128: The Who release Who’s Next
Considered by many to be the Who’s greatest album, Who’s Next had its roots in the disastrous Lifehouse project, which Who bandleader Pete Townshend has variously described as intended to be a futuristic rock opera, a live-recorded concept album and as the music for as a scripted film project. The project proved to be intractable on several levels and caused stress within the band. Years later, Townshend wrote that the failure of the project led him to the verge of a suicidal nervous breakdown. After giving up on Lifehouse, The Who went back into the studio with new producer Glyn Johns and started over. Although the Lifehouse concept was abandoned, scraps remained present in the final album.
Upon release, the album was a huge hit, immediately recognized for its unique sound. However, as full and brash as the sound is on most of the album there are contrasts with finger-picked acoustic guitar, and Roger Daltrey’s swaggering vocals alternate with quieter introspective moments.
Townshend used early synthesizers and modified keyboard sounds in several ways - as a drone effect, (”Baba O’Riley” / “Won’t Get Fooled Again”), in a more delicate role (”Bargain”), or as a playful noisemaker, sounding almost like a boiling teapot on “Song is Over”.
The album cover shows a photograph inconic in rock history, of the band apparently having just urinated on a large concrete piling protruding from a slag heap. According to the photographer, most of the members were unable to urinate, so rainwater was tipped from an empty film cannister to achieve the desired effect. The photo is often seen to be a reference to the monolith in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had been released only about three years earlier.
Until the advent of democracy in South Korea in the early 1990s, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” was banned and pressings of Who’s Next omitted the song. But in America where every song became a staple on classic rock radio, Who’s Next further solidified the Who’s place in the pantheon of rock history.
Baba O’ Reilly live, 1978