One Direction Vs The Who? [VIDEO]: Pete Townshend Addresses Twitter Drama Over 'Best Song Ever' & 'Baba O'Riley' Controversy, Compliments 1D!

Everyone is in a big huff over One Direction's hit song "Best Song Ever" and how the opening chords of it sound like The Who's "Baba O'Riley." Though the song was released over a month ago, a recent review of the song sent Directioners into a frenzy on Twitter. Thankfully, The Who's principle songwriter, legendary rocker Pete Townshend, has released a statement in regards to all of this drama.

Here is Townshend's statement regarding the "Best Song Ever" and "Baba O'Riley" Twitter explosion:

"No! I like the single. I like One Direction. The chords I used and the chords they used are the same three chords we've all been using in basic pop music since Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry made it clear that fancy chords don't mean great music - not always. I'm still writing songs that sound like Baba O'Riley - or I'm trying to!. It's a part of my life and a part of pop's lineage. One Direction are in my business, with a million fans, and I'm happy to think they may have been influenced a little bit by The Who.

"I'm just relieved they're all not wearing boiler suits and Doc Martens, or Union Jack jackets. The funniest thing is that in Canada this year I met with Randy Bachman once the leader of GUESS WHO who told me that he not only copied Baba O Riley for their hit You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, but he even called his band after us. Why would I not be happy about this kind of tribute?"

So it looks like Townshend really doesn't care about the similarities and makes some good points about how music essentially works in his mind.

Here is an excerpt from Mstars' report on this story:

Yes, we can all hear the opening chords to The Who's popular song "Baba O'Riley" in One Direction's latest hit "Best Song Ever." It is definitely not a big deal in any way and the producers clearly didn't try to hide the similarities. So when pretty much every negative review of the song mentions this, it is just another sentence to gloss over. Unfortunately, One Direction's fans can't look past this diss. In fact, when one reviewer made the comment, a very large amount of fans thought that The Who were starting a campaign to have "Best Song Ever" removed from YouTube. "Don't Touch Best Song Ever" started to trend and the rest is foul-mouthed history!