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What’s next for Analogue Productions?  How about Who’s Next?  The label has announced that four classic titles from The Who will be receiving the deluxe audiophile treatment across various formats including UHQR Vinyl, 45 RPM LPs, hybrid SACDs (playable on all CD players), and Ultra Tape Reel-To-Reel Formats.  My Generation and Live at Leeds arrive next week, July 24, while Tommy and Who’s Next will follow (date TBD).

These releases have been sourced from the original analog master tapes and mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering (with SACD editions mastered to DSD).  Each vinyl release is pressed at Quality Record Pressings and housed in a deluxe Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket with scuff-resistant matte finish.  These reissues present the original album sequences only.

While it originally came out in December 1965 in the band’s native U.K., The Who’s classic debut LP My Generation didn’t hit U.S. shores until April 1966 (as The Who Sings My Generation).  While it didn’t set the charts on fire in the U.S., the album went to No. 5 in the U.K. and Pete Townshend’s anthemic title song went to No. 2.  Also featuring such tracks as “The Kids Are Alright” and “A Legal Matter” (as well as covers of James Brown and Bo Diddley), My Generation has since been considered among the finest rock debuts and catapulted Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon to superstardom. It will be available as a 180-gram 45 RPM 2LP set, Hybrid Mono SACD, and Ultra Tape reel-to-reel edition.

Tommy, The Who’s fourth studio album, effectively added the phrase “rock opera” into the lexicon.  Chief songwriter Townshend had previously experimented with extended song forms, most notably on 1966’s “A Quick One While He’s Away” from the A Quick One album.  But Tommy, produced by Kit Lambert, crystallized Townshend’s lofty ambitions into an electrifying work that was as creative as it was accessible.  With Roger Daltrey in the title role of the “deaf, dumb and blind boy,” Tommy combined muscular rock riffs with a rich array of characters that made the work immediately appealing to directors of both stage and screen.  Cinematic auteur Ken Russell brought Tommy to life in an unforgettable 1975 film version, and Des McAnuff worked with Townshend to give Tommy, Captain Walker, Cousin Kevin, Uncle Ernie and the rest stage immortality in 1993 via the Broadway musical The Who’s Tommy.  Those weren’t the only indelible incarnations of Tommy, though.  The band’s Woodstock performance has gone down in history, and other memorable versions include the original 1970 Seattle Opera staging (with the young Bette Midler as the Acid Queen!) and Lou Reizner’s 1972 symphonic concert event, preserved on its own two-LP set.  Now, the original album (which went to No. 2 in the U.K. and No. 4 in the U.S.) gets the Analogue Productions treatment as a UHQR box set, pressed on 200-gram Clarity Vinyl, as well as on hybrid stereo SACD and Ultra Tape reel-to-reel set.

The band’s first concert album, Live at Leeds (1970) remains one of the most incendiary of the genre.  Though the original single-LP iteration boasted just six songs, the record’s grooves could barely contain the energy captured at the University of Leeds in February 1970.  The LP’s in-your-face, hard-driving, and altogether aggressive sound might have come as a surprise to those who only knew the band from its studio albums; in the place of the elegant intricacy of the Tommy album was a gritty, explosive document of heavy R&B at its heaviest.  (It was no mistake that Townshend included three covers on the album: Mose Allison’s “Young Man Blues,” Jerry Capeheart and Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues,” and Johnny Kidd’s “Shakin’ All Over”).  With a bootleg-style cover that barely hinted at the excitement underneath, Live at Leeds was a record that launched a thousand bands – and set the bar high, too.  A top five album on both sides of the Atlantic, it returns as a 180-gram 45 RPM 2LP set, Hybrid Stereo SACD, and Ultra Tape reel-to-reel edition.

Lastly comes Who’s Next – the band’s fifth studio album and a towering if controversial masterwork borne out of the Lifehouse multimedia project.  Although eight of the nine songs on Who’s Next were written by Townshend for Lifehouse, its story was a much looser one than Tommy – but its songs no less majestic.  The Who arguably outdid themselves on the likes of “Baba O’Riley,” “Bargain,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and Who’s Next went to No. 1 in the U.K. (their only U.K. Number One album) and No. 4 stateside.  (In 2023, The Who issued a massive box set exploring the musical journey from Lifehouse, or Life House, to Who’s Next.)  It will be pressed on 200-gram Clarity Vinyl for the UHQR box set treatment.

All four of these audiophile titles can be pre-ordered now directly from Analogue Productions, with My Generation and Live at Leeds due to begin shipping on or around July 24.