THE WHO - WHO'S NEXT

So 'Who's Next' reminds me of a few things. Firstly there's the time I was in a strip club in Potland OR a couple of years back. The song came on and was being used as a 'get naked' soundtrack by a particularly young looking blonde lady. I was with a few friends and a guy I didn't know so well, anyway the song came on.

'Brilliant 'Teenage Wasteland!'

'It's called 'Baba O'Riely', stupid name I know but it's called Baba O'Riley'

'Nah! This is 'Teenage Wasteland' it's the soundtrack from that thing on the telly.'

He was right, it was the soundtrack from that thing on the telly, that thing where criminals leave hair or bits of skin at crime scenes and consequently get caught. I shook my head, ordered a PBR and left him to the stripper.

The second memory is of a time when unbeknown to me I was accidentally being over-paid...by about double. I was in New York at a pop art shop called Morrisson Hotel or something and they had a print of the original art work, but only an alternate shot of it, I think Keith was still pissing and they used a slightly different filter as the sky was a lot more red. It was about two grand but I decided that because since my bank balance seemed so healthy I might treat myself. Between making the decision and going back to the shop I was duly informed by my works payroll that I owed them in the region of $56,000, needless to say the artwork stayed in the window.

Musically this album has never really grabbed me as much as it might, I am listening to it now and the first thing that strikes me is that John Entwhistle's bass is way too low in the mix, if you compare and contrast the version of 'Baba O'Riley' that appears here and the one on 'The Kids are Alright' soundtrack the one there is far superior. You can actually hear his fingers and the reason why he would occupy half of the rhythm section in my very own personal supergroup of mostly dead people. Point number two would be that the entire recording is way too quiet, I have a German first pressing but it really doesn't sound like it.

Anyway, obvious highlights are the opener (despite the entirely wank violin solo) and 'Won't Get Fooled Again' and the Limp Bizkit song from the film 'Gothika'. Pete Townsend's A.R.P work on 'Song is Over' is also totally cosmic but again way to low in the mix. The rest of it's kind of okay, I mean, I like it, I just can't imagine it having much of an impact back in the day but given the albums reputation I am obviously entirely wrong. One thing I am not wrong about are the lyrics to 'Going Mobile'...

'Keep me movin' over fifty, keep me movin', sleepin' gypsy.'

Fuck off Roger.

Anyway, music out of the way onto more important stuff, why wasn't this released with a gatefold sleeve?