The two hundred eleventh album: #211 The Who - Who's Next
When you get to a band like this that has been around for a while, with their previous album Tommy looming large, it feels like there are two directions to take - either shake it up or go deeper on what you've been doing. And while Tommy looms as one of the biggest rock opera albums, it feels like Who's Next builds on that sound, but not (due to various reasons) the concept. It's quite telling that Who's Next, the one song by John Entwistle rather than Pete Townshend, stands out so much both in the use of horns and the generally quite jovial tone. Others are serious, angry or sentimental - The Song Is Over following after going very deep on the latter, starting with an introduction that has vocals over a piano, building up but not going in as hard.
The real meat of the album is at the end though, with Behind Blue Eyes grabbing me in particular as a powerful ballad, the harmonies that bookend the song feeling incredibly powerful and something I've felt connected to. The end, the longer and more known Won't Get Fooled Again, hits as a powerful statement piece. The venom is in the tail, but it's worth it.