By Numbers [Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

The Who | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 19, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B000002P2W
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (104 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,458 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This 1975 collection excels in large part due to its modest goal. It's the Who's singer-songwriter record. Without the ostensible shield his "rock operas" provided, Pete Townshend's personal demons strut about nakedly. Not a pretty sight, but an involving spectacle nevertheless. "They Are All in Love" and "How Many Friends" are forgotten Who songs, but they've aged beautifully. John Entwistle's "Success Story" sequences nicely with the rest of the album. And "However Much I Booze," "Dreaming from the Waist," and "In a Hand or a Face" are great decade-early exercises in mid-life self-pity. There are only three bonus tracks here--live versions of "Squeeze Box," "Dreaming from the Waist," and the earlier "Behind Blue Eyes"--but By Numbers is such a cohesive collection that they're less welcome extras than annoying distractions. Still, By Numbers now stands as one of the linchpins in a great band's catalog. --Steven Stolder

Product Description

Having to follow four monumental releases in succession, The Who By Numbers is often overlooked and unfairly overshadowed. Produced again by Glyn Johns and released in 1975, the album is a more modest, simple affair, certainly withstanding the test of time by its own merits. Probably best known for the radio-friendly ditty Squeeze Box, the set also contains patented Who in the terms of Slip Kid, Blue Red and Grey plus one of bassist John Entwistles best compositions, Success Story. London studio regular Nicky Hopkins adds keyboard fills throughout. 200 gram vinyl. --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every Moment Has It's Special Charm, May 31, 2001

By 

David Bradley "David Bradley" (Sterling, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: By Numbers (Audio CD)

I don't suppose I can realistically argue that WHO BY NUMBERS is the best Who LP. It's really not on the same level as QUADROPHENIA, WHO'S NEXT or LIVE AT LEEDS.

But WHO BY NUMBERS may be my favorite Who LP. It's Townshends most personal, most initmate group effort. While it has never made me want to hold a lighter over my head or play air guitar, it does touch me in a way no other Who record can do.

Critics love to say the album was Townshend's first 'mid-life crisis' LP. That's more than a tad absurd, considering Townshend was still a good 15 years shy of mid-life. WHO BY NUMBERS has more to do with Townshend's increasing concern that he was losing himself in drink and celebrity. The album is a cry for intimacy in a world Townshend increasingly saw as hollow and transparent; he finds himself, as he wrote years earlier, Alone In A Crowd. The audience and the generation that Townshend always tried so hard to connect with seemed to be further removed from him all the time. On "However Much I Booze" he sings:

"You at home can easily decide what's right by glancing very breifly at the songs I write, but it don't help me that you know, there still ain't no way out."

For all the talk of Townshend's bow to Punk on WHO ARE YOU and his great solo LP EMPTY GLASS, he seems to have had a premonition of the movement on this 1975 album, writing in "They Are All In Love":

"Goodbye all you punks, stay young and stay high. Hand me checkbook and I'll crawl off to die. Like a woman in childbirth, grown ugly in a flash, I've seen magic and pain, now I'm recycling trash."

The songs on WHO BY NUMBERS are witty, caustic, confessional, and, in several cases--"They Are All In Love," "Blue Red And Grey"--downright pretty. There are two quirky little hits here, "Slip Kid" and "Squeeze Box," but the non-hits, including Entwistle's great "Success Story," are far better.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Rich Old Men", February 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: By Numbers (Audio CD)

The Who's first mid-life crisis album contains more good cuts than their later ones. "Slip Kid" is one their best (I always loved the count-off at the beginning); we hear a slightly older and more cynical Pete/Roger trying to tap into the spirit of youthful rebellion in the face of creeping middle age. John Entwistle's "Success Story" is a bouyant autobiographical song of the band. "Squeeze Box" has some nice banjo work on it and sounds like the obvious choice for a single (which it was). Pete breaks out the ukulele on the very pretty "Blue, Red, and Grey" and "Dreaming From The Waist" is a tough rocker with some okay lyrics about sexual frustration. In truth, the rest of the album is pretty depressing. "However Much I Booze" sounds more upbeat than it should, while "They Are All In Love" and "Imagine A Man" are as bleak as they come. Although it's clear that the excesses of rock stardom were starting to wear them down, the playing is still inspired. By the time "Who Are You" came out, Keith Moon seemed to have lost a step and The Who would soon lose the chaotic drumming frenzy that was the band's driving engine. WHO BY NUMBERS, while over all too darkly self-confessional in tone to make for a consistently enjoyable listen, has some some fine moments and is way better than anything The Stones were putting out at the time (if you want to put it in some sort of context).

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Misunderstood is fine, July 9, 2000

By 

michael d. bado (Bloomingdale, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: By Numbers (Audio CD)

Again, some of the greatest works of art are misunderstood. I think Pete Townshend even told us that when he said: "You at home can easily decide what's right/ by glancing at the songs I write/ but it don't help me that you know ...."

I don't think this album was made to be gobbled up by the masses. It is a lot like Alice Cooper's 1978 masterpiece "From the Inside." You are ALLOWED to enter into a world that one wouldn't normally understand.

As far as the record goes, it contains some of Tonshend's finest melodies. I don't think it is easy to argue with jams like "However Much I Booze" or melodies such as "Imagine a Man" or "Blue Red and Grey". It even affords Entwistle an erstwhile place to soap-box in "Success Story." Such a record!

Sometimes it is good that people don't "understand" a record. Those who need it or want it seek it out, and it strikes a chord as resonant as the last chord of "A Day in the Life". Only for those that know .... And isn't art made for those that take it in?