History Music / WhosNext

-->''No one knows what it's like to be the bad man''
-->''To be the sad man''
-->''Behind blue eyes''
-->''No one knows what it's like to be hated''
-->''To be fated''
-->''To telling only lies''

--->''Sally, take my hand, we'll travel south cross-land''
--->''Put out the fire and don't look past my shoulder''
--->''The exodus is here, the happy ones are near''
--->''Let's get together before we get much older''

--->''Out in the woods''
--->''Or in the city''
--->''It's all the same to me''
--->''When I'm drivin' free, the world's my home''
--->''When I'm mobile''

''Who's Next'' is the fifth studio album by Music/TheWho, released in 1971. It's widely agreed to be their best album and spawned some of their most popular songs, including "Baba O'Riley", "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," along with some equally-beloved deep cuts like "Going Mobile" and "Bargain".

The band had a hard time trying to come up with a follow-up for ''Music/{{Tommy}}''; though they released a single, "The Seeker", and ''Live at Leeds'' in its aftermath. So began guitarist Pete Townshend's passion project, ''Lifehouse'', intended to be an album, a live recording, and a film, all at the same time. The plot followed the search for the One Note to unite humanity, in the process rebelling against a society where music is illegal, and all entertainment is broadcast by the government through the Grid. Unfortunately for Townshend, the concept proved a bit too ambitious: the script followed a nonlinear, proto-Creator/QuentinTarantino style, his concept of The Grid happened [[ItWillNeverCatchOn long before the internet was even a gleam in the public's eye]] and the One Note was deemed too Babaist. The result was his complete inability to explain the idea to anyone else, none the least of which the rest of the band, with Townshend eventually having a nervous breakdown and scrapping the project.

However, the project wasn't completely scrapped. Eight of the songs and "My Wife", a completely unrelated song written by bassist John Entwistle, were compiled to become the end result, ''Who's Next''. The album was massively influential, having major usage of synthesizers[[note]]the most major usage of this before the album was ''Music/AbbeyRoad''[[/note]] on "Bargain", "The Song Is Over", "Going Mobile", and "Won't Get Fooled Again" (but ''not'' on "Baba O'Riley", contrary to popular belief), without sacrificing the hard rock edge the band had perfected by then. To say their going back to their roots in the wake of their success paid off would be a quite apt description--the album was an immediate commercial success and was seen as one of the best hard rock albums ever made.

* LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition: 2023 saw the release of ''Who's Next / Life House: Super Deluxe Edition'', an exhaustive BoxedSet consisting of 10 [=CDs=] and a Blu-ray Audio disc and containing a whopping 155 tracks, including a new remastering of the original album, numerous outtakes from the various studio sessions, alternate takes and mixes, two complete live concerts, new stereo and 5.1 mixes from Music/StevenWilson, and plenty of supplementary material including a 100-page hardback book, a GraphicNovel based on the ''Lifehouse'' concept, and reproductions of photos, posters, tour programs, and pin buttons.

* Limited Special Collectors Ultimate Edition: 2023 saw the release of ''Who's Next / Life House: Super Deluxe Edition'', an exhaustive BoxedSet consisting of 10-CDs and a Blu-ray Audio disc and containing a whopping 155 tracks, including a new remastering of the original album, numerous outtakes from the various studio sessions, alternate takes and mixes, two complete live concerts, new stereo and 5.1 mixes from Music/StevenWilson, and plenty of supplementary material including a 100-page hardback book, a GraphicNovel based on the ''Lifehouse'' concept, and reproductions of photos, posters, tour programs, and pin buttons.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/whos_next_album_5518.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:320:''Don't cry\\

-->-- Excerpt from '''Allmusicm''' overview

[[caption-width-right:320: ''Don't cry\\

It's only teenage wasteland'']]

-->--Excerpt from Allmusic overview

* BigYes: The '''''"Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!"''''' in "Won't Get Fooled Again".

However, the project wasn't completely scrapped. Eight of the songs and "My Wife", a completely unrelated song written by bassist John Entwistle, were compiled to become the end result, ''Who's Next''. The album was massively influential, having major usage of synthesizers[[note]]the most major usage of this before the album was ''Music/AbbeyRoad''[[/note]] on "Bargain", "The Song Is Over", "Going Mobile", and "Won't Get Fooled Again", without sacrificing the hard rock edge the band had perfected by then. To say their going back to their roots in the wake of their success paid off would be a quite apt description--the album was an immediate commercial success and was seen as one of the best hard rock albums ever made.

However, the project wasn't completely scrapped. Eight of the songs and "My Wife", a completely unrelated song written by bassist John Entwistle, were compiled to become the end result, ''Who's Next''. The album was massively influential, having major usage of synthesizers[[note]]the most major usage of this before the album was ''Music/AbbeyRoad''[[/note]] on "Baba O'Riley", "Bargain", "The Song Is Over", and "Won't Get Fooled Again", without sacrificing the hard rock edge the band had perfected by then. To say their going back to their roots in the wake of their success paid off would be a quite apt description--the album was an immediate commercial success and was seen as one of the best hard rock albums ever made.

''Who's Next'' is the fifth studio album by Music/TheWho, released in 1971. It's widely agreed to be their best album and spawned some of their most popular songs, including "Baba O'Riley", "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," along with some equally-beloved deep cuts like "Going Mobile."

However, the project wasn't completely scrapped. Eight of the songs and "My Wife", written by bassist John Entwistle, were compiled to become the end result, ''Who's Next''. The album was massively influential, having major usage of synthesizers[[note]]the most major usage of this before the album was ''Music/AbbeyRoad''[[/note]] on "Baba O'Riley", "Bargain", "The Song Is Over", and "Won't Get Fooled Again", without sacrificing the hard rock edge the band had perfected by then. To say their going back to their roots in the wake of their success paid off would be a quite apt description--the album was an immediate commercial success and was seen as one of the best hard rock albums ever made.

* LyricalDissonance: "Won't Get Fooled Again" is an awesome, adrenaline-pumping rock song (widely considered one of the greatest ever) about how frivolous revolution is when the next leader is just as bad as the first.

* NewSoundAlbum: It introduced synthesisers into the band's sound. However, the synthesisers here are used mainly for effects and processing: the ARP synthesiser is used to process the guitar solo in "Going Mobile", the EMS [=VCS3=] is used as an envelope filter for the organ in "Won't Get Fooled Again" and noisemaker in "The Song Is Over". The famous opening melody of "Baba O'Riley", which every assumes was done on synth, was actually played on Pete Townshend's Lowrey Deluxe organ, a fairly basic home keyboard, using its "marimba repeat" setting, which makes the notes stutter. Synthesisers would assume a more leading role starting with ''Music/{{Quadrophenia}}''.

* StepUpToTheMicrophone: John Entwistle sings "My Wife", Pete Townshend sings all of "Going Mobile" and parts of several other songs on the album