The Who - Who's Next

Released - August 1971
Genre - Hard Rock

Producer - The Who & Glyn Johns

Selected Personnel - Roger Daltrey (Vocals/Harmonica); Pete Townshend (Guitar/Organ/Synthesiser/Vocals); John Entwistle (Bass/Vocals/Piano); Keith Moon (Drums/Percussion)

Standout Track - Baba O'Riley

One of the all-time great albums in the history of classic rock and also, in my personal experience, one of the greatest examples of how disappointing it can be when your introduction to a band is by some considerable distance their finest work. I had been aware of the Who for many years before I first listened to Who's Next, and knew some of their bigger hits - in particular, I knew and loved "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," but for some reason the band had always fallen into that category of artists who I knew about but had never gotten into, like the Rolling Stones. A couple of years ago I decided to give them my full attention and, at the prompting of my rock guru Jack, started naturally enough with Who's Next, the album containing my two favourite songs of theirs. It is, trying as hard as possible to keep away from hyperbole, a phenomenal record, and for a while it seemed like I might have found another band to truly adore. Sadly, my research into the rest of their work quickly proved disappointing - followup Quadrophenia is great but overly convoluted, while their much-loved 60s work, for me, demonstrates a band going through the motions of finding their feet and developing their sound. 1969's Tommy has some great songs on it but suffers from too much ambition, really. So Who's Next is to be savoured - it represents the moment the band suddenly discovered their muse and worked out how to create something utterly indispensable. Sadly, it's the first and last time they were this good, but any band would kill to have made something as brilliant as this.

Pete Townshend, effectively the creative focal point of the group, wanted to follow Tommy with something on a similarly grand scale - a futuristic rock opera entitled Lifehouse. For months, he attempted to get his head round it while also trying to win round the other band members and record executives. Whether or not Lifehouse would have been any good will forever be a mystery - it proved impractical on too many levels, and the stress and infighting that surrounded its inception nearly drove Townshend to a suicidal nervous breakdown. Ultimately, given how Tommy suffers from having too much ambition and complexity behind it, Lifehouse would probably have suffered the same fate, and what makes Who's Next such a towering success is its relative simplicity. Not to be defeated, Townshend decided to take fragments of what he had written for Lifehouse into the recording sessions for the band's next album, and those fragments ended up being the songs on this record. Freed from the pressures of having to deliver something with a narrative and a conceptual arc, the band were able to focus on making every single song as strong on its own merit as possible, and it's this focus that delivers such strength on the finished product. There's honestly not a weak song here, and the album's big high points are simply breathtaking.

What's surprising about Who's Next is just how far the Who had come on in terms of their sound in just two years. While they had always been renowned for their brutal and destructive live performances, their early albums really struggled to convey any of that power and sounded very tame, while here, for the first time on record, the band sounds dangerous and powerful. Townshend's guitar slashes through the sound with an aggression not seen before, while even Roger Daltrey's vocals are a total revelation - there were moments on Tommy that showed him pushing his voice further into unexplored territory, but here he pushes it to the limit to reveal true ferocity and power. "Baba O'Riley," "Bargain" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," in particular, show him wailing and screaming with an intensity that finally marks him out as one of the finest rock vocalists in history, a legacy that the Who's early albums struggle to justify. There's also the addition of the synthesiser, an instrument that had only recently become commercially available and that really transforms the sound of a number of the songs here. The two behemoth bookend tracks, "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," in particular, benefit from the burbling, relentless walls of sound Townshend is able to create with the instrument.

The songs themselves are by far the most consistently brilliant set the Who would ever deliver. "Baba O'Riley," with its insistent synth backing and pounding piano riff, is one of the great air-punching rock classics, an anthem for spirited youth all over the world, while the next track "Bargain" keeps things simpler but is still an effortlessly brilliant slice of hard rock. John Entwistle's "My Wife" is a very different beast, featuring heavy use of a full brass section, but as such renders itself one of the most excitingly unusual songs on offer here. The focus is definitely on heavy rockers rather than slow-tempo ballads, but "Behind Blue Eyes" is a characteristically gutsy and committed rendering of the ballad format that ticks the box without ever making concessions to a softening of the band's sound. And then there's "Won't Get Fooled Again" which, like "Baba O'Riley," is principally defined by its frenetic synth part and is simply a beast of a song - never stopping to catch its breath or slow down, it's a ferocious call-to-arms for all those too apathetic to take a stance against the world around them. It features some of Daltrey's most powerhouse bellows captured on record, and Townshend's guitar continues to demonstrate its newfound, show-stealing power.

This album genuinely never puts a foot wrong - there is some material that isn't quite up to the standard of the truly great songs, but everything is exciting, fresh and has all the attitude you'd expect of a band with the Who's legacy. Sadly, as mentioned above, this glimpse of a band on top of their game wouldn't last - Quadrophenia would see Townshend returning to the ambitious rock opera format of Tommy and, while it's a great album with some brilliant songs, it lacks the concision and focus of Who's Next, and it's a shame Townshend didn't learn that what made this album so great was its simplicity. There are a few albums by the Who that need to be heard (I'd say Tommy, Who's Next and Quadrophenia) but I'd recommend coming to this one last if you're unfamiliar with them and want to get to know them better - appreciate the individual merits of those albums and then let yourself be blown away by the brilliance of this one. Don't let yourself be disappointed by setting your hopes too high. I shouldn't end this review on a negative, though - this is a sure runner for being one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Do not die without having heard it.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Pete Townshend except where noted.

1. Baba O'Riley

2. Bargain

3. Love Ain't For Keeping

4. My Wife (John Entwistle)

5. The Song Is Over

6. Getting In Tune

7. Going Mobile

8. Behind Blue Eyes

9. Won't Get Fooled Again