The Who: Who's Next

Who’s Next

Best song: Won’t Get Fooled Again

Worst song: maybe Getting In Tune

Overall grade: 6

(Here's one I wrote waiting for my operation this morning - which went really well, by the way, although I'm incredibly tired now.)

After the success of ‘Tommy’, Pete Townshend started to wonder how he could improve on the heights reached with that album. And so the Lifehouse project was created, something that has gone down in infamy as one of the most spectacular failures in music history, something that nearly destroyed the band and Townshend himself.

Now, nobody except Townshend completely understands the concept, but in essence it was to be a nightly live performance, fifty percent rock opera and fifty percent a kind of science experiment on the audience, who would be involved in creating the music. Before the concert each night, a bunch of information would be collected about everyone there, and then as the concert drew to a close, all the information would be computerised and somehow each person’s information would be turned into a single musical note. These notes, when played at exactly the same time, would allegedly create a ‘universal chord’ which would be some kind of spiritual experience for the audience. And as if trying to achieve this wasn’t enough, Lifehouse was also to be a double album and a film, which is the part that’s always confused me. If the universal chord was generated by the audience each night, how would they decide which version to use in the album/film? Surely it couldn’t be the same kind of experience if the listener wasn’t directly involved?

But anyway. Pete Townshend became completely overwhelmed by the scale of what he’d taken on and eventually almost suffered a nervous breakdown, causing him to shelve the project, although he has sporadically returned to it over the years and still dreams of making it a reality. Eight songs were selected from the original plans for Lifehouse and Entwhistle wrote a ninth, and these were recorded to make a simple, straightforward, no-frills rock album. Gone is the story and the overarching themes from the original plans, and instead the band are able to focus completely on the music, with often outstanding results.

Not their best album by any means but tighter than anything they’d put out before or since, Who’s Next is bookended by its two best songs, ‘Baba O’Riley’  and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, both synthesizer-dominated in a time when synths were just entering widespread use. The truth is that I watched CSI: Miami and CSI: NY before I heard either of these, but I don’t think that influences how I feel about them, because I like the original CSI much better. I’ll take the full versions over the fifteen second remixes any day – ‘Baba O’Riley’ is the kind of song that packs so many different ideas into a relatively short time, which is fitting considering the original is 30 minutes long (now there’s a bonus track I’d like to see.) I guess this was one of the first arena rock songs, with its loud screams of ‘yeah!’, pulsing guitars, and loud and fast rhythm section, and of course it’s still one of the absolute best. For a mixture of the Who’s early protopunk sound and their later bombastic, operatic sound, it doesn’t get better than this.

But the other tracks aren’t half bad either. There’s nothing superfluous here – the fact that this is a single album sorted that out just fine, and we’re left with the good stuff, like the rocker ‘Bargain’ that really makes the most of Daltrey’s excellent voice, and the quiet, understated synths that create the mood in ‘The Song is Over’. I have no idea where most of these tunes would fit into the concept, and I’m fine with it staying that way.

‘Love Ain’t For Keeping’ is a short, country influenced track fill of childlike innocence. As a contrast to some of the more jaded songs, I think it could have been extended some more, since it interests me to hear Townshend messing around with these bluesier styles and it’s disappointing he didn’t have the confidence to make it a full song. Better than this is Entwhistle’s ‘My Wife’, featuring his trademark black humour and allowing him to play most of the instruments, including the piano and the horns. He always comes up with the goods at least once per album.

Side two is weaker but only slightly so, opening with ‘Getting in Tune’, which has excellent lyrics but the music lacks passion, seeming sometimes like it was written on autopilot. I prefer ‘Going Mobile’: more lighthearted than the rest of the material, giving an opportunity for Townshend to rock out on his guitar and use it to create some pretty unique effects. ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ has been a little overplayed over the years, but the melancholy verses and louder, more intense choruses are a traditional recipe for a dynamic song that’s always effective.

I also think this might be my favourite cover art on a Who album. Definitely looks like a teenage wasteland to me.

So what if Lifehouse had become a reality? In 1971 everyone was just waiting for the next musical innovation. Is it possible that the idea would have become the new gold standard, and everyone would be working to include audience involvement in their music? Or would it have been something like the Flaming Lips’ ‘Zaireeka’, an interesting curiosity but a one-off? I don’t know, but I hope Townshend finishes the project someday. Something that has informed so many of his albums both with the Who and solo, deserves to be seen through to completion.