Classic Albums No. 28: The Who - Who's Next

[vastar iner]

1. "Baba O'Riley"
2. "Bargain"
3. "Love Ain't for Keeping"
4. "My Wife"
5. "The Song Is Over"
6. "Getting in Tune"
7. "Going Mobile"
8. "Behind Blue Eyes"
9. "Won't Get Fooled Again"

We've had the Beatles and the Stones.  Time for the third in the great trilogy of British historymakers.

To think, in half-a-century of being acclaimed of the greatest in their genre, The Who has one measly week at number 1.  To put that into context, Doop have four times as many.  And that one week came thanks to this album, which scrambled to the top of the album list between Simon & Garfunkel and Deep Purple.

In truth, they have had more.  "I'm A Boy" was a Melody Maker chart-topper - as they acknowledged during their Live In Leeds show - and Tommy was number 1 for three weeks in the Record World charts.  But as far as the world is concerned, it's this and nothing else.

So.  This is reckoned to be The Who at their peak.  Let's at it then.

[Shireblogger]

I've never really understood why the Who were so acclaimed, and I've never listened to any of their studio albums. Therefore this is an interesting choice.

[TheThorne]

Gonna listen out of interest as this album starts and finishes with two of the best songs ever but I dont know any others apart from 'Behind. blue Eyes'

[o]

Yep, I'll give this a listen as well

[o]

The Who – Who’s next?
Baba O Riley – Recognisable, but never knew it was called this until fairly recently. 6/10
Bargain – Great sounding, hard to believe this came out in the 60s. Does drag at the end though. 6/10
Love aint for keeping – Nice a shorter song, simple but good stuff. 7/10
My wife – Liking the sound and vibe of this. 6/10
The song is over – Getting back to overblown here. 5/10
Getting in tune – Not my cup of tea 4/10
Going mobile – Feels like filler. 4/10
Behind blue eyes – I know the cover which I absolutely adore. And this is different in places, but I still like. 8/10
Wont get fooled again – Classic Who, overblown and brilliant. 9/10
Overall 6.5/10

[raliverpool]

The fifth studio album by English rock band The Who. It developed from the aborted and expensive Lifehouse project (think of Prince's aborted The Crystal Ball project), a multi-media rock opera written by the group's Pete Townshend as a follow-up to the band's 1969 album Tommy. The project was cancelled due to its complexity and conflicts with Kit Lambert, the band's manager, but Townshend was persuaded to record the songs as a straightforward studio album (think of Prince's Sign O' The Times album).

The Who recorded Who's Next with assistance from recording engineer Glyn Johns which gave it a harder contemporary modern (for its time) rock sound to represent how pop and rock music were diversifying at the time into two separate camps. (Hence you had the example of the pop success of Slade who were "A great rock band wearing pop clothing, and playing the game great" (Jimmy Page (1973)).

Anyone who has purchased the excellent book "1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year" by top music journalist David Hepworth will know he claims 1971 was the best year for music, which is an interesting claim, certainly if you just count singles then now way is is as good any of 1964-1967 .... but if you include classic album cuts then you have a far far stronger case to conclude he might just be correct. Without giving too much away (apart from the ending) he concludes the best album of 1971 is ...... "Who's Next"....

1. "Baba O'Riley" 10.0 - aka "Teenage Wasteland" aka the CSI NY theme. Rock music is rarely better than this.

2. "Bargain" 9.0 - Originally titled "God" before John Lennon used that title. It compares the relationship with being a Christian, to be a lover.

3. "Love Ain't for Keeping" 6.5 - A blues-tinged optimistic country love song with a rustic The Band, CCR, The Faces feel.

4. "My Wife" 8.0 - Bassist's John Entwistle's funny hard rock song about going out and getting drunk, and picked up by the Cops for being drunk and disorderly, and worried what the wife will do and say about it.

5. "The Song Is Over" 9.0 - Among the most gorgeous mature ballads Pete Townshend has ever written. With hindsight this track sonically most suggested the sound of their next album.

6. "Getting in Tune" 7.0 - A song which suggests the inner turmoil of feeling worthless whilst being hugely successful, and acclaimed by others. This musically sounds more like Badfinger than the Who.

7. "Going Mobile" 4.5 - The lightest track on the album musically and lyrically, and most repetitive. Apparently Roger Daltrey refused to add his vocals to the track because he thought it was not good enough. He was right.

8. "Behind Blue Eyes" 10.0 - This powerfully emotional track, in truth sounds like classic 1970s Pink Floyd (Roger Waters/David Gilmour angry/calm) for pathos and spacial sound before they had perfected that template. This track is so bombproof even Limp Bizkit's cover version was not hideous for a band of that $h!tness.

9. "Won't Get Fooled Again"10.0 - Eight and a half minutes of rock perfection with a message about not being conned by lying politicians and an agenda driven media. Something the UK clearly took notice of last month ..... NOT (Apparently, Daltrey was a Brexiteer, and Townshend was a Remainer, and Daltrey's done an interview joking that they are not talking to each other as a result). But then again the great British public prefer the gibberish that is "Bo Rhap..." "Meet The New Boss, Same as the Old Boss ...." www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-margaret-thatcher-uk-prime-minister-a7156261.html

Overall 9 (74 / 9 = 82.22% (81%-86% category)).

The Who Studio album rates:

My Generation (1965) 6
A Quick One (1966) 6
The Who Sell Out (1967) 8
Tommy (1969) 8
Who's Next (1971) 9
Quadrophenia (1973) 7
Odds & Sods (1974) 6
The Who by Numbers (1975) 6
Who Are You (1978) 6
Face Dances (1981) 4
It's Hard (1982) 3
Endless Wire (2006) 4

So to paraphrase those Carling adverts "it's good but it's not quite Led Zeppelin IV"....

1971 what a year for studio albums, here are 21 of the best in alphabetical order:

The Beach Boys - Surf's Up
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Carole King - Tapestry
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name
The Doors - L.A. Woman
Elton John - Madman Across the Water
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
John Lennon - Imagine
Joni Mitchell - Blue
Led Zeppelin - IV (Four Symbols)
Marvin Gaye -  What's Going On
Nick Drake - Bryter Layter
Paul and Linda McCartney - Ram
Pink Floyd - Meddle
Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Sly and the Family Stone -  There's a Riot Goin' On
T. Rex - Electric Warrior
The Who - Who's Next

[vastar iner]

That's politics man. We are at the end of an age. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is nearly over. They're selling hippy wigs in Woolworths. - Danny, Withnail & I

As the sixties came to an end, what did its four greatest acts do next?  The Beach Boys imploded with hippydom, with occasional moments of genius to show what was lost.  The Beatles pushed music as far as they could push it and fell over the edge, also imploding.  The Stones reverted back to their birth, older, wiser, better and less caring about mere commercialities.

And The Who went as far as four men plus a keyboardist could go with their basic instruments.

Who's Next is a bitter album, dark and sarcastic, cynical to the point of nihilism, lamenting an age that has passed and may never have existed.  The future is heedless pollution.  It is exploitation, it is heartbreak and even the Devil hates it.  But the one thing to take away from this album is that the Loon, Ox and Pete are the greatest three man power trip there has ever been.  Trills, flourishes, tricks, relentless, omnipresent and magnificent.

And on four tracks The Who reach heights beyond those of mere mortals.  The opener.  "The Song Is Over".  "Behind Blue Eyes".  And, finally, with the close.  "Won't Get Fooled Again".  One of those deathless songs that will never date, age, get boring.  Not that the other tracks are lacking; all of them could have been singles, whether they dabble in country rock or even a touch of soul, it's just that these four go to eleven.

I note that WGFA was the one single from the album.  It peaked at no. 9.  Behind "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep".

Danny was right.

Meet the new boss...same as the old boss...

10/10.