These threads always devolve into “who can name the most obscure album” as the best.
For me, it’s the album where 12 different punk, rap, soul, new wave and heavy metal bands cover John Cage’s 4’33". THAT is the best album ever made. I think Judas Priest’s is the best.
Oh come on! be reasonable. I said a case could be made for it being the most self-indulgent of that small selection, not
“most self-indulgent of all time”.
You’ve gone in with thigh-high knee-breaker of an example there, you’ve brought a bazooka to a knife-fight. No fair. 
You’re honestly citing the era of payola as the least corporate?
Right now is the least corporate it’s ever been. Since anyone with a laptop can produce music and disseminate it on the internet to a worldwide audience.
We need a thread for discussion of music from the current millennium, or at least from Nirvana forward.
And, if you think about it, so do we. If we, like teenagers, keep exploring new music and don’t get bogged down in what we’ve been listening to forever.
[now excuse me while I add some Who and Joy Division to the folk music on my iPod Mini…]
Quote from my teenage kid scrolling through music on his phone:
“Damn, all my favorite bands are partly dead.” “?” “Beatles, Who, Doors, Dead… let’s see… Queen, Zep’lin, Nirvana…” “Huh, well, somebody raised you right…”
None of the albums mentioned here, so far, are what I would call particularly obscure. Some may not have gotten a lot of radio play (though I do hear Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” fairly regularly on the radio stations I listen to), but there’s nothing here that only like only tens of thousands people have ever heard of. I mean, I think “Closer” might be the most “obscure” of the albums listed, but that had already sold a quarter million copies by 1982, and I can’t find any more modern stats, but I suspect it would certainly be in the millions. It’s still a very relevant record (and I think the Who’s work is, as well.)
I just meant Joy Division was an example, the start, of the stages of threads like this. The almost always do that.
Before any threads like this even get started, the OP should define what makes an album “best”. Because IMO, Quad isn’t even close. As noted, it isn’t even the best Who album.
The new song might give you an idea of what Pete thinks about the whole subject (especially the very end).
Never heard the album or seen the movie.
My only exposure is from listening to Doctor Demento when I was 10 years old.
Caller: Uh, did you see Quadrophenia, man?
Rock n Roll Doctor: No, I haven’t.
Caller: Oh, you should, man! It’s really good. It’s got all this Who music in it, man, really good.
RRD: Yeah, OK. Well, you have a question here?
Caller: Uh right, well, it’s about the Mods, you know, they’re like early hippies, in England, but they’re not hippies, they ride around on Mopeds, you know?
RRD: You want to get to the point, please.
Caller: Uh, yeah, yeah. Well, the Mods are like always taking these pills, uh, they’re called Blues, man. I’ve never heard of Blues, man. Like, what are these Blues?
RRD: As far as I’m concerned it’s Negro music. Blue is not really a good drug color. I’d suggest you try Reds instead. OK, Rock And Roll Doctor, you’re on the air.
Most of my son’s music seems to be a subset of my music also. He’s not much into folk though. The kid is 19 now.
Major bands, especially white ones, were straight up lifting songs and pieces of songs from lesser artists, especially black ones, and claiming them as their own. Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Eric Clapton to name a few have all had to add other people’s names as credits on songs (and pay money in many cases) that they initially claimed to have created themselves. I think I would prefer honest, credited sampling to stealing songs and putting your own name on it, and I certainly don’t credit any of the big groups with writing all of their own music after how many of them have been caught not doing so.
Love this album, but don’t agree with the OP. 
Depending on the day, it may or may not be my favorite Who album (with Who’s Next being the other contender).
But The Real Me is maybe the most rocking-ist, flailing-ist song that there ever was. It’s my desert island Who song.
Nope. “The Real Me” is a legitimately great song – it’s great in and of itself while at least mildly breaking musical ground; possibly the best Who single ever. “5:15” and “Reign O’er Me” are good-to-great, especially in context of the album, but don’t do anything particularly new musically. And what else is there in the four sides of the album? Also, while I can still have sympathy for the angst of a teenager trying to find himself, I’m not all that interested in listening again and again to him whining about it.
Plus, the use of a male pronoun for the subject is not accidental – how can some art be the ‘best’ when it’s really, really, focused on at best half of the human race?
TLDR: *Tommy *is better. (Even in the realm of classic-rock dinosaur music)
The Who peaked with* Sell Out*. After that, they began taking themselves seriously – the kiss of death.
How the hell did Joy Division creep into this thread?*
The Who have long been one of my favorite groups. “Quadrophenia” has some fine music (I can even forgive Roger Daltrey’s excessive howling on “Love, Reign O’er Me”), but I’d rank it no better than third best Who album, behind “Tommy” and “Who’s Next”.
The best songs on “Quadrophenia” don’t compare to the best songs on “The Who Sell Out”.
*I’m willing to go out on a limb and name Napoleon XIV’s best album.
Yeah, for me (once again, not an aficionado, just a casual listener who enjoys music of all stripes), “Who’s Next” would have to be my nomination for best Who album, but, Christ, they had a streak of one fantastic album after another in their heyday. I’m going to get the headphones on and listen through the Who catalog this week!
Lots of great bands are mentioned in this thread already! So grateful to have been exposed to English bands back in those days, instead of being stuck with the crapfest that was American A.O.R.
I got backstage before the Who’s show at the Hollywood Bowl in 2000. I thought the boys would be taller, but they were huge when the show started. Zack Starkey was playing Keith’s parts to the letter, something you’d maybe only notice with a drummer as unique as Moon.
So, Quadrophenia? I dunno if it’s the best album ever, but to me, it’s right the **** up there, and very, very few bands have had an album anywhere near as great.
By recording the best album ever.
It is an album about mental illness, the processes going on in one man’s troubled head as experienced first hand by the author. I think that is a perfectly valid subject for a piece of music.
Imagine what flack Pete Townsend would’ve got if he’d presumed to write from a woman’s persepctive? I think he is absolutely correct in writing what he knows.
I don’t think that an equal focus on men and women is needed, nor even desireable, for a piece of art to be considered great. Breadth of scope does not necessarily make something better.
There was one point where I would have agreed with the OP’s resolution. I don’t anymore.
FWIW, I don’t think anything has come close to touching My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West as the best album ever recorded.