My Generation  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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My Generation is the debut album by the English rock band The Who, released in the UK in December 1965. It was released in the US in April 1966 as The Who Sings My Generation with a different cover and a slightly different track listing.

The album was made immediately after The Who got their first singles on the charts and according to the booklet in the Deluxe Edition, it was later dismissed by the band as something of a rush job that did not accurately represent their stage performance of the time. On the other hand, critics often rated it as one of the best rock albums of all time: in 2003, the album was ranked number 236 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2004, the song My Generation was #11 in Rolling Stones Magazine's List of the 500 greatest songs of all time. In 2006, it was ranked #49 in NME's list of the 100 Greatest British Albums.

In popular culture

• The 1967 performance of "My Generation" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was another defining moment in the television comedy series, as well as one of classic rock's defining moments.
• "My Generation" was sung live by three of the main stars of the 1980s BBC sitcom The Young Ones (Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer).
• The line "I hope I die before I get old" was the inspiration for the They Might Be Giants 1985 song "Hope That I Get Old Before I Die", a reaction against the stereotypical values of rock and roll in the 1960s.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic's first polka medley "Polkas On 45" closes with a polka version of the first verse of "My Generation".
• Danny Tanner sings his own comedic attempt at the song with Jesse and the Rippers in the "Ol' Brown eyes" episode of Full House.
• British pop singer Robbie Williams also released a song in 1997 called "Old Before I Die". The song reached No. 2 in the UK charts.
• The Who's BBC Radio version is featured in the 1999 film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
• MC Lars parodied the line "I hope I die before I get old" in his 2005 single "iGeneration" (also referencing the title "My Generation"), with the line "I hope I die before I get sold".
• In Limp Bizkit's song "My Generation" the word "Generation" sung with a stutter resembling the one in The Who's song.
• In a 2009 Pepsi commercial used to promote their new logo, showing a montage of excerpts from past generational decades: the 1900s (decade), 1920s (flappers), 1940s (1945 ticker tape parades for soldiers returning from World War II), 1950s (drag racing, leather jacket greasers), 1960s (hippies, Vietnam War opposition), 1970s (late-decade disco), 1980s (break dancing, Fall of the Berlin Wall), 1990s (grunge, mosh) and 2000s (decade).
• The Disney video game Ultimate Band features a cover of "My Generation" in its tracklist.
• The video game Rock Band features the Live at Leeds recording of the song, albeit heavily edited, as part of a 12 pack of downloadable tracks from The Who.
• It appears in the TV sitcom Seinfeld. George makes a comment about a comedian being "the voice of a new generation; My Generation".
• In an episode of CSI, Catherine states at a crimescene "I hope I die before I get old", a reference to the song as The Who is repeatedly homaged in CSI, as Roger Daltrey appeared in an episode and the themes to the 3 CSI shows are songs by The Who.
• Former VFL ruckman, Sam Newman, uses this song as an entrance theme on The Footy Show.
• The Who performed this song as the last song to be played at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.