Who’s Next : Life House (Deluxe Edition Remastered) The Who

• 1 Baba O'Riley (Remastered 2022) 05:08
• 2 Bargain (Remastered 2022) 05:34
• 3 Love Ain't For Keeping (Remastered 2022) 02:10
• 4 My Wife (Remastered 2022) 03:41
• 5 The Song Is Over (Remastered 2022) 06:24
• 6 Getting In Tune (Remastered 2022) 04:50
• 7 Going Mobile (Remastered 2022) 03:45
• 8 Behind Blue Eyes (Remastered 2022) 03:42
• 9 Won't Get Fooled Again (Remastered 2022) 08:32
• 10 Behind Blue Eyes (New York Record Plant Sessions / 1971 / Version 1 / Take 15 / Remastered 2022) 04:23
• 11 Getting In Tune (Lifehouse Chronicles / Alternative Mix / Remastered 2022) 03:57
• 12 Mary (Alternative Mix / Remastered 2022) 04:19
• 13 Love Ain't For Keeping (New York Record Plant Sessions / 1971 / Take 14 / Remastered 2022) 04:50
• 14 Pure And Easy (Olympic Studio Mix / Demo / Remastered 2022) 05:32
• 15 I Don't Even Know Myself (Original Mix With Count In) 05:02
• 16 Too Much Of Anything (Original Mix With Count In And Original Vocal) 04:34
• 17 Time Is Passing (Live At Young Vic Theatre, London, UK / 1971 / Remastered 2022) 03:41
• 18 Bargain (Live At Young Vic Theatre, London, UK / 1971 / Remastered 2022) 05:50
• 19 My Wife (Live At The The Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, USA / 1971 / Remastered 2022) 06:45
• 20 Baba O'Riley (Live At The The Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, USA / 1971 / Remastered 2022) 05:21
• 21 Won't Get Fooled Again (Live At The The Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, USA / 1971 / Remastered 2022) 08:57
• Total Runtime 01:46:57

Info for Who’s Next : Life House (Deluxe Edition Remastered)

The suite of songs by The Who on which, more than half a century ago, Pete Townshend foresaw the invention of the internet, of virtual reality and pandemic-style lockdown, is to be heard as he intended for the first time.

It features all of his songs, in their many stages of development, from the abandoned, audacious Life House project, started in 1970 as a follow-up to The Who’s epic Tommy, and from the undisputed rock classic of 1971 that it evolved into, Who’s Next.

Who’s Next | Life House sets out Townshend’s extraordinary vision of a world beset by climatic catastrophe and pollution, leading to a curtailing of personal freedom that will be all too familiar to the pandemic generation. Decades ahead of his time, he details how the population is then seduced and sedated by access to an entertainment “Grid,” piped into every home via the use of virtual reality experience suits.

In his introduction to the new editions, Townshend describes Life House as “a portentous polemic about the coming of a nation beaten down by climate issues and pollution.” He then explains how “an opportunist and autocratic government enforce a national lock-down in which every person is hooked up to an entertainment grid.” Music itself then becomes an inconvenient diversion, “a very real distraction to the subjugation of the population in suits,” with fascinating consequences. Songs that depicted a dystopian world in which faceless corporations control our lives may have been fiction at the time, but they have come to be more like documentary.

The unfulfilled project, which Townshend conceived as one part film script and one part blueprint for a live musical experiment, brought him to the edge of a breakdown. But, as he writes, “some wonderful music came from the project, and the idea has always held me in thrall, partly because so many of the strands of the fiction seem to be coming true.”

Listeners will hear, for the first time, how that concept folded into Who’s Next, widely regarded as not only one of the greatest albums in the band’s astonishing catalogue, but a seminal moment in music history. Here, The Who’s instinctive, scintillating cohesion reached new peaks, Townshend’s brilliant creativity as one of rock’s great auteurs brought thrillingly to life by Roger Daltrey’s unsurpassed vocal performances, John Entwistle’s visceral, fluid basslines and Keith Moon’s fiery potency on the drums.

The Who & Life House by Pete Townshend:

1971. Life House was a double-barrelled project. One part film script, the other part the plan for a live musical experiment to be carried out at the Young Vic Theatre to be filmed and incorporated into the fictional movie.

After the success of Tommy, providing The Who with a very powerful and uplifting concert piece as well as a hit album, I tried to create an audacious music project that would replace it musically for stage and album. I hoped too for a movie. I framed Life House as a portentous polemic about the coming of a nation beaten down by climate issues and pollution. In a sci-fi setting an opportunist and autocratic government enforce a national lock-down in which every person is hooked up to an entertainment grid, provided with solace, food, peace, and spiritual succour. The population could enjoy this Grid safe at home, using virtual reality experience suits. Life experience programmes would be provided by a co-opted entertainment industry and piped down tubes and wires to every home.

Music is discovered to be a very real distraction to the subjugation of the population in suits. Slowly it is removed from the programming. Rebels and renegades who refuse to be compliant ride around in crude converted buses and vans, listening to rock ‘n’ roll. It is the rebels who begin to hear rumours of the “Life House,” a place somewhere in London where live music is being performed, and an outlandish experiment was taking place.

One aspect of both the story and the hopeful plan for the Young Vic live music experiment was for me as a composer to act as a computer to create tailor-made compositions for selected audience members who attended a series of workshops at the Young Vic. Two good examples of the kind of music I hoped to compose are the electronic music backing tracks of ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. In the story a new leader (partly based on myself, and partly based on several technical advisors I was working with at the time) put on a series of concerts, where such tailor-made music is created, and eventually would be piped into the government Grid to allow the oppressed population to break free.

A side bar of the fiction is that many participants in the government Grid project begin to advance spiritually, partly because of the sheer number of lifetimes they can enjoy squeezed at high-speed into every moment they remain incarcerated. When the Life House experiment does reach its target, and music is secretly piped into every individual’s experience suit, a universal uprising with immense spiritual and congregational impact takes place. In the Life House itself, down at the Young Vic, the participants all disappear to a higher level.

Earlier, I used the adjective ‘audacious’ to describe my plans. In fact, the fiction and the experiment were both flawed, and neither were properly realised. But some wonderful music came from the project, and the idea has always held me in thrall, partly because so many of the strands of the fiction seem to be coming true.

The Who

Digitally remastered

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