Who
The Who Sell Out - Track 1967
Tracks:1. Armenia City In The Sky / 2. Heinz Baked Beans / 3. Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand / 4. Odorono / 5. Tattoo / 6. Our Love Was / 7. I Can See For Miles / 8. I Can't Reach You / 9. Medac / 10. Relax / 11. Silas Stingy / 12. Sunrise / 13. Rael 1 / 14. Rael 2 / 15. Glittering Girl / 16. Melancholia / 17. Someone's Coming / 18. Jaguar / 19. Early Morning Cold Taxi / 20. Hall Of The Mountain King / 21. Girl's Eyes / 22. Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand (Alt. Version) 23. Glow Girl
Comments:
"The Who Sell Out" is one among ( at least 3 ) 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.
Most of the bonus-tracks are great - most of the apparently were only left out due to lack of space on the vinyl format. Try to shuffle the tracks - the bonus-tracks really fit in nicely with the originals.
Comment to the Deluxe version:
The deluxe version has both the stereo and the mono version of the album. 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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