Dusting off post abilities gone by to pay homage to one of classic rock's best, and one of my personal favorites, of all time.
Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Who's Next, the Who's fifth studio album and first studio cut since 1969's rock-opera smash Tommy. Forgive me if I submit a day early (on the road tomorrow), but have to pay homage. Pretty good soundtrack for the arrival of yours truly, I arrived in this existence just a couple weeks (or so) after the record hit the U.S. on August 14th.
In what was a pretty stout year for music, 1971 brought fans such classics as Sticky Fingers, Led Zeppelin IV, Blue, What's Goin' On, L.A. Woman, Tapestry, Aqualung, Electric Warrior, Master of Reality, Maggotbrain, The Yes Album, Pearl, Imagine, among others. Coming off the masterpiece of Tommy, the Who was pressed to build upon their critical and commercial success.
Who's Next was initially intended to be another Pete Townshend-penned rock-opera, a multi-media sci-fi themed epic titled Lifehouse. However, conflicts within Townshend (struggles to find focus with the magnitude of his ideas, excessive drinking), and management (manager Kit Lambert fell into drug use and lost focus in directing the band) led the band to abandon the project in favor of a traditional studio album.
Working with songs written and/or tracked for Lifehouse, the band enlisted producer Glyn Johns (who had worked extensively with the Rolling Stones to date, and helped Townshend to shift focus to the creation of a standard single album) to record, with most sessions completed in the spring. Final mixing was finished by mid-summer for a late summer release. "Won't Get Fooled Again" was the lead single, released on June 25th. The band began touring the U.S. before the stateside issue, with the album available in the U.K. August 27th - becoming the only Who offering ever to top the U.K. charts. "Won't Get Fooled Again", "Baba O'Reilly", and the John Entwistle-penned "My Wife" were quick additions to the live set list.
The quality of the engineering and production by the band and Johns resonated in legacy of the album - what was essentially a larger vision scrapped and reimagined within a standard format - where the craftsmanship and creativity captured a (re)work that came to stand the test of time. The Who had clearly demonstrated their capability with energy and expression within the vein of "maximum R&B", and Who's Next cemented their place at the forefront of rock music as the 70's began to unfold. Be it Keith Moon and his frenetic work on skins, Entwistle's stoic, rhythmic basslines keeping everything connected, Townshend's imagination and his affinity for melody, lyrics, and excellent use of synths in production/power chords live to invoke the intended emotional response, and Daltrey's voice and stage presence to hammer home the message without fail (I get goosebumps every time from his last scream to close "Won't Get Fooled Again"), the Who managed to capture the full extent of their abilities in a balanced, focused studio effort. The legacy of Who's Next is an album full of expression and emotion that's as pure as music in an art form can be. Listening behind blue eyes, I could hold onto to hope that the song would never be over - navigating through my own teenage wasteland, going (staying) mobile, while realizing love ain't for keeping (until my wife came along) - just as long as I could keep in tune.
It took me until my late teens to catch up to classic rock, but Who's Next became one of the top-five all-time for me. These songs helped me through road trips, deployments, solitude, and still raise the spirit to this day. Ringing true 50 years on, I'd call that a bargain...
