Who's Next

Eight of the nine songs came from Lifehouse. The exception was Entwistle's My Wife. Sessions at the Record Plant in New York with Kit Lambert were unsatisfactory, and Glyn Johns made safety copies and chose to re-record. The Won't Get Fooled Again backing track was cut at Stargroves, Mick Jagger's house, in early April 1971 with the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, and the bulk of the album followed at Olympic in April and May.

Johns copied Townshend's 8-track demos to 16-track and recorded in Olympic's Studio A. He said the very high ceiling was the secret to the sound there, and counts Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again among his proudest recordings.

The album reached number one in Britain, the only Who album to do so, and number four in the United States, and was certified triple platinum by the RIAA. Christgau called it the best hard rock album in years, and it won the Pazz & Jop poll for 1971.

Reviewing the 11-disc Super Deluxe edition in Pitchfork in 2023, Caryn Rose wrote that Townshend called off the New York sessions after a week and brought in Johns, who persuaded him to reduce the Lifehouse material to a single album. The box set adds demos, working studio sessions, singles and outtakes, two 1971 live concerts and a Blu-ray in Dolby Atmos and 5.1.