| Product: |
Who's Next - The Who |
| Date: |
02/05/01 (92 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: See below.
Disadvantages: No.
Ah, The Who, so many tales. Tales of destruction, tales of madness, tales of.... well Keith Moon mostly. Not that the others weren’t charismatic, but anyway – I’m sure I could waffle on about all the members of The Who for half this opinion – the big nosed one, the quiet one, the hard one and the completely loony one, but I’ll try not to. Because here, on this record, their talents all came together and made one of the most definitive rock records of all time. I’ll take you through some of the real corkers and let you find out the rest for yourself (and trust me it’s worth it) – on with the show!
The synthesiser comes in on the first track – ‘Baba O’Riley’ – the piano chords strike, the drums come in – the cymbals SMASH! Roger breaks in to verse – on searing form – and we’re away.
‘Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven’
The stage is set, with the first epic track, a grandiose rock classic – encompassing new ground, new sounds and most of all meshing together perfectly. Pete Townshend was a song writing genius (he wrote ‘The Who’ sound, if that makes sense), Keith Moon’s drumming here is as powerful as it always was – you have to hear it basically. The backing synthesiser track was an experiment of Pete’s – feeding biographical notes in to the synthesiser, and interestingly ‘Meher baba’ (spiritual guide) was used here, and provides the backing.
The second track – ‘Bargain’ starts off slow... then blasts out of the gate! Keith smashes the drums, and BANG! It’s on! This is it, this is what it’s all about. Rocking to the foundations, Roger screams, guitars whine drums are beaten to within an inch of their
existence (maybe out of it) – really muscifies (is that a word? Oh well!) the feeling, the ‘bargain’ of the song. Nothing matters – it’s all worth it, and if you don’t know what I mean you had best listen to the song and find out….
John Entwistle writes ‘My Wife’, a basic – neh, classic! – rock song, simple, yet effectively done. By the best: no less. We have the harmony, the sadness of ‘Behind Blue Eyes’. A chilling track, and Roger on top form, with real venom in his voice at points.
‘No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes’
And the quiet precedes the storm, evidently, when this track shifts into gear it really shifts. You can almost feel it. Bitter, yet sweet.
‘Won’t get Fooled Again’ is about as classic, as epic and immense as you can get. Running at over 8 minutes long, and never letting up once, it’s a marvel. Entwistle’s bass throbs along under the song, listen to what he plays on the chorus, and gape and gawp and never underestimate ‘the quiet one’ again. The drumming is as frantic as ever throughout, and power chords really cracking – another synth based track – and yet it still sounds so grand. Daltrey really comes in to his own on tracks like this, his voice truly reaching it’s peak. When he screams, your spine will tingle. A revolution against the revolution, almost – don’t get fooled again.
With the re-mastered version you get plenty more tracks too! You can’t lose, even if you wanted to, you couldn’t. It’s all here, everything you need, such bonuses as ‘Naked Eye’, ‘Pure and Easy’ – other tracks I haven’t even mentioned like ‘Love Ain’t for Keeping’, ‘The Song is Over’..and more!
It stands the test of
time for me. I know I’d rather listen to an album like this rather than ‘cutting edge’ tracks by Papa Roach; if they are all so different why is there so many of them? But seriously, this could be The Who at their peak. They were a serious force, and musically they just clicked – three wild cards tethered to the post that was ‘the ox’, a masterstroke, four individuals – four leads, an undeniable ----I’ll just stop shall I? Buy it.
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