The Who – Who’s Next?

The imminent arrival of a touring Who to these shores (their first dates since 2004) has seen me dusting down their 1971 classic, Who’s Next.

Not only is this the band’s best, and a recording that can easily hold its own against the usual suspects that dominate the ‘all time greats’ lists, it is also one of the most intensely violent experiences you are ever likely to subject your ears to (and loud even during the quiet bits).

Not surprising, really, coming as it does from a band that grew up amongst the bomb sites of a post-war London. Even the photo on the cover comes with two fingers attached. The steel obelisk the band found on a Sunderland slag heap looks inoffensive enough until you notice that they appear to have pissed on it.

A by-product of Pete Townshend’s aborted Lifehouse project, the awesomely ambitious musical happening based on a vision of a totalitarian future where people live in virtual reality and can only find salvation through the emotional release of rock ‘n’ roll, (sound familiar?), this is an album that grabs your attention right from the start. The first track, ‘Baba O’Riley’, based on the guitarist’s new discoveries of the time, synthesisers and Indian mysticism (the song’s title taken from the name of the Indian prophet, Meher Baba, who was to have such a profound affect on Townshend’s life), suggests a band you wouldn’t want to bump into down a proverbial dark alley. It’s a multi-layered affair – a stereo panned keyboard loop picking up first piano then bass (a magnificent John Entwistle), and guitar before Keith Moon’s drums come crashing into your head. Then Roger Daltrey sings, or rather, screams and you actually find yourself turning the volume up even louder.

The next couple of tracks, ‘Bargain’ and ‘Love Ain’t for Keeping’, showcase the fantastic (Townshend and Glyn Johns) production of this album, a much more polished sound than its predecessor, Tommy. The guitars, whether acoustic or electric, sound sublime and there’s a particularly fine solo on ‘Bargain’; proof if it was ever needed that Townshend was, and is, much more than just a purveyor of loud power chords.

Even the song-writing space given over to another band member is well filled on Who’s Next, with Entwistle’s ‘My Wife’, a catchy tale of booze and marital strife, more than rising to the mark and a perennial favourite at gigs for decades. There’s a change of pace next with ‘The Song is Over’ (a slow atmospheric piano track with great Townshend vocals), the quiet lyricism of ‘Getting in Tune’ (with its closing verses of ‘Pure and Easy’, a song included on the 1995 re-issue cd that gives a neat resume of what Lifehouse was to about), and ‘Going Mobile’ (a song about personal freedom: “I’m an air-conditioned gypsy, that’s my solution”). Next up is another live staple, ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ – the lyrics may be angst ridden (“no one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man”) but its beautiful harmonies are a great showcase for Roger Daltrey’s magnificent singing. And you’re a better man (or woman) than me if you manage to sing along during the hard bits.

Who’s Next ends, much as it begins, with the sound of an angry rock band battling against a hypnotic synthesiser loop. The epic ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ is perhaps The Who’s most overtly political song, yet it resolutely refuses to take sides. “Meet the new boss, he’s the same as the old boss” sums it up pretty well. Don’t trust your leaders, because they’re all as bad as each other – sound advice that’s even more convincing when screamed alongside the thundering noise of the world’s loudest band.

A classic album that no collection should be without.