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Certainly--undoubtedly--"Who's Next" feels like the quintessence of what music should be. A brash, energetic frenzy of urgency, a real passionate statement. Delivered in a way that unleashes energy, because it's grappling, struggling.
When I was a kid, I would listen to "Who's Next" and be bored, it was like: all my friends liked it and... I thought I should like it too, so I did, I learned to say that this was just the most awesome music on the face of the earth, I learned to accept it.
But really truly all this blues, the Led Zeppelin, lots of the Doors, I just slaved through it waiting for something to happen. I'll call you a crawling king snake... but you've got through this whole song, and you've only used three words, "crawling," "snake," and "den." Slow death on the plains...
I know I can't listen to "Who's Next" without feeling the wrenching power of my childhood coming back at me. I can't say anymore what's inherent greatness and what's my mind playing tricks on me... I guess there's never any firm separating one from the other... And yet when the complaint these days runs to the phoniness, packagedness, inauthenticy of music, that's obviously against a standard. A standard of truth and testimony, like "Mr. Tambourine Man," and that's not just because I remember "Mr. Tambourine Man" as this brave statement I heard as a kid. Or, not.
There's no doubt a link between the production styles of these days and the watering-down and second-guessicizing that everyone hates. We want a rebel. We will manufacture one if necesary.
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