WHO'S NEXT

This was the second album that I listened from The Who, also in the early seventies, but it was until 1978 that I bought it.

This is maybe the best album which this band recorded, and maybe the most famous in their discography. It was created after an abortive project of recording a new Rock Opera, this time called "Lifehouse", which in the end became very complicated to be realized, and in the place of this project, several songs from "Lifehouse" (and others which weren`t part of the project) were chosen by the band with recording engineer Glyn Johns to be released in this "Who`s Next" album, which also has a funny title and cover design. Townshend until today has not finalised the "Lifehouse" project. He still insists (36 years later!) that the project is going to be released on an album some day.

"Baba O`Riley" is the opening song of this album, with a very good keyboard arrangement by Townshend and particularly very good drums by Moon. A violin solo played by Dave Arbus and produced by Moon finishes the song very well.

Keith Moon`s drums playing in this album is particularly great. "Bargain" is one of the songs on which his drums are great. Townshend also shines on acoustic guitars in this album, and also he showed that he could play the keyboards very well. "Love Ain`t for Keeping" is a brief song with an acoustic guitar solo and very good vocla harmonies. "My Wife", composed and sung by Entwistle, has funny lyrics and also very good brass arrangements.

"Song is Over" is maybe the best song in this album. It has a very good piano part played by the late Nicky Hopkins, who was a famous and very good session musician who also played with a lot of bands, including The Beatles ("Revolution"), The Beatles as soloists (with Harrison, Lennon and Starr), The Rolling Stones, etc. The song was mainly sung by Townshend, and Moon`s playing in this song is also great.

"Getting in Tune" is another song played with Nicky Hopkins and it is also one of the best. "Going Mobile" was sung by Townshed alone, and again his aoustic guitars shine. "Behind Blue Eyes" has very good vocal harmonies and again great drums.

"Won`t Get Fooled Again" is a song with very good lyrics talking about politics and how the so-called "Revolutions" (and also sometimes the so-called "Democracies" in political terms) are betrayed and in the end "the New Boss is the same as the Old Boss". This song also has very good keyboards arangements and all the members of the band played very well.

In conclusion, this is a very good album, very recommendable for the people who never has listened to this band. It is one of the most representative albums in their discography.

I give to this album a four and a half stars rating.