Product Details

• Actors: Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Bob Pridden, Pete Townshend
• Directors: Bob Smeaton
• Producers: Bous De Jong, Chips Chipperfield, Elizabeth Flowers, Geoff Kempin, Nick De Grunwald
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Rhino / Wea
• VHS Release Date: November 7, 2000
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004ZETZ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,050 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Originally produced for cable and home video as a documentary project, the Classic Albums series offers in-depth profiles of enduring rock and pop albums built around first-person interviews with the artists, producers, and musicians that created them. Their strong sonic debt makes their DVD issues problematic, since the segments aren't intended to replace the original audio recordings, only to expand on them. If you haven't heard these albums, nearly all of them landmarks in late-20th-century pop, then this isn't the place to start. If you know the originals, however, these smartly written, well-produced documentaries can open up a richer understanding of the genesis for each album.

Who's Next proves a terrific candidate for this deep-focus approach: in songwriter and chief strategist Pete Townshend, we're presented with one of the most thoughtful, articulate rock gods extant. His own capacity for self-analysis, as well as an underlying empathy for the band's original Mod fans, translated directly into the band's songs. Townshend's sense of daring had already yielded a more conspicuous rock landmark with Tommy, the "rock opera" that preceded what eventually emerged as Who's Next, which seemed comparatively straightforward, an album of songs without an obvious narrative thread. In fact, Townshend had sought to carry the theatrical underpinnings of Tommy to a higher, interactive level by creating a sprawling stage piece, Lifehouse, that would use the theater space and the involvement of fans to expand on the studio conception that yielded his saga of that deaf, dumb, and blind kid.

Who's Next thus emerges as something of a mirror for the listener--for Townshend, the reductive but still potent remnant of a grand, white elephant, for the rest of the band simply their best album. Surviving members Townshend, bassist John Entwistle, and vocalist Roger Daltrey provide generous comments on the history of the project, and interviews with managers, press agents, and writers, including biographer Dave Marsh, all reinforce the sense that, however chimerical Lifehouse itself proved, it produced a rich set of songs honed by the live performances they received during the project's chaotic development as a de facto theatrical laboratory. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Stuff - Could be even better, July 15, 2001

By 

Mark D Burgh "Music, Writing, Art, Film, Hist... (Fort Smith, AR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Albums - The Who: Who's Next [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If you love the Who, this is one of the best documents about them, even though we have to spent part of our dwindling lives listening to Dave Marsch's drivel instead of Pete's during the too-short duration of the video.

For insight into the music itself, this tape showed me things I had heard for years, but never really grasped, like how Keith Moon would play riffs instead of drum patterns, and how much energy the Who had. Listening to the un-mixed tracks from "Goin' Mobile" are incredible.

Pete Townshend is always generous when talking about his music, and no less here. For an avid Synth fan like me, who worships "Baba O'Riley," what a real treat to see Pete's ARPs at work, and how he created the groundbreaking, unique, and staggering synth backing that makes the songs on Who's Next the great works they are, despite what Roger Daltrey thinks.

There is too much "Won't Get Fooled Again" in this documentary. They are always cutting back to it, and Pete does an acoustic version that while fun, is not really necessary. Other music on the record is slighted at the expense of the bigger hits.

The whole Lifehouse disaster is dealt with; mainly Pete's inability to articulate his vision.

Who's Next is one of the greatest, if not the greatest record in Rock history and this tape helps explain in.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Who's Next - One of my favorites, September 29, 2004

By 

Thumper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic Albums - The Who: Who's Next [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I'd like to start by saying I really enjoy all the Classic Albums series documentaries. If you get the chance, check out some of the other titles, like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, etc.

Also, to point out, this is a documentary on the Making of an album, not a concert video...although there are some live concert clips and music videos, all found on The Kid's Are Alright.

On to the review: Overall, this makes an excellent companion to "The Kid's Are Alright" for Who Fans. If you're a fan of the Who's Next album, you'll get an inside view of how and why the songs were put together, told mostly from the viewpoint of Pete, Roger, and John themselves.

Hearing Pete's original demo for Won't Get Fooled Again is really cool, although it has a totally different feel than the end product, as Pete plays all the instuments on the demo, with a half-time beat...very interesting.

The introspect into the routing of the organ thru the synth shows how groundbreaking and essential the use of keyboards were to these songs. However, most of the time is spent on "Fooled Again", and I would have liked to have seen something on the organ track for Baba O' Riley (for those who would like more info on this, I found a cool link: http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/equip-baba.htm) There also used to be a page with someone's recreations of these tracks, but it no longer exists :(

I also like Pete's candor with the interviewer (one of my favorite lines is when he's listening back to the organ solo on Fooled Again and kind of chuckles to himself and calls it "brilliant" -which it was, really), but most of all, I enjoyed hearing the individual tracks being solo'ed up to hear them isolated from the rest of the mix. As a musician myself, this is like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls! I think it's pure magic to hear the individual components, and how they all work together to form the classic music that we've all come to know and love for so many years now.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for Who Fans, May 22, 2000

By 

D. Levy (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Albums - The Who: Who's Next (DVD)

This is a wonderful hour-long documentary on the making of "Who's Next" and its origins in the Lifehouse project. There are very good interviews with Pete, Roger, John, Glyn Johns, Chris Stamp, Dave Marsh and others. As with other shows in the Classic Albums series, there are some cool moments at the mixing board with the original multitrack recordings, showing how the final mixes were put together (for instance just Roger's voice and Keith's drumming during "Behind Blue Eyes.") There is some great live concert footage, including several numbers from the 1976 tour. Some excellent explanations of Pete's approach to sequencing for the groundbreaking synthesizer parts on the album. Finally, a few brand-new performances (Pete singing "Pure and Easy" at the piano and "Won't Get Fooled Again" with just an acoustic guitar.)

If you love Who's Next you will find this DVD to be well worth the money.