Who’s Best: Which Record by The Who Is the Band’s Greatest Album?

You might be surprised to find out that The Who has only released a dozen studio albums in their incredible career. They’ve only completed two of those LPs since 1982, which has a lot to do with the relatively low total.

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Nonetheless, their batting average is ridiculously high when it comes to how many of those records are stone-cold classics. Which is best of all? Let’s review the top four candidates, and then we’ll offer our verdict.

‘The Who Sell Out’ (1967)

The concept of the songs being part of a pirate radio show falls apart on the second side. Nonetheless, the album presents the band at an early songwriting and performing peak before they started focusing on concepts. Pete Townshend delivers some character sketches laced with gallows humor on songs like “Odorono” and “Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand”. “Our Love Was” and “I Can’t Reach You” stand among the band’s best relationship songs. And “I Can See For Miles” previews the epic sound that would soon become their norm.

‘Tommy’ (1969)

While peers like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones turned towards simplicity in the late 60s, The Who went for broke with a wildly ambitious undertaking. You have to give credit to Pete Townshend for coming up with a story on which he could hang many of his favorite themes, including the glorification of the outsider, the trustworthiness (or lack thereof) of spiritual leaders, and the individual’s ability to transcend their limitations. Tommy launched a lot of imitators. Few of them came anywhere near to what this LP achieved.

‘Who’s Next’ (1971)

By accident, Pete Townshend discovered that an album can sustain thematic unity without any exposition to hold it together. Who’s Next was meant to be another rock opera-type project, but the band, for a number of reasons, couldn’t quite pull it together. The material they wrote for it proved plenty good enough for a more traditional album. “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” can hang with any realistic but defiant anthems you might name. This album never lets up. Seven of the nine tracks have deservedly earned their place in the rock firmament.

‘Quadrophenia’ (1973)

On this double album, Pete Townshend created a new concept without attempting to connect the dots in the story as finely as he did in Tommy. That allowed him to write more songs like “5:15” and “The Real Me” that needed no context to hit home. Powerful, moving tracks like “I’m One” and “The Punk And The Godfather” pop out of the score, which is drenched in horns, synths, and Keith Moon’s relentless drum assault. Roger Daltrey’s screams on the closer “Love Reign O’er Me” remain as iconic a sound as rock music has ever produced.

The Verdict

How do you toss out any of these fantastic albums? It’s tough, but that’s the task. As acclaimed as it is, Tommy is the weakest of the bunch in terms of memorable songs. The Who Sell Out doesn’t quite match the ambition of the others.

We’re splitting hairs between the top two. Quadrophenia soars despite a fearsomely high degree of difficulty. But we have to choose Who’s Next, an album that churned so many of the foundational blocks upon which the classic rock genre is built.

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