Who (The) (View Discography)

Release Info

The Who: Roger Daltrey (vocals); Pete Townshend (guitar, piano, organ, ARP synthesizer, background vocals); John Entwistle (French horn, piano, bass, background vocals); Keith Moon (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Leslie West (guitar); Dave Arbus (violin); Nicky Hopkins (piano); Al Kooper (organ).
Producers: The Who, Kit Lambert.
Reissue producer: Jon Astley.
Principally recorded at Olympic Studios, England in 1971. Originally released on Decca (79182). Includes liner notes by Pete Townshend and John Atkins.
The follow-up to Tommy would always provide Pete Townshend with an artistic dilemma, and two years passed before the Who unleashed their next studio album. The wait proved worthwhile and taking the best from the aborted Lifehouse project, Townshend added a handful of urgent new songs to create one of his group's finest releases. Synthesizer obbligatos and acoustic guitars provide occasional counterpoints to the quartet's accustomed power, a contrast emphasizing their sense of dynamics. "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Baba O'Riley" were each destined to become integral parts of the Who's 70s lexicon, as vital as "My Generation" had proved from the previous decade. WHO'S NEXT set a hard rock standard that even its creators struggled to emulate.