The best The Who album they “ever made”, according to Roger Daltrey
The albums of every artist tend to feel like their children after a while. For all of the blood, sweat and tears that went into making a complete body of work, there’s a piece of the composer’s soul that ends up getting trapped in between those songs that fans can listen to until the end of time. While The Who have written their fair share of classic albums, Roger Daltrey does have one record that stands head and shoulders above anything else.
It’s hard to pick out a single album of your favourite band. To cherish one set of artistic attributes over another becomes a subjective and, largely, unnecessary endeavour. But its even stranger for a member of that band to do it. For them, what constitutes the best album ever is the experience of making it or the reception it received.
Coming out of the late 1960s, the band had been on a hot streak that no one else could have imagined. After being a fixture of the Mod scene throughout the decade, Pete Townshend’s need to go outside the conventional realm of songwriting led him to create Tommy, a sprawling rock opera about a deaf, dumb and blind kid who could play pinball like no one else.
Although that kind of album might come once in every career, Townshend was convinced that he could do it again with The Who’s next album, entitled Lifehouse. Bringing a futuristic twist to his first tale, the album would involve a character named Bobby as he goes through a spoon-fed version of life in a spacesuit.
When first making the album, Daltrey only could grasp a handful of ideas from the concept, telling Classic Albums, “Pete had written up a script which was basically a film script, which didn’t make any sense. But it had some good ideas in it. One I could remember was if we do find the meaning of life, it will be a musical note”.
Though that sentiment would be captured in the song ‘Pure and Easy’, the Lifehouse project would eventually be shelved to work on Who’s Next instead. While most of the songs that turned up on the album would be piecemeal assembled from the rock opera, it gave way to the band’s greatest sonic inventions, like the synthesised opening to ‘Baba O’Riley’ and the open-hearted yearning of ‘Behind Blue Eyes’.
While Townshend’s initial vision for the album didn’t end up working out as planned, Daltrey still thinks that the music was able to communicate his vision, explaining, “He wanted the feeling that the audience was just as important as the group as to what was coming out of the music. And, to be fair, I think the proof is there that that part of it actually worked because I think the record is certainly the best we ever made”.
That didn’t mean the band didn’t run into trouble when delivering the record to an audience, though. Throughout the tour, The Who’s stage show had to rely on the different tapes of the synthesisers blaring before the band kicked in, which meant knowing exactly where to be at any given moment so they would come off at the right time.
The ending of Lifehouse didn’t stop Townshend from pushing his vision even further on the following albums, either. Going into the recording for Quadrophenia, the guitarist had assembled an even grander concept, complete with a script about a young Mod who felt trapped in his youth and yearned to realise the dreams that he thought had been promised to him. Townshend may not have liked that his version of the album got mangled, but even out of order, Townshend created a blueprint for what grandiose rock and roll was supposed to go.
The first session for what became Who’s Next was at Mick Jagger’s house, and, in actual fact, the backing track of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ was recorded alongside the Rolling Stones frontman. The bandmates brought various artists to play different instruments for this record, and the violin that can be heard in ‘Baba O’Riley’ was played by Dave Arbus and signified the group’s prominence. The final sessions were overseen by their then producer and engineer, Glyn Johns, who took the record to a whole new level with his production skills and filled Townshend with different ideas for the songs.
‘Baba O’Riley’ may well be one of the most enigmatic opening songs of all time, featuring piano and synthesizer-processed Lowrey organ by Townshend, the track breaks open the treasure chest of music to come. The song’s title is a clear tribute to Townshend’s guru, Meher Baba, and minimalist composer Terry Riley, two men who brought light to Townshend’s life. The album contained songs like ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, ‘My Wife’ and also included such all-time Who classics as ‘Bargain’, ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and the majestic ‘The Song Is Over’ all of which confirmed The Who as rock giants.
Since it’s release, Who’s Next has often been considered as The Who’s best album. In fact, to some, it is considered to be the best hard rock album ever created and Daltrey might just be one of them.
