The Who - The Who Sell Out Deluxe Edition (51 tracks) +Album Reviews

Why wasn't this done sooner. Redux

E.I.E.I. Owen | Philadelphia, Pa United States | 06/03/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I originally wrote this review, Amazon did not have this version available so I placed the review under the Schm (or whatever it is) version so here it is.

The collection contains both the original stereo and mono mixes of the album. This is not a repackage of the 1995 release even though a lot of the extras that appeared there are here but in a different mix. The mono mix might be of more interest for fans since it has not been available in the U.S. since 1967. There are subtle nuances in the mix overall, the music and the commercial jingles meld more seamlessly than its stereo counterpoint in such a way that it does feel like your listening to a pirate radio station. On "Our Love Was" the solo guitar break is completely different than the stereo version.

The stereo mix is a re-mastered version of the original Kit Lambert mix from 1967 so any embellishments that John Astley did in 1995 are now gone. In addition "Rael" is also presented with its original mix as well as a re-recorded version on disc one. Apparently, the original tape was thrown in the trash and a nasty edit had to be made in the songs first line. This track was re-stored by John Astley on the "Maximum R&B" box set and on the 1995 re-issue.

Another bonus is more of the PAMS jingles that were intended for the rest of the album in-between the extra tracks. There are also early mixes of other tracks as well as a few hidden ones so this pretty much surpasses the 1995 edition especially if you were not a fan of the work John Astley did in cleaning up the recording.

This has to be one of The Who's best albums pre-Tommy and probably the last when they actually used a lot of those great vocal harmonies. Finally, a great re-issue of a great album. Oh, as a bonus there is a small re-print of the original poster that originally came with the album

"

Who Sold Out

PHILIP S WOLF | SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CA. USA | 06/02/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Widely considered to be among the best records of the 1960's, and by many thought to be The Who's greatest recording: "The Who Sell Out" once again, has received a major overhaul. This "Deluxe Edition" features 2 full CD's of the classic album in complete stereo and mono versions, and another albums worth of unused songs, commercials, jingles, radio spots and alternate tracks.

The original album was recorded between April and October of 1967. This was a very hectic year for The Who, between live dates, TV appearances, and trips to America, the band somehow found time to record, in studios in London and the USA. It was all rushed together in November, so the album would see a release prior to the Christmas holiday.

The concept behind: "The Who Sell Out" was all about the pirate radio that was broadcasting offshore England in 1967. The entire radio format is reproduced by The Who. Radio spots, commercials, jingles and pop songs of the highest caliber were all the work of Pete, Roger, John & Keith. The power pop, heard on the band's 1966 recording: "A Quick One" builds to enormous explosion with this project. Power pop, comes into full bloom on: "The Who Sell Out." This is the last of the first wave of Who records, as the next project would be very different from this.

Some of The Who's finest music can be found on this record. With: "Tatoo", "I Can See For Miles", "I Can't Reach You" & "Rael" this is finely crafted rock/pop music that doesn't show it's age in 2009. Good pop music is timeless, and The Who understood this, that is the secret to this album's greatness.

With this expanded and remixed edition, sound clarity of this project has improved, but due to the limitations of equipment of it's time,{and Kit Lambert} "Sell Out" may never sound the way we want it to, but it has gotten better. The early demo of: "Relax" fearures some jazz piano and has a 'laid-back' feel to it. "Jaguar" is an all-out eruption of Who fury. "Sodding About" is a jam, much like: "The Ox." "Glittering Girl" is a feast for the ears here, the mix has new found clarity and depth. Even: "Someone's Coming" {a song I never cared for} comes alive here as there is much more prominence to the instruments, now heard.

With four different versions of: "Rael" included here, you will hear music that was buried in the old mixes. An early: "Summertime Blues" will reveal how many years the band would age between 1967 and 1970. A surprise hidden track, is included at the end of disc two, with some things I won't disclose here {it would be like unwrapping a Christmas gift early!}

The last edition of this record was released in 1995. "Melancholia" and "Glow Girl" were a part of that version. The reason, that they are not included here, is because they were recorded after the completion of sessions for: "Sell Out" {they are both from 1968.} The Radio One spot {Boris Mix} is also absent here.

Again, it is fair to say that The Who, do reach a peak on this record, that they will never achieve again. The band sounds so young and spikey here, that it is a little hard to believe that they have to grow up with: "Tommy" and become a different group, a rock group. In 1967, Pete, Roger, John & Keith still sound like teenage punks....well power pop punks!

My only issue with this set is the mono still sounds compressed. This fantastic band cannot be contained in it. Some prefer the mono to the stereo versions, and I don't agree to that. The Who, were way ahead of the equipment that they were forced to record on. You would need 64 separate tracks to let this music breathe the way it needs to.

Sound issues aside, this is about the purist glimse into the music of the sixties, that you are going to find. This is a great record, the extras add to the fun and excitment of sounds that are hardly being contained herein. I am not deducting a full point to due sound problems. The music of: "The Who Sell Out" is an 11 !!!

4.75 Stars !!!

"

The first Who concept album gets a king sized makeover

Terrence J. Reardon | Lake Worth (a west Palm Beach suburb), FL | 08/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Who's third album entitled The Who Sell Out was released in December of 1967 in the UK and January of 1968 here in the US.

Up to Sell Out, The Who were a singles band and their first two albums The Who Sings My Generation and A Quick One (Happy Jack as it was known as here in the US) all had their moments but the band were still trying to find their feet as a band. While their first two efforts did well in their native England and even had a US Top 30 hit with "Happy Jack", The Who (comprised of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, the late bass player John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon (also dearly departed)) toured the US and gained a following. By the time The Who Sell Out was released, The Who were poised for superstardom as I found out when I first heard the album in June of 1989 on the double album repackage of this and A Quick One (Happy Jack).

The whole premise of the album is that it's a concept album about an outlawed British pirate radio station program complete with fake commercials connecting the songs. In fact, some of the commercials become full-fledged songs.

We open with Radio Jingle 1 which segues into "Armenia City In the Sky" which is a great British psychedelic rocker (and it wasn't even written by Townshend but by Thunderclap Newman member John Keene). Then after Radio London 2 is The Ox's "Heinz Baked Beans" (funny track). Next is "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hands" which is a nice acoustic piece (an electric version appears as a bonus track). Then after the Premier Drums/Radio London 3 jingle is Townshend's "Odorono" which is sung superbly by Pete and is a great rocker. After another Radio London jingle is the tongue-in-cheek "Tattoo" which would be a concert staple for The Who over the next 15 years off and on. Following that is another Radio London jingle which gives way to the lovely "Our Love Was" with its razor sharp electric guitar break (not present on the original mono mix) coupled with Townshend's beautiful clean electric playing and Entwistle's French horn accents. After this is Speakeasy/Rotosound Strings 1 which gave way to the ultimate Who single "I Can See for Miles" which is a great rocker and was The Who's biggest hit here in the US hitting the Top 10.

The second half starts with a country-ish Charles Atlas commercial which segues into the beautiful "I Can't Reach You". Next is another commercial penned by The Ox called "Medac" about an acne cream. "Relax" follows and is a nice number. Next is The Ox's tale about a Scrooge fellow names "Silas Stingy". Next is the beautiful "Sunrise" which is just Pete and his guitar. We end the original album with "Rael" which was a mini-opera along the lines of "A Quick One While He's Away" (which appeared on the previous album). Some of the themes here would creep into the next Who album Tommy. On both original mixes of the album there was a bad edit but the master tape was destroyed so the fixing from the 1995 reissue isn't present here. Hence why it's still good to have both versions to compare and contrast.

The Who Sell Out was another Top 20 hit album for the band in the UK and was the band's first album to hit the US Top 50 peaking at #48 in 1968.

When the album was first remastered in 1995 (in a re-mixed form), it featured loads of bonus tracks. In addition to several previously unreleased commercials (like Coca-Cola), there's the unreleased "Glittering Girl" and their version of "Hall of the Mountain King". Then there are the tracks "Rael 2", "Jaguar", "Early Morning Cold Taxi" and "Girl's Eyes" which were released a year earlier on the band's Thirty Years of Maximum R&B box set. Plus there is the Entwistle-penned "Someone's Coming" which first appeared on the 1968 US compilation The Who Magic Bus On Tour. "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands" featuring Al Kooper on organ was previously unreleased.

On this new re-mastered 2-CD reissue (which has the original stereo mix on CD 1 and the long out of print Mono mix on CD 2) and quite a few more unreleased tracks (one of which is the studio version of "Summertime Blues" and a previously unreleased instrumental called "Sodding About") and lost mixes of some of the album's tracks. There's also a very informative booklet that tells the story of the album plus photos and info on when each track was recorded and mixed).

RECOMMENDED!"

Not just a Sell Out.......!

silly narwhal | Portland, OR United States | 11/03/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even though Sell Out is one of my all-time favorite albums, I ignored this release for a year, glancing at the track list and thinking, ahh, no great shakes here...I mean, they added a whole 2nd disc, with TWO mixes of Someone's Coming, and DIDN'T include the treasure Melancholia at all, which was on the previous 1-DISC release? If you've had similar p-shawish reservations......

Let them go. This is a wonderful release. Turns out there are some 9 or 10 items here that weren't on the previous release, and most of these have NEVER been released:

*mono Our Love Was, Is ~ the bad news: my rare, if muddy BBC version with the country-western guitar solo isn't really a BBC performance; the good news: it's the mono mix, now in pristine quality on this release!

*Our Love Was, Is, take 12 ~ a truly alternate version to boot!

*Relax ~ demo (none of the Scoops had this!)..Pete doing his best Keith imitation on drums.

*Sodding About ~ not just another lost commercial as I'd whiningly feared, but a MONSTER unreleased instrumental! Not half as long as the excellent Hall of the Mountain King, but makes up for it in ferocity...a heavier display of Ox-power than any other track on the album. Stacks up nicely to the studio Young Man Blueses of a year later. [added comment: I just found out this was the "Signal 30" instrumental that circulated on bootleg; well, now it's official! Is it me, or was Pete's Tommy outtake "Trying to Get Through" based on this jam?]

*Summertime Blues ~ surprisingly, a different studio version from Odds n Sods/BBC. A bit shorter, but another one from the vaults nevertheless.

*Glittering Girl ~ not just two mixes, but two bonafide different performances (one by Pete, one by Roger, vocally), recorded months apart. The latter is another first-time release!

*I Can See For Miles/early mono mix ~ pre-overdub version, for completists and geeks only, perhaps, but isn't that us? An interesting listen. Though the added dressings sweetened it to perfection, this shows how few of those dressings there actually were.

*Rael remake ~ didn't know what this meant from the cover (a 2009 dub mix?), but it's a whole different take from back in the day!

All this, plus a few more commercials and a pair of highly enjoyable hidden items I'll maintain the silence on....and spiced with outtake cover photos of each of our heroes (I remember the John one from the tribute photo montage in 2002) makes this utterly worth having.

As for dear departed Melancholia, I'm content with the explanation it was recorded in early 68, after the album's release ~ but I'll hang onto the '95 version.

And one should, for another good reason: RAEL. It's all well and good the compilers wanted to use the original masters--and the bonus "early" mono mix late on disc 2 does contain the long-lost 2nd verse, so it's here--but I think it's ridiculous they didn't use the '95 mix for the stereo album on disc 1. That mix finally restored that glaringly spliced verse, achieving the definitive version of this song after 28 years, and now you go back to an inferior version? Did the ghost of Kit Lambert influence this decision? I mean, Pete threw a chair thru the control room window over this at the time.... Not a deal-breaker, though ~ just keep your previous one, if it's the '95 version with bonus tracks.

On the mixes ~ need to listen to the mono mix again, but I agree with the reviewer that Someone's Coming greatly benefits from the mono (who'd have thought?). But Odorono suffers ~ Pete's voice is too low in the mix, and it just doesn't sparkle the way the stereo one does (and the way this song should! listen to the "ripped her glittering gown" line in stereo vs. mono). Nice to have both the "regular" (stereo) and the "shaky" (mono) mixes of the acoustic Mary-Ann with the Shaky Hands in one place. Previously, the 80's cd had the regular and 95's had the shaky (albeit in a new stereo version)--so I can finally ditch the former cd, there's absolutely nothing to recommend it now. Even the Rael purists get their original mix back on the new Deluxe.

The two different electric versions of Mary-Ann are under the same roof now, too. My Way (Easy Goin' Guy) could've been squeezed on, I guess, but that and the other Summertime Blues are already on Odds n Sods.

If all this sounds like geekdom...it is. If you've never heard The Who Sell Out, get the one-disc '95 edition with bonus tracks ~ just one version of each song for your listening pleasure. If/WHEN, however, this album is imprinted on your heart; or, if you're a Who nut, or serious collector, or all of the above ~ YOU'RE GONNA WANT THIS.

Too great a treasure trove to pass on."

Psychedelia Deluxe

Morten Vindberg | Denmark | 07/17/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Who Sell Out" is one among several Who master pieces. With its build up as a commercial radio station program with commercials in between the songs and overall great songwriting, the album may very well be the most varied and most entertaining Who album.

1967 was a year of psychedelia in rock music and the Who were among the pioneers of that trend. This is obvious from the first track of the album "Armenia in the Sky". The outstanding single "I Can See For Miles" is among the very best psychelia songs recorded.

The acoustic "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand" is another Who favourite - beautiful melody, great rhythm and intelligent lyrics. Actually the lyrics are overall great on this album - with wit and homour. Songs like "Odorono" and "Tattoo" are rarely included on Who compilations - and they're both bound to be great positive surprises to the first-time listener of the album.

"Our Love Was" and "I Can't Reach" are other fine tracks - both more in the style of their previous album "A Quick One". It might be expected that the short commercials ( most of them musically done ) would be annoying after the first couple listens - but this is really not the case. These short tracks works great in the context of the album.

Only the final two tracks of the original album seem a little out of place. Townshend's acoustic "Sunrise" is quite beautiful, but "Rael" feels somewhat longwinded and dated.

This deluxe version of the album has both the stereo and the mono versions. Moreover it includes a long line of great additional tracks - singles, outtakes and alternate versions.

Standouts are John Entwhistle's "Someone's Coming", which was intended for the album, but ended up on the B-side of "I Can See For Miles".

Keith Moon's melodic "Girl's Eyes" is great song that ought have been included in the first place. The song was probably never given a final finish, but is still quite nice as it is here - the "Hello" from the first CD re-release somehow is missing here.

Both alternate versions of "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand" are fine - such a great song.

Of other very interesting bonus-tracks there is a studio-version of the live favourite "Summertime Blues"- though this version does not have the magic of the "Live at Leeds" version.

A lot of interesting back-ground information on the 28 page booklet."

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