ humans they are. For the ones lucky enough to survive the hedonistic and self-destructive decadence of the music industry, these humans (who also happen to be very talented and very lucky) eventually get old, become parents, maybe even grandparents. And who are grandparents if not the people in our lives who tend to have the grumpiest takes?

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Indeed, the “old man yells at cloud” format has been around long before The Simpsons. With each year, a new member of the rock ‘n’ roll vanguard becomes someone’s curmudgeon-y papaw, confused by the youths and adamant that things ought to go back to how they were when he was your age. Pete Townshend is no exception—but why would he be, given how outspoken The Who guitarist has been his entire life?

Pete Townshend Had Some Harsh Words For This 80s Glam Metal Band

Blame it on humans’ need to establish order and hierarchy or an individual’s insecure ego, but we love to dog on new ideas, social constructs, and styles that come after us. I have my own qualms with Gen Z lingo (and yes, I do feel old when I say those thoughts out loud). My parents had similar confusion toward most of what I did as a scenie-weenie teenager. On and on it goes. For Pete Townshend, this generational disconnect showed up most pressingly in the way rock ‘n’ roll evolved after The Who’s heyday. Namely, the 1980s’ shift away from blues-oriented, grimy rock toward Spandex-clad glam metal.

During a 1989 interview with Guitar Player, Townshend explained—in great detail—why he wasn’t a fan of rock ‘n’ roll’s newest class. Calling glam rock “lighthearted,” he continued, “I’m not into men in Spandex trousers with hair like that. I’m kind of confused as to why these guys look like that and why it is that they think they look so cool.”

Townshend admitted that this opinion would likely label him as “old-fashioned” and that “these guys in Spandex trousers and hair like that are playing some of the most unbelievable guitar, and you can’t really argue with it.” The problem, Townshend argued, is “that sometimes, the vehicles seem to leave a little bit to be desired.”

Moving on from vague generalities, Townshend provided some examples of specific glam metal bands he disliked. “I’d trade 50 Dep Leppards for…that’s not enough. I’d trade 150 Def Leppards for one R.E.M. It’s as simple as that.”

The Who Guitarist Seems To Be a Bigger Fan of Alt-Rock

Continuing his praise for R.E.M. to Guitar Player, Pete Townshend said that when he first heard the Athens, Georgia, rock band, “my heart just soared. To me, that’s just divine music. I like the sound of it, I think the words are brilliant, I think it’s just perfection, and the fact that none of them can kinda go [mimics shredding on the guitar] just doesn’t interest me at all because if they wanted to, they could go out and they could hire any of those guys. What’s really important is the music, the content, the heart of it.”