Hey, everyone. Giggens here. Welcome to Classics Week here on The Needle Drop. Today, we're looking at one of my favorite albums of all time, Who's Next by the Who.

What started out as an incredibly inventive and original story called Lifehouse, the record that we get here of Who's Next is nine absolutely amazing songs taken from those sessions. It's like a greatest hits of that idea, if you will.

Lifehouse was to be the ultimate connection between music and fans, between band and audience, between Sci-Fi and real life. The easiest way I can dumb down the idea of Lifehouse was that – imagine if you had this thing called a life suit and you wear the life suit at all times. This takes place in the future, by the way. You're wearing your life suit. Everything you want is fed into you, into the life suit. All experiences, all love, all relationships, all going out and doing something fun. You feel those things through your life suit. You're not allowed to take it off. It's what the internet would become where you can just take out your phone and have whatever you want on your phone. It's like that.

On top of all that, it was a search for the meaning of what life was. What was your existence wearing this suit? What was the point? It comes down to music. What if there was one note that represented everything and that one note could save all of us? What if rock and roll was the answer to save us from ourselves and from the trappings of life.

Anyways, it was supposed to be this whole movie idea. They had a script going and they were going to film the Who basically playing nonstop at the Young Vic Theater. Obviously, you can't do that because the theater is going to have other productions come in. The idea of having the audience live with the Who and just film them back and forth and the audience finding themselves in the song, it just couldn't feasibly be done because you're trying to make a fantasy, but you have to work with the trappings of reality.

The whole thing started to fall apart, and it was taking a toll on Pete mentally because he had this great vision, this cool idea, and it just wasn't clicking. The rest of the guys picked up on some of the ideas and really loved what they heard. But whereas with Tommy, you can express – all right, well, here's a kid, and he has to go through all these experiences. You can relate to that. If you're wearing some bizarre suit that feeds you information, in 1970, that was pretty far out.

Long story short, they took the songs, and Kit Lambert, their producer, was like, You know what? Let's go to the Record Plant and we'll try some stuff out there. They tried to record out in New York. It didn't work. They came back to England, settled down, and gave us Who's Next.

The trick with explaining songs from Who's Next and talking about them in general and the stories behind them and the idea of the tracks themselves can be a little challenging because you explain the story of Lifehouse as you go. But you can also take the songs out of their Lifehouse context and make them just about the world at large or political stuff or internal monologues. For instance, let's take "Baba O'Riley", which is one of the coolest songs they had ever come up with at that time, and something so original and so total left turn from what they had done up until then. We're ushered into a totally new era of The Who with this long synth intro. And synths would become a massive part of the 1970s and beyond. But at this time, synths were really hard to use and program, and Pete was a master at them.

The touring for Tommy throughout 1969, 1970, really made the Who into the band that they would become for the rest of their career. Tommy was an album that really cemented them and their rock and roll status. It was the first time they ever really made money doing what they did. The first time they had worldwide recognition. Tommy was their first huge album in America, but when they were touring for this record, they developed personas and stage presence and technical ability that I don't think any of them really knew that they had, or maybe they were surprised by how good they were. Roger Daltrey really found his voice on that tour, and it was something he would carry with him for the rest of his career – this humongous, massive vocal. Obviously, John, Keith, and Pete were talented in their own right, but I feel like the touring for that album tested the limits of, Oh, wow, we can really prove ourselves here.

I feel like all that experience led themselves creating something really special with Who's Next. Long story short, "Baba O'Riley" is a track I feel like would never have existed without touring for Tommy and doing the Tommy album in general. It's a song that takes its time and builds and has so many shifts and so many parts. There's a violin solo at the end that Keith produced. Lyrically, Pete was looking at the world and looking at how we can have ideas. But does anybody follow up on those ideas? That was the waste. That was the wasteland of it. It was like, you have all these great ideas. We're going to go and change the world. We're going to sing about it. We're going to do all these great cool things, make peace and love. It's going to be awesome. But what really happened?

Truly an incredible song that still gets played massively on the radio to this day. It's so impressive. Pete's guitar lines on it are biting. The striking cords are absolutely some of the most iconic in rock and roll history. It's a track that will always be remembered.

"Bargain" is a really, really good song. Man, this is probably one of my favorites on the album. The propulsive drum rolls from Keith on this thing are unreal. As they always said, Keith played "lead drums." The reverb on Roger's voice gives this song an atmosphere that's almost ghostly or glowing. John's bass lines are incredible. And the beats attack those brief riff attacks where he lets them ring out, he stabs them again. Man, that's cool. The way Roger hits those notes and holds onto them and the way Pete comes in to deliver a really gentle moment in the bridge, the vocal... This whole dynamic between Pete and Roger is one of my favorites in rock and roll history because you've got Pete doing the... I would almost say he takes the role of the outward person like, Oh, here's my voice. But inside, you're Roger Daltrey, where you're screaming for it. It's that really fascinating dynamic of how you present yourself versus what you hear in your head. This is a truly rocking song, and as Pete put it, it's about losing your ego and devoting yourself to a higher power. When you connect that whole "One / One, Don't Make Two / One, One, Make One" – the protagonist is constantly yearning and searching for that comfort of what's been promised of him about spirituality.

"Loving Ain't for Keeping" was originally a rocking jammer of a song, and I really love this acoustic version that they presented on the final record, but some excellent background vocals from John and Pete here, really rich lead vocals from Roger with really smooth acoustic guitars and a really nice acoustic guitar solo. A short song that doesn't overstay its welcome about the joys of love, about connections and finding harmony in nature and living for the moment. Just the small things.

"My Wife" is a John song that has absolutely nothing to do with Lifehouse, and I love that for it, because it's a song that John just had hanging around, left over from his solo album. Can you imagine having that song just left over, like, No, just chilling. It's "My Wife". No big deal. A concert staple for John throughout the rest of his life, pretty much. This song hits hard. I love the huge bright brass swells throughout this thing. Keith's use of his cymbals on this thing creates such a tense excitement. His punctual tom roles are just so on point with a... I feel like the toms on this song give a grounding because lyrically, it's about John or whoever the story is about avoiding the wrath of his wife because of his many many screw-ups. I feel like the toms capture that grounding moment of, Oh, you're back to reality again. You're back to Earth. You're back to the bottom.

"The Song is Over" was actually meant to be used in the Lifehouse story after doing those live concerts where the police come in and bust up the live show. This was supposed to be that last little answer of, Well, the music's gone. What do we do now? Pete takes on the verses on this song. I love his really gentle delivery because when you have Pete's soft, somber, wistful, like, Oh, song's over. I'm left here rolling by myself. Let your only tears. What do I do now? Then Roger storms in like a herd of elephants being like, You know what? Optimism, bravado. We got this. We can keep fighting. Nothing's going to take us down. The whole song is one joyous, confident, triumphant, anthemic mission statement to be like, music doesn't actually end. We can do this. It started from somewhere. It's going to keep going. Nothing's going to take away the one note that brings peace to everything. Which builds up to the end of the song where they actually reference "Pure and Easy", which was the central song to Lifehouse.

"There once was a note / pure and easy / playing so free like a breath, rippling by."

It's a song about the joys of music. And what if the world was run by one note? What would that one be? And would there be harmony because of that one note that we all shared in common?

"Getting in Tune" is one of my favorite songs on the record as well because I love the chorus on this thing, the maybe with a u. In the verses, it has more of a nostalgic calm quality. Like wistful, looking back and remembering things. But when you get to the chorus, the way the chorus explodes in, lyrically, it's a pretty deep song. In Pete's instance, I think he wrote this from the idea of, he's a rock guitarist, but he's also a normal person. How do you justify or balance the rock star ego with the normal day-to-day duties of being a normal person on the street?

"Going Mobile" – Pete takes lead on this one. It's a song about living off the grid. You're going out making the world your home, as he says. I love the acoustic guitars on this one. I love the acoustic synthy feel throughout that solo as well. A really cool song about being in the passenger seat of the magic bus, if you will, and experiencing things that in the story of Lifehouse, you were told not to experience. At one point in the story, it's known that the government has banned automotive vehicles or anything that produces gas because of what the world's become due to pollution. You're not allowed to travel or go anywhere. You have to stay in your life suit and have things fed to you through the life suit. This is someone who wants to actually get into a driving vehicle and see the world for themselves and experience that freedom, knowing that that freedom is illegal at this world in this sci-fi fantasy universe.

"Behind Blue Eyes" is a song unlike anything else in their discography up to this point, and pretty much after as well. Having a song that is pretty much acoustic and bass throughout most of the track until Keith comes in much later with the drums. You get these absolutely angelic background vocals from Pete and Roger that... I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Pete and Roger are some of the most underrated background vocalists in rock music history. Listen to the background vocals this thing and prove me wrong. When Roger starts to belt it out at the end, you really feel like you're inside his heart, inside his soul, his storytelling. Roger is one of the best storytellers in rock and roll history as well.

But this track in particular, it was written from the point of view of the bad guy from Lifehouse, if you will. But if you take that out of context and just put it to any normal day-to-day situation, it's like, yeah, instead of that line, "When my fist clenches / Crack it open before I use it and lose my cool." Instead of going off and punching a wall or something, just have a chat. Realize that things aren't fixed by punching something. Truly one of the most iconic classic rock tracks of all time, still a radio staple to this day, and really one of the most interesting song constructions in the Who's discography.

Everything that you heard builds up to this one final last point: "Won't Get Fooled Again".

Here it is. The grand finale, the culmination of ideas, both political and internal, the search for truth and peace, synth explorations that were unknown to the pop world at this time, and probably the most iconic rock and roll scream ever.

Just to be summed up with the final line: "Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss."

This mission statement of an anthem charges you up. You feel like you're inside the song. You just want to jump around and scream and play your guitar. It energizes you to be like, Wow, maybe I can change the world. Yeah, it's hard right now and things are difficult, and it will be an uphill battle, but maybe it's not completely out the question to make things better. It's pretty much saying be the best you that you can be. Believe in yourself, believe in your family, believe in your friends, and consider your idols, because they might not have the answers for you. Don't look up to someone else. Maybe try believing in yourself.

Who's Next as it stands is truly a groundbreaking album, not just for the Who, but for pop music in general. If you know nothing about Lifehouse and all the drama that went on behind the scenes and all the conversations that went nowhere and all the confusion behind it all, you can push that aside because the songs themselves, as they stand, can be taken at face value, but you can also put your own interpretation into them as well.

They really do just stand on their own, whether it's about social consciousness or inner harmony, fighting against governments that don't have the best interest in people, freedom, the downfalls of fantasy, but above it all, ending with a determination to never give up hope.

Yeah, you get run through the ringer of emotions and ideas, but not once on this album does it tell you to give up. It was the Who's next album, but also who is next? What is the future? It rests in one note, pure and easy.

The Who. Forever.