Customer Reviews

Who Sell Out

5 star:		(104)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I became a Who fan in early 1967 when I first heard "Happy Jack" and rushed out and bought the album. But nothing on that album prepared me for The Who Sell Out, which came out later that year. The whole premise of the album is that it is presented as if it were a British pirate radio station program complete with fake commercials connecting the songs. In fact, some of the commercials become full-fledged songs, such as the two minute-plus "Odorono."

What makes this recording especially refreshing is that while it seemed as if the entire pop culture was taking itself much too seriously during the Summer of Love, The Who were willing to inject a bit of whimsy into the proceedings. In the process they produced some of their most enduring songs: the acoustic charm of "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands," the tongue-in-cheek "Tattoo," the lovely "Our Love Was" with its razor sharp electric guitar break coupled with Townsend's beautiful acoustic playing and Entwistle's French horn accents, and then there's the ultimate Who single "I Can See for Miles." [It would be the first and only time The Who would reach the top ten in America!]

Other standout tracks include "Relax," "Sunrise" and "Rael," which was a mini-opera along the lines of "A Quick One While He's Away." Since much of the material was more subdued than earlier songs like "My Generation" or "I'm a Boy" little of this album other than "I Can See for Miles" found its way into the band's live shows. That is not, however, meant to diminish the power of these songs.

Like the other remastered Who albums in this series, there is an abundance of bonus tracks. In addition to several previously unreleased commercials, there's the Entwistle-penned "Someone's Coming" (sung by Roger Daltry!), the instrumental guitar workout "Hall of the Mountain King" (based on Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite") and an alternate version of "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands" featuring Al Kooper on organ. Several other bonus tracks first appeared on The Who's Thirty Years of Maximum R&B. I have a minor quarrel with this duplication, but it is nice to hear these bonus tracks in conjunction with the original album. Plus, if you didn't spring for the TYOMR&B box set, these are all truly bonus tracks. ESSENTIAL

If I were new to this page, I certainly would think that these reviews were from a bunch of biased Who fanatics (and actually, they probably are). But if you're not (a biased Who fanatic), don't let that scare you off. This is a legitimate 5 star album, vastly underrated and relatively overlooked in the Who's ouvre. You don't have to be British, or even grow up in the sixties to appreciate the humor and musical sensibilities here, though it probably would help if you knew something of pirate radio and the Summer of Love. What keeps this album totally fresh, though, is the songs themselves. This was before Townshend weighed himself down with the Tommy and Lifehouse projects, where he was too busy making the Next Big Statement to lower himself to just write great pop songs. And this album is full of them: Armenia City in the Sky, Tatoo (check out the fantastic live version on Leeds!), Sunrise (breathtakingly beautiful), Relax, Odorano (works on multiple levels), Our Love Was, etc. Oh yeah, I Can See For Miles, maybe the BEST Who song, is here as well. Oh, and we wouldn't want to forget Mary-Ann With the Shaky Hands, now would we (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, knowwhotImean?)

I'm certainly not going to say I don't like Tommy. For all its overblown pomposity, it still has some of Townshend's best thematic inventions and guitar playing. But it does sound somewhat forced.

I'm certainly not going to say I don't like Who's Next. Considering it was compiled with the remnants of the aborted Lifehouse project, it has a surprising sonic intensity and cohesiveness, plus it's the best SOUNDING Who album, and gave them their arena rock anthem.

I'm not saying I don't like Live at Leeds. To the poltergiest that was present to magically capture that sound in that hall on that night, I say thank you, thank you, thank you. You'll never hear another live album like it, that is, if you ever hear it. And you really should.

But, all in all, this is the Who at their best in the studio. It's not as sonically impressive as Who's Next, but really, with all its other merits, Who cares?

The Who Sell Out is a milestone recording, and has for years been a long standing favorite of mine. I own two different vinyl copies which I have cherished. My decision to buy this on cd was based on a friend's recommendation and the fact that there are "extra songs". I was unprepared for just how many additional songs are included on this release, and most of them are simply jaw-droppingly astounding.

My personal favorite bonus track on Sell Out is The Who's version of "Melancholia", which I had heard previously only as Pete Townshend's demo that he released on the "Scoop" album. The notes for "Scoop" tell that perhaps it was Roger who was unhappy with Melancholia as it wasn't quite "macho" enough. Also the Coca-Cola track just simply rocks. What an amazing band The Who were! This record is epic!

If you are unfamiliar with this record then I seriously advise the stopping of your first several listenings with Rael (I) in order to truly experience the album as it was released and intended to be heard. Only after should you dive into all of these bonus tracks as your reward!

The remastering here is excellent and should be played at excessively loud volumes over and over and over again in order to truly appreciate it .

This is quite simply inspiring and should belong in the collection of every music lover with any interest in '60's music or british pop. The sophistication of craft, the range of genres from song to song, the songwriting and the playing have no equal anywhere. Even if you think you may not like The Who (perhaps you have only heard the classic rock '70's anthems, or maybe you thought Tommy was pretensious and long-winded) then you owe it to yourself to hear them at their absolute creative peak!

The Who sell out on several levels in this album (one of the best concept albums ever!): (1)-They obviously sell out by having the LP sound like a Radio London broadcast, complete with wacky late 1960s AM style commercials & public service announcements. (2)-They sell out in an unexpected way, by not following through on the concept all the way to the end of the album!! (That was due to the fact that The Who were on tour during the making of the LP, and, with the release date looming, just plain ran out of time). But the LP works regardless, and this CD version contains many extra tracks & radio spots not included on the original 1968 analog release. Classic tracks include: "I Can See For Miles", "Odorono", "Our Love Was, Is", "I Can't Reach You", and "Tattoo". My only complaint is that they didn't include the 2 real-life radio spots the Who did back in the late '60s: "Little Billy" (for the American Cancer Society), and "Do You Want Kids, Kids?" (for Planned Parenthood). Both these tracks would have worked wonderfully within the "Sell Out" concept. But still, it's my favorite Who album of all... even above "Who's Next" (a close second). Extremely funny and entertaining, this LP is a must for all Who fans. It lampoons late '60s pop-AM radio, and embraces it at the same time. Don't miss this one.

"The Who Sell Out" (like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon) represents the paradigm of concept album rock. The Warholesque pop art cover (showing the band hawking deoderant and baked beans)sets the tongue in cheek tone that weaves throughout the album. The supposed premise is that we are listening to a pirate radio station, complete with jingles, PSA's and a wide variety of pop styles that range from the levity of standard love songs (Mary Anne w/ the Shaky Hands)to socio-politacal class struggle (I Can't Reach You) to teen angst (Tattoo, Melancholia) to explosive power pop psychedelic guitar feedback wizardry (I Can See For Miles, Armenia City in the Sky). As a matter of fact, there are so many different styles and textures that you can remove the fairly lightweight concept and still have a superb collection of cleverly written, melodic pop songs that define the the time they came from (Summer of love 1967)and transcend it. No one turns a phrase like Townshend; this from Tatto: My dad beat me 'cause mine said mother, but my mother naturally liked it and beat my brother, 'cause his tattoo was of a lady in the nude and mother thought that was extremely rude. Additionally many of the songs work on several different levels; Odorono, for example, reperesents that song you hear on the radio and you're grooving to it and then only at the end it turns out to be nothing but a commercial for some trivial consumer good. A song that pretends to be a song but it's really trying to sell you something (whether product or ideology). But it's also about unrewarded talent, and traumatic disappointment as well as being a cautionary tale about the superficiality of stardom.

When the album was originally released in '67 it was slimmed up so it could fit on a single record. Only on this brilliantly remastered package, which more than doubles the length of the original, do you get the whole picture: ads for Top Gear and Coca Cola, Early Morning Cold Taxi, Jaguar, Melancholia and Glow Girl (which is also on the other superb Who reissue: Odds & Sods). The liner notes, too, are top notch w/ many pictures and discographical info.

What is sad is that many Who fans even are unfamiliar with this album recognizing only I Can See For Miles (which Townshend felt was the ultimate pop single) but the band is clearly at the top of their game. Townshend at his experimental best, Entwhistle is solid on the bass and frivolous on the horns (he writes most of the commercials), Daltrey is straddling the Mod/Rocker dividing line and his vocals have the same innocent youthful intensity that drives his singing on Tommy and is lost into assured arena rock by the time the innovative Who's Next comes around. Finally, Moon never sounded better, with his wild building tom rolls pounding in and out of control simultaneously.

This is definitely peak stuff and it is easy to hear how Tommy, the grand opera, is the next logical step.

The Who sell out on several levels in this album (one of the best concept albums ever!): (1)-They obviously sell out by having the LP sound like a Radio London broadcast, complete with wacky late 1960s AM style commercials & public service announcements. (2)-They sell out in an unexpected way, by not following through on the concept all the way to the end of the album!! (That was due to the fact that The Who were on tour during the making of the LP, and, with the release date looming, just plain ran out of time). But the LP works regardless, and this CD version contains many extra tracks & radio spots not included on the original 1968 analog release. Classic tracks include: "I Can See For Miles", "Odorono", "Our Love Was, Is", "I Can't Reach You", and "Tattoo". My only complaint is that they didn't include the 2 real-life radio spots the Who did back in the late '60s: "Little Billy" (for the American Cancer Society), and "Do You Want Kids, Kids?" (for Planned Parenthood). Both these tracks would have worked wonderfully within the "Sell Out" concept. But still, it's my favorite Who album of all... even above "Who's Next" (a close second). Extremely funny and entertaining, this LP is a must for all Who fans. It lampoons late '60s pop-AM radio, and embraces it at the same time. Don't miss this one.

"Sell Out" is my personal favorite Who album, although it is completely unlike any the group made before or since. Their first concept album, it is jammed with commercial parodies, station jingles and between-song announcements that give it the zany feel of the pirate radio stations which were being shut down by the BBC at the time. The album's sense of humor is often cited by critics as one of its many strengths; the stark juxstaposition of such pop-culture silliness in the midst of the group's most beautiful and serious set of songs to date makes for a kind of postmodern Zen epiphany unique among concept works. Musically, the album is all over the map: elements of perfect pop balladry ("I Can't Reach You", "Our Love Was") coexist alongside Entwistles's dark gothic humor ("Silas Stingy"), elements of which later became "Sparks" and "Underture" in "Tommy") and full-blown psychedelia ("Armenia City In The Sky", "I Can See For Miles", "Relax") which take The Who's thrilling hard rock style to new heights of sonic wizardry. The classic "Tattoo" became a concert staple that encapsulated the album's effortless mix of the meaningful and absurd in one stroke; Daltrey's vocal here has an ethereal quality which would unfortunately be discarded in the wake of 70s bombast. As an overall statement, "Sell Out" looks nostalgically back to the innocence of pop music and commercial radio, but is unafriad to embrace the new world of psychedelia; indeeed, one could say that the album as a whole presents the pre-psych world as looked through with a psych lens. Critics of the album complain about the relative lack of more typical hard rock material and the fizzling of the concept in the middle of side two, but these problems have at last been addressed with the remasters. The CD remaster of "Sell Out" presents the album with a vastly superior remix; those fans who complained about missing the reverb once integral to the original can play their old CD's, and what is gained (far greater clarity, louder volume, excellent balance--and hey, I still hear plenty of the oriignal reverb) makes the album one of the best sounding in the Who's entire catalogue, second only to "Who's Next". The bonus tracks present more B-sides and outtakes, "Glow Girl" and "Melancholia" which--while excellent--do not date from the "Sell Out" period. The group's 1967 studio renditions of "Summertime Blues" and "My Way" should have been included in their stead, but at least these can now happily be found on the "Odds'n'Sods" remaster. As with "A Quick One", someone with the remasters of "Sell Out" and "Odds And Sods" can now compile their own alternate version, which could include the extra commercials to fill out the concept, and the versions of "Summertime Blues" and "My Way" that would provide a greater balance of hard-rock numbers (I personally use these to replace "I Can't Reach You" and "Silas Stingy", two of the slightly lesser tracks from the original IMHO). Any way you look at it, however, "Sell Out" remains one of the band's finest works.

This thing is just perfect. From the awesome songs to the show~stopping "opera" Rael to the hilarious, bizarre faux commercials, Sell Out is a masterpiece. Worth owning for Rael alone.

Ivan Rorick

I love this album, it's one of the best albums of the 1960's. BUT, this remaster has many noticable differences from the original album! The biggest offender is that Pete's lead vocal on "I Can't Reach You" is single-tracked here rather than double-tracked like on the original. Also, the vocals on the intro of "Rael" are mixed up too high, drowning out the music.

So, if you've known and loved this album for years, you may want to hang on to the original CD. The sound quality isn't as good, but at least you'll hear the album the way it was heard in '68. Even better, seek out a Mono copy of the original album on Decca. It contains the DEFINITIVE mix of "I Can See For Miles".

Notice how most reviewers love the album they're reviewing? I was prepared to dismiss the encomia about this album, but it was so insistent that I decided to give The Who Sell Out a try. Well, the glowing reviews were right.

Here are other some things you should know to help you decide whether to buy it. 1. The song writing is very strong. The album holds up under repeated listenings. The reviewer who said he could leave it playing all day was right about that. 2. The liner notes are very generous and informative, really adding to your understanding of how the album took shape. Who fans may want to buy it just to read the liner notes. 3. The bonus tracks are not like the alternate takes that add clutter at the end of other reissues but rather, as the liner notes indicate, strong and compatible takes that would have made a fine double LP if only there were such a thing in 1967. I enjoy Melancholia, Glittering Girl, the beaty Jaguar. There are no bad cuts. It really hangs together as an album. 4. Keith Moon's drumming is exhilarating in a way that the synthesizers and drum machines of most rap and pop music today cannot match. With hindsight, Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience seems to have been imitating Keith Moon, but Mitchell always had Noel Redding to help him return to the beat. If you keep this music playing in the background you may, like me, sometimes find yourself stopping and listening in astonishment to Keith Moon's drumming.

The Who Sell Out is really lots of fun, great music, and a great value for your entertainment dollar. If you are trying to decide whether to buy it, buy it.