Product Description

Though Pete Townshend was originally unhappy with WHO'S NEXT, it was quickly welcomed by critics and fans, becoming oneof the most celebrated titles in their enduring catalogue. His frustrations boiled down to the album being a compromised version of a larger work he'd envisioned, LIFEHOUSE, whichproved too unwieldy to be realised. Expanded to a two-disc set with essays by both Townshend and John Atkins, the original nine-song album is expanded with six additional studio tracks.
These include earlier versions of the album's songs and a cover of Holland-Dozier-Holland's "Baby Don't You DoIt". Recorded in New York during the spring of 1971 in the midst of a fraying relationship with producer Kit Lambert, the early cuts clearly don't have the sonic breadth and wallop of what the Who achieved back in England later in the year, but are fascinating nonetheless. The second disc was recorded live before an invited audience, and was originally partof the album's grand plan. Mixing new material with covers ("Road Runner;" Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues") and original tunes from their past (the anthem "My Generation"), the band plays with a palpable urgency and fire. This was the Whoat the peak of its powers, a status the group would retain as a live act through the '70s.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Baba O'Riley
2. Bargain
3. Love Ain't For Keeping
4. My Wife
5. The Song Is Over
6. Getting In Tune
7. Going Mobile
8. Behind Blue Eyes
9. Won't Get Fooled Again
10. Baby Don't You Do It
11. Getting In Tune
12. Pure And Easy
13. Love Ain't For Keeping
14. Behind Blue Eyes
15. Won't Get Fooled Again

Disc 2:

1. Love Ain't For Keeping
2. Pure And Easy
3. Young Man Blues
4. Time Is Passing
5. Behind Blue Eyes
6. I Don't Even Know Myself
7. Too Much Of Anything
8. Getting In Tune
9. Bargain
10. Water
11. My Generation
12. (I'm A) Road Runner
13. Naked Eye
14. Won't Get Fooled Again

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4370 in Music
• Released on: 2003-04-14
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Box set
• Running time: 153 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Reviews
The success of Who's Next and its slate of classic-rock tracks has often obscured its true roots--Lifehouse, the unwieldy multi-media project that Pete Townshend originally concocted as the follow-up to Tommy. Variously informed by apocalyptic visions, sci-fi notions of interconnectivity that neatly presaged the Internet and, of course, an unwavering conviction that rock & roll would save the world, the core tracks of the sprawling Lifehouse were recorded, cut, re-recorded and finally boiled down into a collection that seems to represent as much alienation ("Behind Blue Eyes") and overweening cynicism ("Won't Get Fooled Again") as it does liberation and unity. Aside from Townshend's own self-released, multi-disc meditation on the project, this expanded new edition is the most rewarding attempt to place Lifehouse and the over-exposed classic it spawned in their proper context.

Six tracks from the album's original but abandoned New York sessions flesh out the familiar material, with previously unreleased outtakes of "Getting in Tune" and a revealing, early arrangement of "Won't Get Fooled Again" warranting special note. The second disc documents one of Lifehouse's most quixotic elements with the first-time release of one of the series of concerts staged at London's Young Vic theatre during the project's gestation--events during which band and audience would somehow mystically become one. Core tracks from the project are interspersed with typical hard-rocking Who fare of the time, resulting in a show whose focus and dynamics belied something very different from the arena-rock clichés that would eventually overwhelm them. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Remastered versus remixed
This is a more technical comment on this re-release - obviously this is a full five star album, genius at its very height, etc.

However having listened closely to the "Deluxe" (2-CD) version of Who's Next against the earlier 1995 "Remixed and Digitally Remastered" (1-CD) version - they ain't the same (if you use iTunes, use Apple Lossless - you'll never go back to MP3, BTW - or FLAC with other players). The track lengths give this away, but on a good system, and particularly with good headphones, you will be able to tell the difference easily. Essentially the Deluxe sounds like a remaster only - i.e. taken from the original stereo master tapes, and a harsh one at that - whereas the 1995 version is clearly a remix from the original multitrack master.

OK, so what? Well, in almost every case (every case in my own view) the remixed versions - while sticking closely to the original mixes and overall production quality (and quite rightly so, this recording was also Glyn Johns' own masterpiece) have a clearer and more transparent quality that makes the vinyl/Deluxe versions sound sonically limited. Subtle details in the mix, tambourines, vocal inflections, even creaking studio chairs and background whispers become clear on the 1995 remix versions - it's uncanny, and for music/Who fans who really care about this album the effect is much like the (also remixed/remastered) 2-CD Tommy - which is frankly breathtaking and sounds like it might have been recorded last week. Studio technology was quite advanced from the sixties onwards, only the need to adjust things for vinyl messed up the sound quality. Revisting the master tapes allows modern listeners to hear what Glyn Johns would have heard in the studio. That is a precious thing for an album as important as this one and John Astley did an impressive job on the 1995 remix version - to my mind the Deluxe version lacks this added magic. So, my recommendation is buy both versions and check out the differences (and enjoy the additional live tracks on the Deluxe version, some of which are on the 1995 CD as well) - but if you only buy one, and for the original album, then get the 1995 1-CD version. It's subtle, but it takes this beautiful recording to another level.

Addendum: I recently got and compared the infamous Steve Hoffman-mastered MCA Canada CD version for comparison (available on Amazon.ca) - all of the above still stands true and the 1995 Remix/Remaster is still the best overall, however the MCA remaster is way better than the Deluxe CD1 version, more true to the original LP sound (and much clearer) but very organic, and is probably the best way to hear the original mix of the album in all its glory. It's certainly a great companion to the 1995 remix. Personally I can't listen to what they've done on the Deluxe version any more - most of it sounds hard compared to either of the other versions. Thank God for choice, eh?

Thanks for reading.

The Who's definitive album
The Who's definitive album, WHO'S NEXT, came out in 1971, along other such seminal works as Zeppelin's fourth album. Coming off the heels of TOMMY, it probably struck some of the rock fans who were following the band as rather strange, as there was no hint of any overall conceptual idea behind the work. And there's a good reason for that.

WHO'S NEXT is the rubble of Townshend's ultimate unrealised project, LIFEHOUSE. A science fiction rock opera, it proved for too unwieldy for the band to pull off, as it was a multimedia project that was never clearly defined by Townshend. Most of the songs from WHO'S NEXT are taken from this project.

Fortunately, because Townshend wrote his music and lyrics as much more self-contained and not so narrative driven as TOMMY, the songs work very well outside the context of LIFEHOUSE. Stripped of the rather cumbersome LIFEHOUSE meaning, the songs are allowed new life and new context, totally separate from its original intention. Because they are not tied to LIFEHOUSE, the songs are given a much more universal appeal, with a much broader emotional and intellectual scope incorporated into the writing. The brutally devastating lines "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss", the single best indictment against the 1960s counterculture and the whole revolutionary mind-set America had taken onto itself, would be stripped of much of its meaning had LIFEHOUSE succeeded. There's spirituality ("Bargain", "Baba O'Reilly"), black comedy ("My Wife"), social commentary ("Won't Get Fooled Again"), etc.

Another notable feature of the album is this is one of the first rock albums to really incorporate synthesizers into the sound.

This is one of Pete's best. This is where The Who went from being a mod band to a hard-rockband, and it is here on this album that The Who drastically changed their sound from their previous LPs.

Ultimately, WHO'S NEXT just goes to show that, even though Townshend could get a little pretensious with all this rock opera talk, what The Who was really about was kick-ass rock and roll, and WHO'S NEXT has that quality in spades.

Mike London
October 26, 2007

[Somehow, a duplicate review posted on my profile with the WHO'S NEXT review back in 2002. I decided to replace this duplicate review with a new review.]

Remix mush
Fantastic album, why did it get remixed for this version???? The remix turns the sound to homogeneous mush, the edge is all gone. But the additions from the original version are priceless, especially Baby Don't You Do It.