Who's Next
Who's Next | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 14 August 1971[1] | |||
Recorded | April–June 1971 | |||
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Genre | ||||
Length | 43:39 | |||
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Producer |
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The Who chronology | ||||
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Singles from Who's Next | ||||
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Who's Next is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Who, released on 14 August 1971. It developed from the aborted Lifehouse project, a multi-media rock opera conceived by the group's guitarist Pete Townshend as a follow-up to the band's 1969 album Tommy. The project was cancelled owing to its complexity and to conflicts with Kit Lambert, the band's manager, but the group salvaged some of the songs, without the connecting story elements, to release as their next album. Eight of the nine songs on Who's Next were from Lifehouse, with the lone exception being the John Entwistle-penned "My Wife". Ultimately, the remaining Lifehouse tracks would all be released on other albums throughout the next decade.
The Who recorded Who's Next with assistance from recording engineer
The album was an immediate critical and commercial success and has since been viewed by many critics as the Who's best album, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time. It has been reissued on CD several times, often with additional songs originally intended for Lifehouse included as bonus tracks. Who's Next was ranked number 77 on Rolling Stone's 2020 edition of its "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.
Background
By 1970, the Who had obtained significant critical and commercial success, but they had started to become detached from their original audience. The mod movement had vanished, and the original followers from Shepherd's Bush had grown up and acquired jobs and families. The group had started to drift apart from manager Kit Lambert, owing to his preoccupation with his label, Track Records.[8] They had been touring since the release of Tommy the previous May, with a set that contained most of that album, but realised that millions had now seen their live performances, and Pete Townshend in particular recognised that they needed to do something new.[9] A single, "The Seeker", and a live album, Live at Leeds, were released in 1970,[10] and an EP of new material ("Water", "Naked Eye", "I Don't Even Know Myself", "Postcard", and "Now I'm a Farmer") was recorded, but not released, as the band felt it would not be a satisfactory follow-up to Tommy.[11]
Instead, the group tackled a project called
The group held a press conference on 13 January 1971, explaining that they would be giving a series of concerts at the Young Vic theatre, where they would develop the fictional elements of the proposed film along with the audience.[16] After Keith Moon had completed his work on the film 200 Motels, the group performed their first Young Vic concert on 15 February. The show included a new quadrophonic public address system which cost £30,000; the audience was mainly invited from various organisations, such as youth clubs, with only a few tickets on sale to the general public.[17]
After the initial concerts, at Lambert's suggestion the group flew to New York to make studio recordings at
The group gave two more concerts at the Young Vic on 25 and 26 April, which were recorded on the
Although the Lifehouse concept was abandoned, scraps of the project remained in the final album, including the use of synthesizers and computers.[24] An early concept for Lifehouse featured the feeding of personal data from audience members into the controller of an early analogue synthesizer to create a "universal chord" that would have ended the proposed film.[25] Abandoning Lifehouse gave the group extra freedom, owing to the absence of an overriding musical theme or storyline (which had been present in Tommy). This allowed the band to concentrate on maximising the impact of individual tracks and providing a unifying sound for them.[26]
Townshend continued to develop the concepts of the Lifehouse project, revisiting them in later albums, including a 6-CD set,
Recording and production
The first session for what became Who's Next was at
In contrast to the Record Plant and Young Vic sessions, recording with Johns went well, as he was primarily concerned with creating a good sound, whereas Lambert had always been more preoccupied with the group's image; Townshend recalled: "we were just getting astounded at the sounds Glyn was producing".
The album opened with "Baba O'Riley", featuring piano and synthesizer-processed Lowrey organ by Townshend. The song's title pays homage to Townshend's guru, Meher Baba, and minimalist composer Terry Riley, and it is informally known as "Teenage Wasteland", in reference to a line in the lyrics.[34] The organ track came from a longer demo by Townshend, portions of which were later included on a Baba tribute album I Am,[35] that was edited down for the final recording. Townshend later said this part had "two or three thousand edits to it".[36] The opening lyrics to the next track, "Bargain" ("I'd gladly lose me to find you") came from a phrase used by Baba.[34] Entwistle wrote "My Wife" after having an argument with his wife, exaggerating the conflict in the lyrics. The track features several overdubbed brass instruments recorded in a single half-hour session.[37] "Pure and Easy", a key track from Lifehouse, did not make the final track selection, but the opening line was included as a coda to "The Song is Over".[34]
"Behind Blue Eyes" featured three-part harmony by Daltrey, Townshend, and Entwistle and was written for the main antagonist in Lifehouse, Jumbo. Moon, uncharacteristically, did not appear on the first half of the track, which was later described by Who biographer Dave Marsh as "the longest time Keith Moon was still in his entire life."[35] The closing track, "Won't Get Fooled Again", was critical of revolutions. Townshend explained: "a revolution is only a revolution in the long run and a lot of people are going to get hurt".[34] The song features the Lowrey organ fed through an ARP synthesizer, which came from Townshend's original demo and was re-used for the finished track.[29]
Cover art
The front cover of the album is a photograph, taken on 4 July 1971 on the way from Sheffield to Leicester, of the band apparently having just urinated on a large concrete piling protruding from a
Other suggestions for the cover included the group urinating against a
Release and promotion
The lead single from the album, "Won't Get Fooled Again" (edited down to three and a half minutes), was released ahead of the album on 25 June 1971 in the UK and in July in the US; it reached #9 and #15 in the charts of the respective countries.[44] The album was released on 2 August in the US and on 27 August in the UK. It became the only album by the Who to top the UK charts.[45]
The Who started touring the US just before the album was released.[46] They used the Lifehouse PA, though soundman Bob Pridden found the technical requirements of the equipment to be over-complicated.[47] The set list was revamped, and, while it included a smaller selection of numbers from Tommy, several songs from the new album, such as "My Wife", "Baba O'Riley", and "Won't Get Fooled Again", became live favourites. The latter two songs involved the band playing to a backing track containing the synthesizer parts.[48] The tour moved to the UK in September, including a show at The Oval in Kennington in front of 35,000 fans and the opening gig at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, before going back to the US, ending in Seattle on 15 December. The group then took eight months off touring, the longest break of their career at that point.[49]
Several songs recorded at the Who's Next sessions, but not included on the album, were later released as singles or on compilations. "Let's See Action" was released as a single in 1971,[26] while "Pure and Easy" and "Too Much of Anything" were released on Odds & Sods,[26] and "Time is Passing" was added to the 1998 CD version of that album.[50] The longest version of the cover "Baby Don't You Do It" from the sessions that is currently available is on the 2003 deluxe edition of Who's Next.[51]
The album has been re-issued and remastered several times using tapes from different sessions. The master tapes for the Olympic sessions are believed to be lost, as Virgin Records threw out a substantial number of old recordings when they purchased the studio in the 1980s.[52] Video game publisher Harmonix wanted to release Who's Next as downloadable, playable content for the music video game series Rock Band, but were unable to do so due to their inability to find the original multitrack recordings. Instead, a compilation of Who songs dubbed The Best of The Who, which includes three of the album's songs ("Behind Blue Eyes", "Baba O'Riley", and "Going Mobile") was released as downloadable content.[53] The 16-track tapes for "Won't Get Fooled Again" and the 8-track tapes for the other material, except for "Bargain" and "Getting in Tune", have since been discovered.[52]
Critical reception and legacy
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Tom Hull – on the Web | A+[61] |
The Village Voice | A+[62] |
Reviewing for The Village Voice in 1971, music critic Robert Christgau called Who's Next "the best hard rock album in years" and said that, while their previous recordings were marred by a thin sound, the group now "achieves the same resonant immediacy in the studio that it does live".[62] Billy Walker from Sounds highlighted the songs "Baba O'Riley", "My Wife", and "The Song Is Over", and wrote: "After the unique brilliance of Tommy something special had to be thought out and the fact that they settled for a straight-forward album rather than an extension of their rock opera, says much for their courage and inventiveness."[63] Rolling Stone magazine's John Mendelsohn felt that, despite some amount of seriousness and artificiality, the album's brand of rock and roll is "intelligently-conceived, superbly-performed, brilliantly-produced, and sometimes even exciting".[64] At the end of 1971, the record was voted the best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published by The Village Voice.[65]
Retrospectively, Who's Next has often been viewed as the Who's best album.
In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it 28th on its list of
Track listing
All tracks are written by Pete Townshend, except "My Wife" by John Entwistle
No. | Title | Lead vocal | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Baba O'Riley" |
| 5:08 |
2. | "Bargain" |
| 5:34 |
3. | "Love Ain't for Keeping" | Daltrey | 2:10 |
4. | "My Wife" | Entwistle | 3:41 |
5. | "The Song Is Over" |
| 6:14 |
Total length: | 22:47 |
No. | Title | Lead vocal | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Getting in Tune" | Daltrey | 4:50 |
2. | "Going Mobile" | Townshend | 3:42 |
3. | "Behind Blue Eyes" | Daltrey | 3:42 |
4. | "Won't Get Fooled Again" | Daltrey | 8:32 |
Total length: | 20:46 |
Personnel
The Who
- Roger Daltrey – lead vocals
- ARP synthesizer, vocals, piano on "Baba O'Riley"
- John Entwistle – bass, brass, vocals, piano on "My Wife"
- Keith Moon – drums, percussion
Additional musicians
- Dave Arbus– violin on "Baba O'Riley"
- Nicky Hopkins – piano on "The Song Is Over" and "Getting in Tune"
- Al Kooper – Hammond organ on alternate version of "Behind Blue Eyes"[78]
- Leslie West – lead guitar on Record Plant sessions on "deluxe edition" including "Baby, Don't You Do It" and "Love Ain't for Keeping" (electric version)[78]
Production
- The Who – production
- Glyn Johns – associate production, recording, mixing
- mastering
- Kit Lambert – executive production
- Chris Stamp – executive production
- Pete Kameron – executive production
- John Kosh– album design
- Ethan Russell – photography
- Steven Wilson – multichannel mixes for the 2023 Who's Next / Life House deluxe set
Charts
Chart (1971) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[79] | 3 |
Canada Top Albums/CDs (RPM)[80] | 5 |
Danish Albums ( Hitlisten)[81]
|
3 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[82] | 2 |
Finnish Albums ( Suomen virallinen lista)[83]
|
9 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[84] | 18 |
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[85] | 6 |
UK Albums (OCC)[86] | 1 |
US Billboard 200[87] | 4 |
Chart (2013) | Peak position |
---|---|
Italian Albums (FIMI)[88] | 100 |
Chart (2014) | Peak position |
---|---|
US Billboard Top Pop Catalog[89] | 7 |
Chart (2020) | Peak position |
---|---|
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[90] | 156 |
Chart (2023) | Peak position |
---|---|
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[91] | 38 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[92] | 173 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[93] | 30 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[94] | 14 |
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[95] | 35 |
Japanese Hot Albums (Billboard Japan)[96] | 46 |
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[97] | 77 |
Swedish Physical Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[98] | 5 |
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[99] | 39 |
Certifications
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Italy (FIMI)[100] | Gold | 25,000* |
United Kingdom (BPI)[101] release of 1993 |
Platinum | 300,000‡ |
United States (RIAA)[102] | 3× Platinum | 3,000,000^ |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. |
References
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- ^ a b c d Neill & Kent 2002, p. 280.
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...Who's Next is paradoxically also the first record on which an arena-rock band sounds downright Wembley Stadium–large.
- ^ EW Staff (27 September 2012). "Top 100 Albums". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
- ^ ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
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- ^ Marsh 1983, p. 361.
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- ^ a b c d Neill & Kent 2002, p. 282.
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- ^ Townshend 2003, p. 9.
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- ^ a b Marsh 1983, p. 381.
- ^ a b Marsh 1983, p. 382.
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- ^ Unterberger 2011, p. 105.
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- ^ Unterberger 2011, p. 113.
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- ISBN 978-0-857-12737-2.
- ^ Hobbs, Thomas (10 February 2019). "'I took the last ever shot of the Beatles – and they were miserable!'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 February 2019. Retrieved 10 February 2019.
- ^ a b Neill & Kent 2002, p. 285.
- ^ "The Greatest Album Covers – Photos". VH1. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2010.
- ^ Atkins, John (1995) [1971]. "Who's Next and The Lifehouse Project". Who's Next (CD liner). The Who. MCA Records. pp. 13, 24. MCAD-11269.
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- ^ a b "none". Mojo. London. May 2003. p. 110.
WHO'S NEXT is The Who's most polished album, its hook-ridden songs pioneering the use of rock synthesizers without diluting the power-quartet attack that had defined the group since the mid-60s...
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- ^ Rose, Caryn (30 September 2023). "The Who: Who's Next: Life House (Super Deluxe)". Pitchfork. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
- ^ a b "none". Q. London. January 1996. p. 158.
Considered by many to be the band's best, 1971's WHO'S NEXT was their only Number 1 album...
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- ^ a b Christgau, Robert (19 August 1971). "Consumer Guide (19)". The Village Voice. New York. Archived from the original on 1 April 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
- ^ Walker, Billy (28 August 1971). "Album Reviews". Sounds. Spotlight Publications. p. 18.
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- GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
- ^ "Norwegiancharts.com – The Who – Who's Next". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
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- ^ "Austriancharts.at – The Who – Who's Next" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
- ^ "Ultratop.be – The Who – Who's Next" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- ^ "Ultratop.be – The Who – Who's Next" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
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- ^ "Italian album certifications – Who – Who's Next" (in Italian). Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. Select "2015" in the "Anno" drop-down menu. Select "Who's Next" in the "Filtra" field. Select "Album e Compilation" under "Sezione".
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- ^ "American album certifications – The Who – Who's Next". Recording Industry Association of America.
- Sources
- Atkins, John (2003). Who's Next (Deluxe Edition) (Media notes). Polydor. 113-056-2.
- Fletcher, Tony (1998). Dear Boy : The Life of Keith Moon. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-711-96625-3.
- ISBN 978-0-85965-083-0.
- Neill, Andrew; Kent, Matthew (2002). Anyway Anyhow Anywhere – The Complete Chronicle of The Who. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-1217-3.
- Townshend, Pete (2003). Who's Next (Deluxe Edition) (Media notes). Polydor. 113-056-2.
- ISBN 978-1-906002-75-6.
Further reading
- Atkins, John (2000). The Who on Record: A Critical History, 1963–1998. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-0609-8.
- Classic Albums: The Who - Who's Next, DVD, Eagle Vision (Classic albums series).
External links
- Who's Next at Discogs (list of releases)
- Who's Next liner notes – Song-by-song liner notes for the album
- Guitar tablature