The Who - Who's Next

Ah, we love to rock. A week or so ago I headed down to The Corner in Richmond to see one of my favourite bands, Guided by Voices, and was highly entertained by singer Robert Pollard's excellent Roger Daltrey impersonation, swinging mic and all. And now here's the real thing, preserved for a damn long time on polycarbonate!

The archival footage demonstrates that The Who were a fairly fearsome live act, and who knows where main songwriter Pete Townshend's muse might have led them if drummer Keith Moon hadn't been so careless as to die? The songs on Who's Next are more sophisticated than earlier hits such as 'My Generation', and the remaining band members, Townshend especially, are forthcoming with information about Lifehouse, the original film/album/live 'experience' that never actually congealed and led to the songs being used for this album instead.

Like the other Classic Album discs I've seen, this one is region-free, which will be handy to those with DVD-ROMs set to Region 1 (not that we buy overseas discs, no sir!). Most of the full-screen video footage is very acceptable with little grain or noise, and decent colour and contrast for video, which never looks as rich as film.

Some of the old archival footage has scratches and other artifacts, but that's what happens with old film. There's no MPEG artifacting to be seen, a good job has been performed on the video all round.

Pretty good, documentary standard stereo sound, though I wonder if PCM stereo might have sounded better than data-reduced Dolby Digital? The original master tapes for Who's Next still sound scrummy, and this makes the examination of individual tracks a pleasure, especially Moon's wildman drumming. Even the live footage sounds decent considering how awful live rock bands usually sound (ie, a wall of noise!). The only objectionable sections are those where modern-day Townshend attempts to hit pitches he can no longer reach!

A basic discography is your lot.

Who fans should enjoy this disc a lot, and there's a fair amount of archival footage to make it worthwhile to completists and obsessive collectors. You certainly get a better idea of the intentions behind the album than you do with some of the other Classic Album series, and as somebody with a passing interest, I was quite entertained.

I'd always seen Who's Next nestling in the 'Top 50 Albums From All Eternity (At The Moment)' lists in Mojo and the like, but this documentary was the first time I'd had a chance to hear tracks. Not only did I find the interviews informative, I dug the music as well. I'm going out to buy the album!