The “Most Revolting” Photograph That Almost Became Cover of The Who’s ‘Who’s Next’

On August 2, 1971, The Who released what many would come to call their best album, Who’s Next, which featured career-defining hits like “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. The music on the record established a new precedent for hard rock, influencing countless other groups along the way. But if the band had gone with their original album artwork, fewer people might have chosen to open the record and listen to what’s inside.

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After all, first impressions are important, and even guitarist Pete Townshend called The Who’s original idea “most revolting.”

The Photograph Originally Meant for The Who’s ‘Who’s Next’

Album covers can be the difference between someone picking up a record off the shelf and walking right past it. They’re a chance for the band to encapsulate their work in a visual format. It informs the listeners what they’re about as a group and what they can expect to hear on the record. Sometimes, the message bands want to convey is that they don’t care about decency. They’re not afraid to push the envelope. And, perhaps, they take joy in causing discomfort.

At least, we’re assuming that’s what The Who was doing for Who’s Next.

“Who’s Next nearly came out with the most revolting pornographic cover you’ve ever seen,” guitarist Pete Townshend later told Zigzag, per Andrew Neill’s Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle of The Who. “In the end, it turned out to be mildly pornographic, but slightly boring at the same time. Dave King [who also did The Who Sell Out] was commissioned to do a cover, and he came up with one with a huge, fat lady with her legs apart. Where the woman’s organ was supposed to be would be a head of the Who grinning out from underneath the pubics.”

To say that album cover would make an impression is certainly a modest understatement. The “mildly pornographic” cover they wisely went with instead featured the four band members walking away from a concrete slab. Wet spots on the structure suggest they urinated on it. According to Neill’s book, one album cover suggestion involved the band peeing on a Marshall stack instead. (We’d guess urine stains don’t show up quite as well on black Tolex.)

How the Original Album Artwork Came To Be

The Who shot the photograph for Who’s Next just one month before they released the album. On July 3, 1971, the band was traveling home from a gig with photographer Ethan Russell. Pete Townshend was driving a casual 100 mph, and as Russell described it, “I was terrified.” Fortunately, his anxiety about Townshend whipping through the countryside in the rain didn’t stop him from picking out a concrete monolith in the field just off the road. Russell had a feeling that the structure would create a good image, so the band got out and went up to it.

“Only Peter actually p***ed against it,” Russell later recalled. “The rest was just cans I filled with water and poured down its sides. We thought it would be fun to show the band taking a loo break. The sky was put in later to give the photos this otherworldly quality. Without it, it would just be a boring grey English sky.”

Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage