The WHo Sell Out poll "go to the church of your choice"

"I Can't Reach You"--probably the first song I'd turn to if I had to explain the Who's brilliance from '65 to '67 to someone.

But if "I Can See for Miles" or "Tattoo" were to win, that'd be fine.

yeah, I Can't Reach You/I Can See for Miles/Tattoo for top 3

Greatest thing the Who ever did was their cover of "Man with the Money." It's the male bonding of "I'm a Boy" taken even farther and remembering the brother in jail.

Hard to choose. best who album by far. Kind of leaning towards Rael

always loved "sunrise" even tho it's kinda barely what you think of when you think of the who.

yes! "sometimes I wonder if this will go on my life through".

best who album, totally out of the classic rock canon except for "i can see for miles" so it still seems fresh when you first listen to it

More than any other Who record, this has the songs that people react to with, "That's the Who?!"

I heard this after absorbing Who's Next and their 12/17/82 Toronto show (I taped the radio broadcast, and wore out said tape when I was 10). It was so strikingly (and hilariously -- they were the funniest band of their era) different to what I knew them to be, but was unmistakably the Who. I remember thinking, "I think we'll be seeing a lot more of each other over the next 20 years or so."

Mono mix of "Our Love Was," with Daltrey singing co-lead with Townshend, and a pedal steel (!) solo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxOEcvtQaEM

outtake "Jaguar," on which Moon sings lead. Moon and Townshend got in a huge fight about whether or not this would go on the record. Townshend won, hence "Sunrise."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwD3OvMTq8A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrBi4q_9Ji4&feature=related

Armenia

'Odorono'... while The Beatles were singing about Lucy in the sky, The Stones were asking where the joint was, and The Kinks were singing about Waterloo sunsets, The Who were writing songs about chicks with stinky armpits.

For those who need closure (at 2:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLBF4CEBFAF6064AE2&feature=player_detailpage&v=NtnKAKgN7f8#t=150s

Voted "Relax" for the same reason I'd vote "Blue Jay Way" on MMT. These days I'm a sucker for droney British keyboard psych.

I heard this after absorbing Who's Next and their 12/17/82 Toronto show

I'm trying to figure out if I was at that show or not. I've still got the ticket stub for May 6, 1980 at Maple Leaf Gardens. I'm positive I saw them once more, but I thought it was earlier, which doesn't seem to be the case checking around online. So that may have been the other time.

IIRC, back in the ancient times of AOR, none of these tracks ever got played on the radio at all except "I Can See For Miles." Whereas practically every track on Who's Next got played all the time and "Won't Get Fooled Again" would always top the annual listeners poll on WNEW-FM in NYC.

Hm, I guess it was only number 6 in 1987 The 1987 WNEW-FM Top 1027 Songs of All Time Listener's Poll

I've never heard anything from Who Sell Out other than "I Can See for Miles" on the radio, not even once. But I don't think I've ever heard a non-hit from any of the early albums on the radio, so it may not be any different from everything pre-Tommy in that regard. Album tracks are reserved for Who's Next, Tommy, and Quadrophenia.

Yes, exactly. But also Who Are You, no?

Continuing on this radio theme I came across something about Scott Muni just now with a funny story about a John Entwistle interview. Also some other stuff including a great quote from Rosko.

Meant to post the link, which is here: http://www.areuonsomething.com/features_muni.html

If you can ever find this, it's got all (or at least most) of the original radio spots on Who Sell Out:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pEb54b5pL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Never saw that website before. Seems old school and a little cheesy, will probably hurt the eyes of most posters here. Sorry, ILX!

On a totally non-Sell Out note, Keith Moon's solo record is pretty damn silly and entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HlMIhR6ckQ

Never actually got around to hearing the Petra Haden version. Let me see what I can find on the intranetz.

i've been listening to this lately, and getting to like parts of it, but a lot of it seems so thin. in comparison to 'miles', which is MASSIVE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNFoNBz9Dbs

There was one track on a magazine sampler, and I ordered the CD on the back of that (only five times, maybe, that's happened)

A few places she mispronounces lyrics, as she did this purely by having the album on two tracks of a multitrack, and vocalising on all the others. (She''d not heard it before)

As you say upthread, I'd not heard any of the tracks anyplace apart from 'c4miles', until I found the double-lp version with 'quick one' for inexpensive...

The mono, eh? Will have to track it down. I know 'quick one' came out on CD in mono at first, then they found the stereo master tape and reissued it without fanfare or changing the packaging at all.

I remember the first time I heard the album "Sunrise" really sounding spookily beautiful.

"Sunrise" was a bit of a setlist surprise to me when I saw them in 1982.

http://open.spotify.com/album/5jSo2xyFarf1dPsn1mwnw6
Would also like to hear some of those albums she and her siblings did with her dad of old country tunes and such. Speaking of whom, did you end up going to see Ravi Coltrane with the Jensen sisters, clemenza? I saw him once with Charlie Haden's Quartet West (although he called it "Quartet East" that night) and it was pretty cool.

No, unfortunately--a lot of marking that weekend, and the one friend who might've gone with me wasn't interested.

I've been listening to that pirate-radio compilation I posted above. Very disorienting for anyone who knows Sell Out well. Hearing the "It's smooth sailing with the highly successful sound" spot, you automatically transition to "Me and my brother were talkin' to each other" in your mind; here, the spot leads into the Sorrows' "Take a Heart."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqqoekGwtwk

I've heard a lot of live Who, but can't recall them ever doing many songs from Sell Out which is a damn shame. That free-form feedback delay freak-out in the middle of Relax is a wonder to hear.

Yeah, that was cool. I've heard they do "Tatoo" sometimes

Other than "I Can See For Miles," which they almost never played live until the 80s, the only songs from Sell Out that made it into their shows were "Tattoo" (through 1974, and a handful of times on the 1982 tour); "Relax" (on their 1968 tours, and last played as part of an end-of-show improvisation in 1976); and "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hands" (played a few times on the 1989 tour).

I guess I misremembered the show I saw (Birmingham AL, Nov 1982) -- they played "Tattoo" but not "Sunrise," according to thewholive.net

I was gonna say, I'd never heard of them ever doing "Sunrise" live. I think Pete's done it once or twice in his solo shows, though.

The final "Relax"...sort of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Y15J_D9zw

The more i think about it the more I want to change my vote to one song, then another, then another. This is basically an entire album of hidden gems + one radio hit. Even that silly first song is amazing.

It's kind of a shame they went all serious messianic rock after this. In an alternate universe the Who skipped Tommy and became like a more psychedelic and operatic Kinks.

I was gonna say, when I first started listening to them, in line with the orthodoxy of the time that I subscribed to at the time, I embraced the youthful energy of the early hits and kept the Wagnerian bombast of the latter albums at arm's length. When I first heard this album it was kind of a third thing- almost fragile pop songs alternating with the seeming written-to-order advertising or story-explication numbers- it was almost like Sondheim. It took me a while to get used to it, but it grew to be a perennial favorite.

I think I like Tommy more than this album...like they own the "rock as musical" more fully there, & I think the hooks are consistently stronger there, for two albums w/o a lot of obvious singles. but I like this album a bunch too, prob gonna vote "Mary Anne"

no one voting for 'armenia city'? that song is so huge

One difference between Tommy and the Sell Out era Who is during Sell Out Townshend wrote three minute pop mini-operas whereas later he needed four LP sides to accomplish the same thing. Despite that,I think The Who did bombast better than even the Zep.

Armenia is great.

Mmm, I don't hear any three minute pop mini-operas on this album unless you're counting "Odorono." "Rael" is almost six minutes.

Used the term opera pretty loosely there. A better way to put it might be short stories vs novels. Either way, I prefer the conciseness of Sell Out to the sprawl of Tommy.

You reminded me there's not enough love for Rael on this thread.

Doesn't Rael reappear in another guise on Tommy?

lol come on now, wtf is the skin graft man up to ffs

Talking of clairfication. He's covering up the tattoo obviously, the point being that the narrator is going to wear his tattoo proudly all his life. In which case, I don't see the problem with the lyric.

Not covering up so much as removing and then grafting skin where the tattoo used to be.

yeah i get what hes saying is "i wont go to the skin graft man", but "the skin graft man wont get you" is such an unfortunate phrasing to my ears, that makes it sound like the skin graft man wants to take the tattoo, like the tattoo is in peril due to this man who wants skin. just a weird weird line imo.

it’s a bit of a mouthful, is my issue with “the skin graft man won’t get you”, too many consonants in a row

The Who, like all them Brit Invasion bands, wanted to be amusing as they were a silly pop band. And they were all very good at it until about 1970, when rock became serious art. The lack of concern for posterity is what separates 60s rock from 70s. Sun's not yellow, it's chicken, etc.

I used to think of "I Can See For Miles" as a pretty good song that I wasn't particularly into, but for some reason one day when there was an early, heavy snowfall and I had to drive all the way across town on summer tires to pick up my winter ones and it was an absolutely terrifying slow crawl through one icy intersection after another, I found myself singing "I Can See For Miles" over and over again as I drove, as a meaningless but reassuring mantra. No idea why that song of all songs popped into my head, but now I feel more affection for it.

The Who, like all them Brit Invasion bands, wanted to be amusing as they were a silly pop band. And they were all very good at it until about 1970, when rock became serious art. The lack of concern for posterity is what separates 60s rock from 70s. Sun's not yellow, it's chicken, etc.

Sheep from Animals and The Crunge from Houses of the Holy are just two of several funny 70s songs by Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hv0cXJBTg

Tracklist here https://shop.thewho.com/products/the-who-sell-out-super-deluxe-box-set

Out of the 112 tracks, the only ones I've never heard in any form/didn't know existed are the Sunn Amps spot, "Facts of Life" (an Entwistle tune), and "Inside Outside USA."

Disc 4 is a convenient clearinghouse for their '68 studio recordings, but disc 3 -- studio sessions with chatter and such -- is what I'm really looking forward to.

New documentary on Sell Out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvXU3y-7gF0

"I'm an Ear Sitting in the Sky" <= is that for real?

Sorry, Pete, I'm not buying that one. I didn't think this was very good.

Awesome little documentary !

The footage of Townshend and the band explaining the concept of the album to John Peel and then playing him an acetate (I assume) of "Odorono" wsa definitely something I'd never seen before!

"I'm an Ear Sitting in the Sky" <= is that for real?

― Josefa, Friday, April 23, 2021 8:48 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yep. Pete first mentioned in a 1979 interview that Speedy Keen called him right after Sell Out's release to say, "No, no, it's 'I'm An Ear'!" But in the new documentary, Pete says Keen called Pete "years later."

The odd thing about the documentary is that they spend more time on songs that weren't on the record -- "Jaguar," the Coke ads -- than on songs that were, like "I Can't Reach You," which itself goes unmentioned.

Maybe serious Who fans knew this already but it was news to me that Speedy Kean is singing co-lead on "Armenia" - for ages I wondered why that particular vocal sounded so weird.

I'm mildly tempted to poll 'I Can See for Miles' vs 'Helter Skelter' aka the heaviest songs evah.

Keen isn't singing co-lead; that other vocal track is Daltrey sped up. The engineer in the documentary was wrong.

xp

Really, wow. Wikipedia is wrong on that too.

"Anyone Who's Anyone" by Sloan is an interesting pastiche of this song, similarly sung at the top of the singer's range.

Wikipedia's also wrong about "Jaguar" -- that's Keith singing lead (with Pete taking lead on "the radio's blasting..." etc.).

I note that this is the third Classic Albums episode about The Who.

And there's also the 2012 Quadrophenia documentary, by far the best of all the Who album documentaries (sadly, no longer on YouTube, and never issued in a physical format).

Bradley’s Barn?!

Yep. “Our Love Was,” “Relax,” “Someone’s Coming,” and “Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand” were all completed at Bradley’s Barn on August 17, 1967, during a day off from their tour with Herman’s Hermits. These had all been started in London about a month earlier. While on tour in the US, Kit Lambert would book them into studios on days off to try to get the record finished. They also recorded in NYC, where Al Kooper played organ on “Relax” and “Rael”; and at Gold Star in LA where they took advantage of that studio’s echo chamber for the harmony vocals on “I Can See For Miles.”

Damn--went to watch that tonight and it was gone.

If you can't find it drop me a pm ;)

Thanks to CJV for getting this to me, enjoyed it. Only quibble is that my favourite song, "I Can't Reach You," doesn't get mentioned (unless I missed it).

I liked Daltrey at the mixing board listening to demos and fragments. His expression is somewhere between bemusement and intrigue. Reminded me of Dylan in the Scorsese documentary, when he says something about not knowing where those '65/66 songs came from: "I can do other things now, but I can't do that."

"I Can't Reach You," doesn't get mentioned (unless I missed it).

Nope, no mention of it...but lots of talk about songs that didn't get released until 20+ years later.

My favorite moment in the documentary -- and one of my favorite moments in all Who films, documentaries, etc. -- is Daltrey singing along with "Tattoo."

Yes, my fave moment as well. And he sounds excellent!

His voice has held up extraordinarily well. He went through some problems with a pre-cancerous growth on his vocal cords around '06-'09 (his performances from those years are decidedly hit-or-miss), but after surgery he sounded great. I'd argue that he sounds stronger on 2019's WHO than on any record (live or studio) since Who Are You.

A recent reissue of WHO includes a bonus disc of a 2020 acoustic show, and the version of "Tattoo" on it is stunning.

Best thing on the CD release is Melancholia,

Take 1? Demo?

dunno, I think the demo is on Scoop

In addition to the master take, there’s an early run-through of “Melancholia” on the box, with Pete doing a guide vocal. And yep, Pete’s solo demo is on Scoop; in that album’s liner notes, he says he doubts the Who ever heard the song, forgetting that they’d recorded it.

did someone ever re-upload that documentary to youtube or anywhere else?

Capitaine Jay Vee was nice enough to Dropbox it to me. It was good--I don't think I saved the file, but maybe you can contact him?

Christ there’s a right old satisfying *thump* to the mono version of I Can’t Reach You. Hard to hear if it’s actually the bass or the drum or both.