- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Who’s Next is the distillation of an unfinished rock opera called Lifehouse that Pete Townshend was working on, and there are no dull spots at all here.
The Greatest Music
Ever Recorded!
The Who – Who’s Next (1971): Tommy (1969) is a double album that is, by general agreement, the first true “rock opera” creation, but just barely. As an example, the original album Jesus Christ Superstar was released by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in October 1970, and the title song “Superstar” was released as a single a year earlier, in October 1969 – just five months after Tommy. Additionally, A Teenage Opera was recorded in 1967, with a hit single “Grocer Jack (Excerpt from A Teenage Opera)” by Keith West being released in July 1967; however, the full album A Teenage Opera was not released until 1996.
Inevitably, a double album like Tommy will have lulls and weak songs; but Who’s Next is the distillation onto a single disk of a second, unfinished rock opera called Lifehouse that the Who’s bandleader Pete Townshend had been working on, and there are no dull spots at all on this record. With Who’s Next, the Who slammed the door on 1960’s rock for good and greatly expanded the template of hard rock beyond “maximum R&B” – more than a few of the songs on the album are love songs, for instance. From “Bargain”, to “Love Ain’t for Keeping”, to “My Wife”, to “Getting in Tune”, to “Behind Blue Eyes” – any of the nine songs on Who’s Next could be somebody’s favorite song on Who’s Next, or their favorite song by the Who; and I have played Who’s Next much more often than any of my other Who albums. Synthesizers are new for the Who, with the opening and closing songs, “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” showing how powerful they can be in the hands of a great rock band, particularly when punctuated by Keith Moon’s thunderous drums in the latter song. The Who has hardly ever been a political band; as an example, Pete Townshend notoriously threw Abbie Hoffman of the “Chicago 7” off the stage at Woodstock when he interrupted their set with a speech. But “Won’t Get Fooled Again” features insightful lyrics by Pete Townshend about the unpredictability and disillusionment that can come out of revolution and discord, such as the lyrics: “And the parting on the left / Is now the parting on the right . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss”. Who’s Next was a #1 album in the U.K. and #4 in the U.S. In 2007, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for “lasting qualitative or historical significance”.