Who’s Next was the first Who album since A Quick One to be a ‘mere’ collection of songs. As such, and given its vague title, there was no obvious contender for its sleeve design. Keith jumped to volunteer his services. His propensity for dressing up was turning into something of a religion and having broking at least a couple of taboos, there was no much more to try other than cross-dressing. Keith Moon made a fantastic tart, and for a photo session he arranged as a hopeful candidate for the front cover, he dressed alternately domineering in corset and whip, coy in white negligee, and teasing in black PVC bra.

His pictures did not make the album cover (though they were used to advertise the single ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’); neither did another design in which - as a take on Hendrix Electric Ladyland? - dozens of corpulent women’s breasts were shown floundering all over a gatefold sleeve. Ultimately, the Who seized on a straightforward, rough’n’ready, suitably irreverent image for a band that maintaned its hooligan edge throughout its graduation to rock’s stratosphere: driving home from a show in Sunderland in May, they spotted an obelisk on a slagheap outside Sheffield that bore and uncanny resemblance to the cosmic intrusion used ad the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The next week they returned to be photographed, like primordials, pissing up against it. Somehow the image said it all.

(Tony Fletcher in Dear Boy: The Life of Keith Moon)

Posted by viniciusmattoso 16 November 10

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