Who's Next

[Dave Elliott <dae@cbcosmos.att.com>]

Though I went out and immediately bought Live At Leeds last year, I decided
to hang in there and let my family buy the remaining re-issues for me for
Christmas (they always complain that they don't know what to get for me, and
this would make it easy).  I was most anticipating Who's Next, which was for
me a major revelation when I bought it at age 14 in the fall of 1971.  That
album didn't leave my turntable for months, and probably cost me a little
bit of my hearing as well.

After many listenings to the new release, I have to say that I am very
disappointed.  The album sounds great all right, but the material they chose
for the bonus tracks couldn't have been worse, IMO.

Dave Marsh has been dissed plenty in this forum, but one point he made in
Before I Get Old that I agree with is how the band missed the opportunity to
make Who's Next the greatest rock and roll album ever.  They had just
finished recording a fabulous collection of tunes, but for whatever reason
(and there are many theories) they pared it down to 9 songs (a couple of
which were not among the best in the batch).  What we got was a great album,
but the thought of what we could have had leaves me just a little
frustrated.

So, when I heard about the re-issue, I thought, "Yes!  They are finally going
to give us the album we should have had all along!"  Instead, we get an
inferior version of Pure And Easy, a live Naked Eye where Roger forgets
nearly the entire 3rd verse, a repeat of a song already on the CD, a live
Water that (at least for me) borders on unlistenable, and last (and least)
Baby Don't You Do It.

Why did they do this?  For one, many of the new songs were previously
unreleased, so that's good for completists.  Also, it leaves plenty of good
material for the new Odds and Sods.  And finally, it is not Lifehouse, so it
leaves the door open for that project in the future, should Pete ever do it.
But I would have rather had the best Pure and Easy, the studio Naked Eye,
Join Together, The Relay, Let's See Action, and if they could have restored
it, Time Is Passing.  The new Who's Next has little value added for a person
like me who is a serious fan, but who is not a completist collector.

It happened again, 24 years later.


Dave Elliott