Who's Next

M??rcio Ivam. (December 16, 2010)

"Won`t get fooled again" is music and Lyric for everytime in the world!"Behind Blue Eyes" is strong love song.What a lyric!"Baba O`Riley" take all sadness away.It`s a masterpiece("I Don`t need fight...to prove I`m right.")

Bruce Beatlefan (April 28, 2008)

I am struck by the historical similarity between the Beach Boys' 1967 album Smiley Smile and the Who's 1971 album Who's Next. Each album resulted as a compromise release following the collapse of an ambitious major project (the Beach Boys: Smile, the Who: Life House), with the resultant breaks in confidence and relationships. But my gosh, how different these two albums are! While Smiley Smile is the lightweight half-effort of boys in the back of the station wagon with a tape recorder, Who's Next changed rock music forever and remains one of the most powerful albums ever made.

Roger Daltrey's powerful voice, which had been under wraps due to the introspective and eccentric material of recent albums, comes fully unleashed and he roars and emotes at a new level which quickly elevated him to iconic status. Pete Townshend is equally unleashed, with songwriting at a new sophistication and maturity, strong guitar work, and the innovative integration of the newfangled synthesizer which he succeeds in mixing with the traditional orchestration of guitars, piano, occasional horns, and drums. John Entwistle's bass and Keith Moon's drums are as thunderous as ever, but are easily overlooked in the newfound power of the other elements (in other words, the other guys finally caught up with them!). John Entwistle adds to the mix perhaps his most clever and rocking song yet in "My Wife".

It's not really necessary to discuss the songs individually, their presence in classic rock radio and in concert resonate as clearly now as they did nearly forty years ago: "Baba O'Riley", "Bargain", "The Song is Over", "Behind Blue Eyes", and "Won't Get Fooled Again" remain on the short list of universally recognized rock classics.

The Who's sound has changed forever in the album Who's Next, and the longterm effect of this change may not have been for the better, as the humor of Sell Out, the sympathy of Tommy, and the inanity of A Quick One will never be heard again, but having the album Who's Next alone just might make that loss worthwhile.

Wright Porter (October 21, 2005)

This is one of the albums that defined rock music in the 1970s and illustrates the energy and sound of the WHO as much as any studio-recorded album could.