(Review from allmusic.com, wikipedia)

Much of Who’s Next derives from Lifehouse, an ambitious sci-fi rock opera Pete Townshend abandoned after suffering a nervous breakdown, caused in part from working on the sequel to Tommy.

The album had its roots in the flotsam of the disastrous Lifehouse project, which Who bandleader Pete Townshend has variously described as intended to be a futuristic rock opera, a live-recorded concept album and as the music for as a scripted film project. The project proved to be intractable on several levels and caused stress within the band as well as a major falling out between Townshend and The Who’s producer Kit Lambert. Years later, in the liner notes to the remastered Who’s Next CD, Townshend wrote that the failure of the project led him to the verge of a suicidal nervous breakdown.

After giving up on recording some of the Lifehouse tracks in New York, The Who went back into the studio with new producer Glyn Johns and started over. Although the Lifehouse concept was abandoned, scraps of the project remained present in the final album. The introductory line to “Pure and Easy” which Townshend has described as “the central pivot of Lifehouse” shows up in the closing bars of “Song is Over”. An early concept for Lifehouse — feeding personal data from audience members into the controller of an early analog synthesizer to create musical tracks — was recycled as Townshend used the vital statistics of Meher Baba as random input to generate a backing track on “Baba O’Riley”. A primary result of the abandonment of the original project, however, was a newfound freedom: the very absence of an overriding musical theme or storyline (which had been the basis of previous Who projects) allowed the band to concentrate on maximizing the impact of individual tracks.

Apart from Live at Leeds, the Who have never sounded as loud and unhinged as they do here, yet that’s balanced by ballads, both lovely (“The Song Is Over”) and scathing (“Behind Blue Eyes”). That’s the key to Who’s Next — there’s anger and sorrow, humor and regret, passion and tumult, all wrapped up in a blistering package where the rage is as affecting as the heartbreak. This is a retreat from the ’60s, as Townshend declares the “Song Is Over,” scorns the teenage wasteland, and bitterly declares that we “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” For all the sorrow and heartbreak that runs beneath the surface, this is an invigorating record, not just because Keith Moon runs rampant or because Roger Daltrey has never sung better or because John Entwistle spins out manic basslines that are as captivating as his “My Wife” is funny. This is invigorating because it has all of that, plus Townshend laying his soul bare in ways that are funny, painful, and utterly life-affirming.

Line-up:
* Roger Daltrey – lead vocals
* Pete Townshend – guitar, piano on “Baba O’Riley”, synthesizer, backing vocals, lead vocals on “Song Is Over” and “Goin’ Mobile”
* John Entwistle – bass guitar, brass, backing vocals, lead vocals, piano on “My Wife”
* Keith Moon – drums, percussion

Track List:
01. Baba O’Riley – 5:59
02. Bargain – 5:34
03. Love Ain’t for Keepin’ – 2:11
04. My Wife (Entwistle) – 3:41
05. The Song Is Over – 6:16
06. Getting in Tune – 4:50
07. Going Mobile – 3:43
08. Behind Blue Eyes – 3:39
09. Won’t Get Fooled Again – 8:32
10. Pure and Easy (Bonus) – 4:22
11. Baby Don’t You Do It (Bonus) – 5:14
12. Naked Eye (Bonus) – 5:31
13. Water (Bonus) – 6:25
14. Too Much of Anything (Bonus) – 4:25
15. I Don’t Even Know Myself (Bonus) – 4:56
16. Behind Blue Eyes (Bonus) – 3:28

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