WHO’S NEXT: WHAT SURVIVED LIFEHOUSE

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August 25, 1971 - The Who: Who’s Next is released in the UK.

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Who’s Next is the fifth studio album by The Who, released in the UK on August 25, 1971. It topped the UK Albums Chart and reached #4 on the Billboard 200. In 2007, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

ATMP+ RELEASE DATE NOTE

The UK release date of Who’s Next has been reported differently by modern sources. ATMP+ is using August 25, 1971, based on contemporary reporting in the August 21 issue of Melody Maker, which stated that the album's release had been “delayed until August 25 because of problems over the sleeve design.”

But Who’s Next was never supposed to be Who’s Next.

After the enormous ambition of Tommy, Pete Townshend began developing an even more complicated project called Lifehouse. Depending on the stage of its development, Lifehouse was envisioned as a futuristic rock opera, a film, a concert experiment and an attempt to use electronic music to explore the relationship between a performer and an audience.

Townshend arranged experimental performances at London's Young Vic Theatre, hoping the interaction between The Who and the audience could become part of the project. One concept involved taking information about an individual — height, weight, beliefs, astrological details and other characteristics — and translating that data into music.

The project became increasingly difficult to realize. Recording sessions at the Record Plant in New York failed to produce the results Townshend wanted, while his relationship with longtime producer and manager Kit Lambert deteriorated badly.

Eventually, Lifehouse collapsed.

The Who regrouped with producer Glyn Johns, returned to England and concentrated on the songs rather than trying to preserve Townshend's sprawling narrative. Much of the material was re-recorded at Olympic Studios, and nine tracks were selected for the album that became Who’s Next.

What remained of Lifehouse was formidable: “Baba O’Riley,” “Bargain,” “The Song Is Over,” “Getting in Tune,” “Going Mobile,” “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” all had connections to Townshend's abandoned project. John Entwistle supplied the album's lone non-Townshend composition, “My Wife.”

The electronic textures were particularly striking. The repeating pattern opening “Baba O’Riley,” often described as a synthesizer, originated with Townshend manipulating a Lowrey organ. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” similarly integrated a repeating electronic sequence into one of The Who's most powerful full-band performances.

Just days before the album appeared, Townshend explained several of the songs to New Musical Express. “The Song Is Over,” he said, had originally been intended for the end of the Lifehouse film, while “Behind Blue Eyes” had once been considered as a single before the band decided it was “too much out of character.”

Ironically, an album born from the failure of Townshend's grandest concept became one of The Who's most successful and enduring records. Stripped of the narrative that was supposed to connect everything, the songs were allowed to stand on their

own.

COVER ARTWORK

Photographer Ethan Russell shot the famous cover at Easington Colliery in County Durham. The four members of The Who appear to have just urinated against a large concrete piling rising from the slag heap, an image frequently interpreted as a visual joke on the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The photograph wasn't quite as spontaneous as it looks. According to Russell, when some of the band couldn't actually perform for the camera, rainwater was poured from a film canister to complete the effect.

Other cover concepts considered for the album were considerably stranger, including photographs of obese nude women and a shot of Keith Moon wearing black lingerie, a wig and carrying a whip.

PETE TOWNSHEND — NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS, AUGUST 21, 1971

Excerpt

Only days before the album's scheduled release, Townshend took NME through the new record and explained its connection to his abandoned Young Vic/Lifehouse experiment.

On “Baba O’Riley,” Townshend described his idea of feeding information about an audience member into electronic equipment and translating that person into music. He said the piece grew from experiments involving information about his spiritual teacher Meher Baba.

He called “Bargain” “one of the best numbers on the album,” praised Entwistle's “My Wife,” and explained that “The Song Is Over” originally belonged at the conclusion of his proposed film.

“Behind Blue Eyes,” meanwhile, nearly had a very different role: “It was going to be the single but we thought it was too much out of character.”

TRACKS:

All songs written by Pete Townshend except where noted.

Side one

“Baba O’Riley” – 5:08

“Bargain” – 5:34

“Love Ain’t for Keeping” – 2:10

“My Wife” (John Entwistle) – 3:41

“The Song Is Over” – 6:14

Side two

“Getting in Tune” – 4:50

“Going Mobile” – 3:42