Who's Next

by

The Who

Edit

The Who have always been overshadowed throughout their career by other, more `relevant' trends. The Who persisted, however, and in the end created a body of work, largely penned by Townshend, which has become stands in the rock canon, but they've always had to fight for the spotlight. In the mid 1960s they had to contend with The Beatles and Stones and the rest of the Peace movement. From the early 1970s they had to deal with the singer-songwriter influx, and in the late part of their recording career they had to contend with punk (much of that relationship is dealt with in the highly underrated WHO ARE YOU album).

However, in a three year span, The Who was THE center of rock and roll. From 1969 to 1971, The Who had the world in a spin with ferocious live shows, a whole new idea of what rock and roll could do (TOMMY), and the sheer power and velocity of them live was absolutely amazing. The Who were at the top of their game, and took the live performance of TOMMY on the road for two years. Everyone was wondering what their next move would be.

WHO'S NEXT was the next move. Coming from the failed LIFEHOUSE, the album suddenly changed the direction that The Who had been established in. This is the turning point in The Who's career as far as sound goes. Townshend went from writing mod anthems to more album-oriented rock. When listening to albums like TOMMY or SELL OUT or QUICK ONE and then the later albums such as QUADROPHENIA, this one, or WHO ARE YOU, while you can tell it's the same band they've changed their sound drastically. Although they've always been loud, now The Who were playing genuine hard rock, and boy did it ever rock.

The source material for WHO'S NEXT, LIFEHOUSE, a multi-media extravaganza about how rock was going to save the world, has become, like Brian Wilson's SMILE, one of the great mysteries which everyone wonders what would have been had it come to completion. In The Who's case, I think it benefitted the work overall to not come to completion. Although it always escapes me why "Pure and Easy" was left off the album (as well as "The Naked Eye"), over all WHO'S NEXT plays very tightly, concise, and extremely focused. Townshend sometimes let the concept bog down the music, although not nearly as much as, say, Roger Waters. To his immense credit, Townshend always made sure that the songs were very catchy, and TOMMY has some of the band's best music, but taking it outside the context of the "concept," the music does not stand up as well as WHO'S NEXT.

That's the main difference between TOMMY and WHO'S NEXT, and that's what makes this record such a fascinating listen. If you know the plot of LIFEHOUSE*, then each song makes sense within its context. However, what makes WHO'S NEXT so powerful is the fact that, taken out of the LIFEHOUSE context, the music becomes an entirely different animal, which cannot be said for TOMMY. With LIFEHOUSE failing, instead we, as the listeners, have to take it on the basis of each individual song, and this gives the tracks from WHO'S NEXT more power than they ever could have if Townshend's second rock opera had been fully realised.

The best example of Townshend's songs working better outside the LIFEHOUSE plot is, of course, the last track on the album, "Won't Get Fooled Again." Instead of it being that great finale where Bobby and all his friends have escaped and are playing the final Lost Chord, it acts as excellent social commentary, and coming at the very beginning of the 1970s, after seeing the turbulence of the 1960s and all the tumult we were going through, Townshend manages to pen one phrase that blows the entire free love, hippie generation mentality, and with this one blow they never recovered. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," the very climax of the song, hits so hard and so fast it left the culture reeling, making that song the single most powerful statement made against the 1960s.

Much of "Won't Get Fooled Again's" power would have been deflated had LIFEHOUSE been completed. Another excellent example is "Behind Blue Eyes" which is about the villain of LIFEHOUSE. Instead of being about one specific villain, it instead becomes about the villain in all of humanity. The same can be said of "Bargain." Instead of talking about some esoteric Lost Note that will crumble the Grid, Townshend gives us a very spirituality-driven song. To those who interpret the song about a man and a woman, that's their right, but I've always taken it as more of man's relationship with God.

In the end, WHO'S NEXT becomes The Who's most powerful statement, not in spite of LIFEHOUSE's failure, but BECAUSE of LIFEHOUSE's failure.

*There are several places on the Internet where you can get in detail LIFEHOUSE's plot. Essentially, it's a science fiction piece about rock and roll saving the world. Everyone is plugged into this Grid, and it reads kind of like Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD where they're kept doped up in the fact that they realise nothing's wrong. Bobby, the main character, decides to instigate a revolution, founds this place called the Lifehouse, where a band is playing music. When you go to the Lifehouse, people take all your personal data, everything you are, and then you are given your own personal musical identity. The climax is everyone gets caught up in the music, and everyone's information is fed into this computer which then produces everyone's identity into one single note. The rebels play the Note, everything is put right in the world, and they live happily ever after. Townshend was going to actually do this, and The Who would play rock concents and everyone's data would be represented musically. Can anyone say Spruce Goose?

Good science fiction; hard as hell to pull it off in any other format other than the novel. No wonder it never got completed.

P. S. Stop acting like the bonus tracks are part of the album. It's unfair to deduct stars from an album because of the bonus material. They are bonus tracks, simply that.

I'm sure all the who fanatics already have this, so I don't even know who I'm addressing this to, really.

This is the 4th time Who's Next has been issued on compact disc -the original CD release in the 80s, the "Gold Disc" version in 1995, the "remix and remaster" in 1996, and now the "Deluxe Edition" in 2003. I'm reallly wondering what's deluxe about it. First of all, this "remaster" sounds exactly the same as 1996's "remix and remaster", which sounded suspiciously the same as 1995's Gold Disc. In other words, other than being mastered a little louder, no improvement has been made in the sound.

OK, then there's all that unreleased stuff, right? Wrong. Only two studio tracks appear that didn't show on the previous release. Namely, early versions of Won't Get Fooled Again and Gettin' in Tune. These versions are both little more than rehearsals, and therefore vastly inferior to the official versions. Interesting but hardly vital additions to the Who legacy

OK, but how about this great live stuff? Well....

This may be from their prime live period, but this is NOT a prime concert. Again, this Young Vic show was mostly new material which was still being tentatively performed. Again, interesting but you and I both know that there's other great live stuff that hasn't been released.

This "Deluxe Edition" would have been the right time to gather all the material that was part of the Lifehouse project and release on one collection. I see this release as a blown opportunity and, to be honest, more than a bit of a rip-off.