I think this is a POLL of shit while John Sinclair rots in prison: THE WHO RESULTS THREAD (ilm artist poll #25)

10. TIE: Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970 (56 points)
The Kids Are Alright soundtrack (56 points)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mTFd61ORL._SL500_AA300_.jpghttp://www.rhythmhouse.in/ProdImages/images/D168903.jpg

The film of the The Who's set at the IoW festival is awesome.

(I may have to bail soon due to incoming stormage and a dog that will need comforting during said storm)

9. The Who By Numbers (61 points)
http://www.thewho.info/images/75WBN-Ad-Who.jpg

Underrated record; glad to see it made the top, er, 10.

It almost snuck in as my #5, but not quite.

One of the best ever sleeves, btw

8. A Quick One (228 points)
http://jojoplace.org/Shoebox/Valis/QuickOne/thewhoq1.jpg

Will pick this back up hopefully later this afternoon!

Some people consider "The Real Me" one of the worst Who songs!?

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, September 8, 2012 2:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

kinda surprised contrarians didn't manage to rally around one of the big Tommy or Who's Next singles for the worst list

Late to this, but the most perplexing thing about the ten worst was how did "Guitar and Pen" miss? (Other than me not being arsed to do any worst songs.)

"Long Live Rock" (which would've made a great Sleater-Kinney cover) and "Magic Bus" almost but didn't make my main ballot. It's funny how the latter and both "The Real Me" and "Love, Reign O'er Me" (which is a little too portentious out of context, and that Sandler/Cheadle movie didn't help) went from deep cuts to near-staples on classic rock radio in the Clear Channel era.

TKAA soundtrack is SO awesome.

TKAA sndtrack has moments but the late-Keith live stuff where he sounds old and slow really bum me out.

i heard the soundtrack before seeing the movie and i thought it was just the shittiest-sounding live album ever, really don't think the audio from a lot of those TV performances hold up when divorced from the visuals.

^ this is kinda true. old man Pete power sliding into the camera in slo mo is -___-

The way this band decayed and atrophied and the way Pete n Rog are still going as "the who" makes me very, very sad. This band was so important to me growing up and I look back and feel like all the lessons I should have learned from them are how NOT to do things.

on one level i do have more respect for Zep for knowing it wouldn't be the same after the drummer died and more or less leaving it at that. i have a hard time begrudging The Who for carrying on, if they still wanna play the songs and people still wanna hear 'em (I'd jump at the chance if i could afford a ticket). the last 30 years of touring probably haven't dilluted their legacy as much as two Kenney Jones LPs, tbh.

A Quick One only number 8 on the albums list? Well I guess I can keep loading up those mixes with "obscurities."

Everybody who voted for "Silas Stingy" as a bad song actually was thinking of "Sister Disco" and just got confused, please correct THANK YOU.

Late to this, but the most perplexing thing about the ten worst was how did "Guitar and Pen" miss? (Other than me not being arsed to do any worst songs.)

"Guitar And Pen" didn't even get any votes in the worst poll! (I don't mind the song too much myself; it's endearingly, and uncomfortably, awkward)

But the vast majority of their sub-par/crapulent songs are consolidated on about two and a half albums. Since most people steer clear of those entirely, and thus probably haven't heard, say, "It's Your Turn," those songs didn't place high in the worst results.

the Petra Haden version of "Silas Stingy" on her a cappella cover of Sell Out (which i heartily recommend to any fans of the original album) warmed me up to the track

TKAA sndtrack has moments but the late-Keith live stuff where he sounds old and slow really bum me out.

What's perplexing is that he's far more on his game on the 1977 Kilburn show -- the one which was thought inferior to the later Shepperton show used in the film.

who hates Love Reign O'er Me? It was in my top 10

I'm glad people didn't vote for newer Who songs for worst. Where's the fun in voting for an obvious room clearer like In The Ether? I voted Squeeze Box worst too, but now I wish I went with The Real Me. FM radio murdered that song, not that it was any good to begin with.

The way this band decayed and atrophied and the way Pete n Rog are still going as "the who" makes me very, very sad. This band was so important to me growing up and I look back and feel like all the lessons I should have learned from them are how NOT to do things.

Townshend has repeatedly expressed regret over not stopping the band:

- after the 1997 tour
- after the 1989 tour
- after the 1982 tour
- the morning after the Cincinnati tragedy
- after Keith died
- after the 1976 tour
- after recording Quadrophenia

That said, the 2000 shows were the best since '76, and Endless Wire was their best record since The Who By Numbers. So if they want to keep doing it, good. It's when they didn't want to -- as was the case from 1980-82 -- that they shouldn't have.

7. Tommy (350 points, one #1 vote)
http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/35080012/aview/_B209pUwEWk___KGrHqV__h8E_qqEGRffBMj_uhWk7w___1.JPG

Tommy album cover is so cool. So trippy.

I saw them in '96 or so with the Quadrophenia tours and it was great, and again in the 2000's before Entwistle passed and that was amazing. At least they were touring as The Who and not selling their songs to P. Diddy for that lousy Godzilla movie.

That list of shoulda-stopped-thens is great. Should be mandatory for everyone past a certain point, me included.

surprised people consider "The Real Me" a radio staple, i don't think i'd even heard it before my brother bought Quadrophenia

It probably has to do with approaching a band from the viewpoint of a session musician (which 1/2 of Zep were) vs. a non-session musician. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones did studio work before and after Zeppelin, whereas The Who was to a greater extent all Pete, Roger, and John have ever done.

voted "The Real Me" (not worst but best), great Daltrey vocal on the chorus

also wtf at Tommy #7, you people are deaf dumb & blind

my #1

6. My Generation (407 points, one #1 vote)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3413/3540047765_7732567b24.jpg

Real Me one of the worst? Really?

5. Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (502 points, four #1 votes
http://www.thewho.info/images/71MBBAB-UK-Who.jpg

One of the best first tries at a greatest-hits ever, and I'm guessing one of the first twenty albums I bought.

4. Quadrophenia (524 points, one #1 vote)
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/4274/5478108_1.jpg?v=8C81BC5F42FB830

I was going to vote in this if I'd had more time to absorb the parts of the discog that I don't know very well, but it didn't happen. (A Quick One is a really solid album though, innit?)

Anyway, re: "Squeeze Box." I remember an interview with Pete Townshend in Hit Parader - prolly from around the time of Face Dances - where he was bashing Paul McCartney's commercialism - but then admitted The Who sold a shitload of t-shirts and "Squeeze Box" was "every bit as bad as Ebony & Ivory." I agree.

I love those "if you enjoyed this recording, you may also like...." suggested albums on the back cover of the original pressings of The Who Sings My Generation - all put there by some Decca guy plugging whatever their recent releases were by a guy who'd apparently never actually listened to The Who. If you enjoyed "My Generation", may we suggest, the Kingston Trio?

"Squeeze Box" is redeemed by the exuberant groove of the fun part, and the expression of true love in the slow pretty "I'm so in love with you" part. I never quite got the metaphor though. "Mama's got a squeeze box she sits in her lap, when daddy comes home he never gets a nap."

Yeah, Decca's cluelessness is a (the?) main reason the Who's early singles stiffed in the US.

xp

3. Live At Leeds (628 points, five #1 votes)
http://www.concertposterart.com/images/posters/detail/Who-Live-At-Leeds-LP-Album-Promo-Poster-Type-Ad-1970-Concert-Poster-Type-Ad.jpg

Gonna finish the albums now, have to run soon.

A curious thing about decca's cluelessness about the early Who was that (as pointed out in Bomp by Mike Sanders back in the day) they managed to place full page ads in Billboard for the first four singles.

2. Who's Next (669 points, five #1 votes)
http://i53.tinypic.com/21nh66h.jpg

True, but they didn't have an independent promo person (standard practice in those days), distribution was spotty at best, and magazines didn't always, or often, receive promo copies.

xp

Yeah, and they let Atco issue "Substitute".

1. The Who Sell Out (1008 points, nine #1 votes)
http://www.thewho.info/images/67SOad-Who.jpg

:D

I think Pete and Dave are genuinely friends, but Dave never let that get in the way of, say, calling out some of Pete's bullshit politics. In early 2002, Townshend posted the following on his website:

"Dave Marsh took me to task in Before I Get Old - his book about the Who - for doing a commercial in 1967 for the U.S. Aerospace Programme during the Vietnam War. Maybe I was naïve. But recent events make me wonder who was right or wrong. ... I am grateful for American military might."

I sent a link to that post to Dave, who wrote a column about it (and I can't for the life of me remember the site...it wasn't Addicted to Noise), pointing out the numerous problems with Pete's "reasoning." It ultimately led to Pete removing the message board and many blog posts from his site. So yeah, there's been some bumps in the road, but they're still friends.

The ad in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1VR-QnIw3Y

Marsh wrote in his column:

As my colleague John Swenson said when he read my book, "If I'd heard that spot in 1967, I'd never have become a fan of the Who." The teenage boys who loved the Who took such things personally in 1967. Not only because we didn't want to get drafted, but because we didn't want to kill. It was way different for Townshend, who did not live in a country with military conscription and whose father had been part of the heroic Royal Air Force (albeit in the band) in World War II. Still, my wife was involved with anti-Vietnam demonstrations at the London School of Economics in '67, so the atrocities of Vietnam weren't unknown in Pete's neighborhood.

In Before I Get Old, Marsh wrote that Townshend was "mortified" that he'd ever done such a thing, and how it was fortunate that the ads weren't widely aired.

Interesting, thanks.