Who's Next is not an album lacking for reissues. In addition to a deluxe edition from 2003, there have also been multiple audiophile editions and remasters of the album since its 1971 release. So what could a "super deluxe edition" possibly contain? Quite a bit, as it turns out. As even casual Who fans know, the genesis of Who's Next was as Lifehouse, a multimedia rock opera even more ambitious than Tommy. Pete Townshend had developed a bizarre, dystopian story that somehow merged his devotion to Indian guru Meher Baba, his recent fascination with synthesizers, and the idea that the only thing that could save humanity from a test-tube-bound future was "real rock 'n' roll." Yeah, the aftereffects of the '60s were wild. After some live shows at the Young Vic in London and a series of marathon recording sessions, a 16-song tracklist was finalized, but by this point, it was collectively decided—both creatively and commercially—that perhaps another concept-dense double album might not be the best studio follow-up to Tommy. So, eight Lifehouse songs were re-cut and one new song ("My Wife") was recorded and the leaner, meaner Who's Next was released in August 1971. The album was both an instant success and has become an undisputed part of the classic rock canon, thanks to the inclusion of absolutely iconic tracks like "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Baba O'Riley," and "Behind Blue Eyes."While one could make an argument that the taut and focused power of Who's Next inadvertently proved the point of the Lifehouse story (namely, that rock 'n' roll is most effective when it's at its most primal), it's important to remember that Who's Next was also a giant artistic leap forward for the Who, as it found them at the peak of their powers as a pummeling rock band and as a band willing to be experimental and artful in their approach to being a pummeling rock band. (If any evidence is needed of the group's unrivaled power, check out take 13 of "Won't Get Fooled Again" on this set, which is so immediate and electric that it could easily be mistaken for a concert performance.) While several Lifehouse tracks found their way to other Who and Townshend records, getting a sense of the contours of the project has been difficult. But this massive, 155-track set creates those lines thanks to the inclusion of multiple Townshend demos as well as recording sessions of Life House tracks that occurred both before and after the release of Who's Next, and, most notably, two freshly mixed live shows from 1971 (including one of the Young Vic shows) that provided both the energy and, in some cases the basic tracks, for the album versions. While nothing on this bursting-at-the-seams edition overrides the all-killer-no-filler approach of Who's Next, it does provide plenty of long-desired context and documentation for what made that record so powerful. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

You’ll never be left waiting too long between two King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard releases. And you'll be all the better for it. Celebrating a ten-year career just last year, with a total of 24 albums under their belt, the wizards are consolidating their status as one of the most prolific groups in history. Their breakneck pace, including five releases in 2017 and 2022 alone, does not give pause to their creativity, as they take their sound to the extreme fringes of rick, from psyche to boogie via garage. Certainly, they remain far behind other compulsive geniuses or mad scientists with ultra-eclectic and avant-garde tastes, such as Buckethead (more than 290) and Frank Zappa (more than 60), but PetroDragonic Apocalypse manages to touch those ineffable musical domains inhabited by them. If we strip the extended title down to its bare essentials, it is the dark side of two opposing styles, like yin and yang, which will soon be completed by the brightness of their 25th album (which is almost ready to be released). The singles Dragon and Gila Monster preceded it; the quintet’s three metalheads, guitarists Stu McKenzie and Joey Walker, and drummer, Michael Cavanagh, fully embrace their teenage love for trash, doom, and heavy metal, clearly evident in the single, Infest The Rats' Nest (2019). They recorded this single together and it is clearly influenced by Black Sabbath, Slayer, Overkill, Sodom, Motörhead and even Kreator. Here, the Australians line up tracks which last for over nine minutes, and completely let loose with creepy and hollow vocals, incisive heavy riffs, and urgent and motorik rhythms that place the drums centre-stage. They also take us to the depths of Hell with their apocalyptic sci-fi mythology, in which witches and dragons collide."We worked on this album in the same way we started Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava last year," Stu explains. We wrote one song a day and came to rehearsals without any riffs or melodies and no initial ideas of what we were looking to achieve. In essence, we were starting from scratch. We jammed, we recorded everything and then put together the songs from there. I sketched out the story the songs were going to tell, and broke it down into seven tracks, with a short paragraph about what would happen in each song. In a way, I think we did the album backwards. The writing of the lyrics then continues collectively and ends up combining into a whole which, as always in subtext, serves the same purpose: to raise awareness about the critical state of our planet. The most trash metal record of their large and eclectic discography, the excellent PetroDragonic Apocalypse will whip fans up into a frenzy. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Born out of jam sessions where the band went into the studio with no preconceived notions other than preselected tunings and rhythms, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard prove yet again on Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava that they haven't run out of ideas even after releasing more records per year than most bands do in a lifetime. Despite its origins as a freeform workout, the final product actually has structure and purpose thanks to the editing job the band's Stu MacKenzie did and the overdubs that the rest of the gang added later. It's definitely not as directed as some of their concept albums; the main point seems to be getting loose and loud while delving into the vagaries of nature and their standby concern: global catastrophe. The songs are long, but don't meander much -- the guitars have more bite than a pit-full of snakes and MacKenzie made sure to add dynamic shifts and the occasional chorus as he went. It's nothing new for a band that has displayed no fear when it comes to stretching out past the ten-minute mark; they've never been tied to any rules and that's what makes them so freeing and inspiring to listen to. If they want to dip into some reggae-adjacent grooving ("Mycelium") that's totally cool. If they want to veer into cop-show jazz with wah-wah pedals, staccato bass runs, and silky flutes, more power to them. Murky Afropop blues jams -- "Magma" -- that unspool over nine tightly scripted minutes? Yes, that works. Heavy prog-jazz doom rockers -- "Gliese 710" -- that combine Brubeck-on-downers piano chords with blown-out, amp-inflaming guitars, and far-out sax blowing? Perfect! Also on point are rippling funk rockers ("Iron Lung") and ("Hell's Itch") that have the feel of Santana, -- if they were beach rats from Australia. The latter song really lets loose with some fret-melting guitar dueling that escapes being indulgent thanks to the sheer intensity of the playing. When the song ends after 14 sweaty minutes, the first instinct isn't to faint from exhaustion, it's to rewind the song to the beginning and jump back into the magical world they created. That's the feeling the whole album engenders. Unlike some of their efforts, which can wear out their welcome in spots, there isn't a moment of boredom or repetition here. Amazingly, it's another fresh start for the band that's on par with career high points like Butterfly 3000, Nonagon Infinity, or Flying Microtonal Banana. King Gizzard are restless and brilliant and listeners must follow everything they do like a hawk because they might unleash something classic, just like they did with Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley captures the group's return to Wembley on July 6, 2019. It was their first time playing the venue in 40 years and the only show the Who played in the U.K. during their Moving On tour, so it was designed as an event. Some of that spectacle does translate on The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley, which came to home media in a variety of formats, including triple-vinyl, double-CD, and audio Blu-ray. The Who integrate the orchestra quite seamlessly throughout the performances, especially during an extended segment focused on Quadrophenia material; the orchestra helps Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey summon a bit of the old Who's flair for bombast. Even so, the moments on the record that cut the deepest are when the band plays without the orchestra. "Substitute" and "The Seeker" sound vigorous delivered by a straight rock combo, while Townshend and Daltrey's acoustic renditions of "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Behind Blue Eyes" help make these old warhorses sound relatively fresh.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Never far from the studio or short of ideas, King Gizzard has returned with the breathtaking The Silver Cord. Just four months after the heavy Petrodragonic Apocalypse dropped in the heat of summer 2023, this marks their 25th album - and it takes a complete departure from their extensive discography that has thus far focused on guitars. Now - it's all about... keyboards. The album cover tells the whole story, with the group posing in black, sporting round red glasses (an homage to John Lennon) and standing amidst a sea of synthesizers.The electronic tinkering on the opening track "Theia" immediately confirms that these former psychedelic wizards are transporting us to the outer reaches of a totally synthetic, cosmic trip. The vocals of Stu McKenzie and Ambrose Kenny-Smith have never been so finely woven into the mix ("The Silver Cord," "Swan Song"). Here, the guitars are nonexistent – instead allowing synth modulars to take centre stage. The peak arrives with "Set," an upbeat dance anthem seeking to transform a room full of moshers into a massive dance floor. The energy remains on high for much of the record – only deflating slightly on the closing track, "Extinction."Another big surprise with this double LP is its duration. While the Australians stick to concise seven tracks in the first part—marking a first for the band—they truly let loose in the second disc, which features remixes of the same songs, and tracks extending from 10 to 20 minutes. Excellent. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

It’s always been hard to place Kid Cudi on the ever-growing map of American rap. So much the better. Always wanting to surprise, the Cleveland native slips through our fingers yet again, as much as he appears to be deeply influenced by the esthetics developed by his former collaborator Kanye West. Physically absent from this album and its credits, West is a clear influence, proof lying in tracks like “Get Off Me” with Travis Scott, “Cud Life”, “Tortured”, and “Blue Sky”. With the use of autotune and the stripped-down approach to production, it’s hard to not make the comparison. Yet Insano is more than that: it’s a meandering record, with rap at its foundations, but which seems to be incessantly tempted by incursions towards rock, pop, as well as 80s throwbacks. As always with Kid Cudi, the ideas flow into one another seamlessly, never ceasing to surprise, and now comprising the best album he has released in nearly a decade.  © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

Something/Anything? proved that Todd Rundgren could write a pop classic as gracefully as any of his peers, but buried beneath the surface were signs that he would never be satisfied as merely a pop singer/songwriter. A close listen to the album reveals the eccentricities and restless spirit that surges to the forefront on its follow-up, A Wizard, A True Star. Anyone expecting the third record of Something/Anything?, filled with variations on "I Saw the Light" and "Hello It's Me," will be shocked by A Wizard. As much a mind-f*ck as an album, A Wizard, A True Star rarely breaks down to full-fledged songs, especially on the first side, where songs and melodies float in and out of a hazy post-psychedelic mist. Stylistically, there may not be much new -- he touched on so many different bases on Something/Anything? that it's hard to expand to new territory -- but it's all synthesized and assembled in fresh, strange ways. Often, it's a jarring, disturbing listen, especially since Rundgren's humor has turned bizarre and insular. It truly takes a concerted effort on the part of the listener to unravel the record, since Rundgren makes no concessions -- not only does the soul medley jerk in unpredictable ways, but the anthemic closer, "Just One Victory," is layered with so many overdubs that it's hard to hear its moving melody unless you pay attention. And that's the key to understanding A Wizard, A True Star -- it's one of those rare rock albums that demands full attention and, depending on your own vantage, it may even reward such close listening.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The Who need no excuse to release a new compilation -- since 1994, a new collection has appeared roughly at the rate of one every three years -- but the band's 50th anniversary does provide the opportunity for a splashy new compilation, the first since 2009's Greatest Hits. Snappily titled The Who Hits 50!, by virtue of spanning two full CDs the set does cast a wider net than either Greatest Hits or 2004's Then & Now, beginning with the stiff R&B of the High Numbers' "Zoot Suit" and concluding with the brand-new "Be Lucky," a delirious revival of Pete Townshend's purple, overwritten '80s midlife crisis. In between those two songs come 40 tracks, including some genuine surprises -- the bonkers mod anthem "Dogs" and its Beach Boys-aping flip "Call Me Lightning," the band's cover of the Stones' "The Last Time," the first appearance of "Relay" in a comp in ages, John Entwistle's paranoid "Trick of the Light" -- but for the most part, this serves up the same songs that have popped up again and again on Who compilations over the years. This may be predictable but as a collection of basics, either for fair-weather fans or newcomers, it does its job well and it has nice artwork to boot.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

This is the album that solidified Uriah Heep's reputation as a master of gothic-inflected heavy metal. From short, sharp rock songs to lengthy, musically dense epics, Demons and Wizards finds Uriah Heep covering all the bases with style and power. The album's approach is set with its lead-off track, "The Wizard": it starts as a simple acoustic tune but soon builds into a stately rocker that surges forth on a Wall of Sound built from thick guitar riffs, churchy organ, and operatic vocal harmonies. Other highlights include "Traveller in Time," a fantasy-themed rocker built on thick wah-wah guitar riffs, and "Circle of Hands," a stately power ballad with a gospel-meets-heavy metal feel to it. Demons and Wizards also produced a notable radio hit for the band in "Easy Livin'," a punchy little rocker whose raging blend of fuzz guitar and swirling organ made it feel like a '70s update of classic '60s garage rockers like the Electric Prunes or Paul Revere & the Raiders. However, the top highlight of the album is the closing medley of "Paradise" and "The Spell": the first part of the medley starts in an acoustic folk mode and slowly adds layers of organ and electric guitar until it becomes a forceful, slow-tempo rocker, while the second half is a punchy, organ-led rocker that includes an instrumental midsection where choral-style harmonies fortify a killer, Pink Floyd-style guitar solo from Ken Hensley. All in all, Demons and Wizards works both as a showcase for Uriah Heep's instrumental firepower and an excellent display of their songwriting skills in a variety of hard rock styles. As a result, it is considered by many fans to be their finest hour and is definitely worth a spin for anyone with an interest in 1970s heavy metal.© Donald A. Guarisco /TiVo

Glitzy showmanship is what fuels Caribou, a less successful album than its early-'70s predecessors. Though the shiny surface of the album is alluring, only a few tracks rank among John's best work. "The Bitch Is Back" is one of his best hard rock cuts and "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" is one of his classic ballads, but the album tracks tend to be ridiculous filler on the order of "Solar Prestige a Gammon" or competent genre exercises like "You're So Static." There are a couple of exceptions -- "Pinky" is a fine ballad and "Dixie Lily" is an endearing stab at country -- but on the whole, Caribou is a disappointment.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In 2017, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard began work on an album with a typically challenging concept; this time on a smaller scale than building their own instruments to play microtonal music or playing all the songs so they blended into one another. Instead, the group came up with a chord progression they liked and wrote songs with different moods and instrumentation, with an eye toward fitting them together into a kind of song cycle. The plan fizzled out when the results didn't quite measure up to the band's high standards. They never gave up on the idea, though, and went back to it many times over the years, adding to the musical vocabulary as they themselves grew and took on more and more styles Katamari Damaci style. Finally, in 2022, they had it all done and released it under the fitting name of Changes. First things first: The fact that there's only one chord progression utilized doesn't make for repetitious listening. As anyone who has followed the band's prolific career might guess, they aren't shy about emptying the contents of the kitchen sink onto tape. Opening track "Change" gives a clue to the wide-open approach of the album as it balances cool jazz moods with hip-hop rhymes, Motorik grooves with hypnotic chants, and majestic synths with a thrilling classic rock coda. It's a heck of a way to start an album, and the rest does its best to keep up as it swerves from laid-back funk jazz with humming synths, feathery flutes, and thumb-popping bass runs ("Astroturf") to insistent synth pop ("Gondi") to nocturnal soul balladry ("Exploding Suns") to the super bouncy '80s pop of "Hate Dancin'," a rare song in their oeuvre that actually does inspire dancing. It all sounds very Gizzard-y, which is to say that it's inventive, exciting, and almost giddy pop music that walks the line between art and commerce like they were born doing it. Check the album-ending "Short Change" for a fine example of a song that sports a typically giant hook, the kind that fans should eat up with a giant spoon, then coats it with oddball synths, scathing jazz-rock guitar solos, and an overloaded mix. It's weird and familiar at once, like exploring the moon from the safety of your own couch. King Gizzard are never less than compelling, and even when their concepts are modest, they deliver a final product that's psychedelic pop/rock/funk/soul/prog/what have you at its very best.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard became an indie rock institution by constantly evolving, quickly and effortlessly shifting their approach from album to album; in the process, they compiled a breathtakingly wide-ranging yet tightly constructed catalog. On 2022's double album Omnium Gatherum, the band abandon their usual way of constructing albums around a unified sound or theme and cut loose, jumping wildly from style to style -- some tried and true, some brand new. The lack of focus becomes clear right away on the epic-length opener "The Dripping Tap." It begins meanderingly, then launches into a formless jam that stretches out over many minutes of guitar interplay and repetitive chanting. The track only turns into something resembling a coherent song 17 minutes into it, then ends abruptly before it can explore much further. After the less-than-thrilling start, the group revisit some old avenues with diminishing returns -- the dusty microtonal "Magenta Mountain" and the thrash metal "Gaia" -- and mosey through some lite jazz-funk reminiscent of Sketches of Brunswick East minus the weirdness. They dig a little deeper into funky beats, sounding like Beck on "Persistence" and Tame Impala on the shimmery "Kepler-22b," and they shockingly take a jarring left turn into rap on two tracks. "Sadie Sorceress" is a ringer for post-Paul's Boutique Beastie Boys, and "The Grim Reaper" sounds like Eminem-lite; both are decent pastiches, but it's hard to figure out why the band decided to put them on the album instead playing them for friends as a laugh. Along with these gaffes, King Gizzard stumble on a few other stylistic swerves too. "Presumptuous" sounds like a (very unnecessary) straight take on "Smooth"-era Santana, "Candles" is a frothy attempt at Nilsson-style sweetness that feels pointless, and "Red Smoke"'s laid-back bluesiness is just on the wrong side of sleepy. While the band have always been about trying out new styles and sounds, they've never sounded like they were going through the motions until now. Only a handful of tracks have any sort of excitement or invention baked in. "Evilest Man" is a fun, strutting track that combines an ultra-poppy melody with wobbly synths and the occasional blast of blown-out guitars, "Blame It on the Weather" is a funky song that works thanks to the nasty guitar breaks, glammy falsetto vocals, and a sharp Funkadelic-y hook, while "The Garden Goblin"'s lo-fi bedroom prog is cheerfully twee. These few moments aside, the album is lacking the kind of daring and breathless thrills of LPs like Nonagon Infinity or the oddball charm of King Gizzard's microtonal excursions or any of the grandeur of their synth-heavy prog records. It's less a potential greatest-hits album than a map of roads better not taken, of songs that needed a bit more cooking, or of random moments that don't add up to much of anything. It's the first truly disappointing album that the band have released and the first where they sound like they are running out of gas instead of hitting on all cylinders. © Tim Sendra /TiVo

"[A] metal symphony, replete with Turilli's galloping solos, Lione's touch-the-heavens vocals and intricate orchestration..." © TiVo

Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy has the distinction of being the first in a long line of Who compilations. It also has the distinction of being the best. Part of the reason why it is so successful is that it has an actual purpose. Meaty was designed as a collection of the group's singles, many of which never appeared on albums. The Who recorded their share of great albums during the '60s, but condensing their highlights to just the singles is an electrifying experience. "The Kids Are Alright" follows "I Can't Explain," "I Can See for Miles" bleeds into "Pictures of Lily" and "My Generation," "Magic Bus" gives way to "Substitute" and "I'm a Boy" -- it's an extraordinary lineup, and each song builds on its predecessor's power. Since it was released prior to Who's Next, it contains none of the group's album rock hits, but that's for the best -- their '60s singles have a kinetic, frenzied power that the louder, harder AOR cuts simply couldn't touch. Also, there is such a distinct change in sound with Who's Next that the two eras don't quite sound right on one greatest-hits collection, as My Generation and Who's Better, Who's Best proved. By concentrating on the early years -- when the Who were fresh and Pete Townshend was developing his own songwriting identity -- Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy is musically unified and incredibly powerful. This is what the Who sounded like when they were a great band.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

As Deep Purple's Roger Glover once said, "Heavy isn't about volume, it's about attitude." And no band better illustrates this statement than England's Electric Wizard -- the reputed heaviest band in the universe -- whose every album has managed to push the boundaries of down-tuned, grinding, monolithic doom metal to unprecedented depths. Sure, they pack plenty of volume as well, but none of it could possibly work without the band's uncompromising worship of weed and all things gothic and malevolent. After a long hiatus (during which they were no doubt traveling the cosmos without ever leaving their parent's basements or putting down their bongs), Electric Wizard finally returned to action in the year 2000. The resulting dirge masterpiece, Dopethrone, delivers walls of sound so dense that at first they seem too big to fit into your ears. At a paltry three minutes, the opener "Vinum Sabbathi" may be the Wizards' first true candidate for an actual "single," but it really serves as a teaser for what's to come. Introduced by short spoken intros taken from B-movies a la White Zombie, extended riff-monsters like "Funeralopolis," "I, the Witchfinder," and the three-part colossus "Weird Tales" are vintage Electric Wizard. Though they never exceed a snail's pace, they somehow manage to build in intensity, from single note guitar lines to huge power chords with deliberate, maddening certainty. First-time listeners will find it easier to cope with more compact offerings like "Barbarian" and "We Hate You," but with time, they'll see the light and embrace the obscenely heavy title track, with its patented "Iron Man" oscillating riff. In short, with Dopethrone, Electric Wizard has raised the bar for doom metal achievement in the new millennium -- good luck to the competition.© Eduardo Rivadavia /TiVo