Who’s Next is the album that came out of a disaster. Townshend had been building Lifehouse, a sprawling science-fiction rock opera he couldn’t get anyone, including himself, to fully understand. It collapsed. What survived the wreck became this record, and the salvage turned out to be the best album the band ever made.

That’s the strange thing about Who’s Next. It was never meant to be a standalone album at all. The songs were pieces of a bigger story that no longer existed, set loose to stand on their own. Stripped of the concept, they hit harder. Townshend leans into synthesisers as rhythm and engine, Daltrey sings like the building’s on fire, and Entwistle and Moon play as if the apocalypse the songs keep gesturing at has already started.

Nine tracks. No filler. An accident of an album that outlasted the grand plan it was rescued from.