The Who Sell Out 50 years later: song by song discussion

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by NothingBrightAboutIt, Nov 10, 2017.

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  1. Quadboy

    Quadboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leeds,England
    Does the B-side 'Water' fit in with the theme of Quadrophenia?........the song title possibly does.
    But it wasn't on the reissue.


    Each to their own.
     
  2. Quadboy

    Quadboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leeds,England
    Not join together?
     
  3. adm62

    adm62 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Thsi is very good, except Summertime Blues doesn't fit on there at all.
     
    WilliamWes likes this.
  4. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Water was written and recorded 3 years before Quadrophenia. Unlike I Don't Even Know Myself, which was written about a year before Lifehouse/Who's Next and was recorded at the same sessions.

    That was written/recorded a year later.
     
  5. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    You know I thought that too until I realized a radio station might throw in a 50's oldie rock n' roll number like "Summertime Blues" amongst the new material just like radio stations did. That's also why I put in the interview from the Maximum R&B box- once in a while, there would be a radio interview-oh and the 'Happy Jack' commercial like it was still available as a single. I considered adding the Who single with the Rolling Stone covers but that wasn't necessary though it would have added more diversity. Plus I wanted every track put on the deluxe edition available for this. I even thought of adding "Melancholia" and "Glow Girl" but they weren't recorded yet.

    If you play this though it will really feel like a full broadcast - I could have lumped commercials together like a commercial break from the music but I thought it would be better to follow the pattern The Who set up plus keeping 'Sunrise' and 'Rael' together with no interruption.

    The whole idea came from the deluxe edition release and then when I paired up the shaky "Mary Anne" with the shaky rumbling of "Jaguar" and it fit perfectly back to back. That's when I thought this could be done- plus some of the bonus songs had added jingles/ads on them already so I figured there was more to the album than just the 13 tracks. One of the most fun projects I've done.
     
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  6. NothingBrightAboutIt

    NothingBrightAboutIt Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    This is incredible! I've always been tempted to this, bit you've pretty much hit it right on.
     
  7. Quadboy

    Quadboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leeds,England
    I'm aware of their recording history.

    My point being that during the '90's reissues they selected bonus tracks not necessarily considered at the time good enough for inclusion on the LP's [B-sides at best] but later good enough to flesh out the remasters..........when it seemed to me better material was available.........and not used.
     
  8. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    Just wanted to continue The Who Sell Out conversation a little since I didn't get to while the conversation was going on...


    1. Radio London/ARMENIA CITY IN THE SKY (A)
    Monnnndaaayy, Tuuuesdayy…The Who whip up a whoosh and we’re whisked away towards Armenia, the city in the sky where everything is upside down. The dragging daily grind of the sonovox robotic reciting of the week’s days is roasted in the exhaust of this psychedelic rocketship. The tremendous force as John Entwhistle’s backwards horns combine with Pete Townshend huge guitar crunching feedback to fuel The Who’s ultimate trip. A rare time Keith Moon’s thunderous drum sound is forced to blend in amongst others’ madness, those Entwhistle horns keep flying at us right to left like massive, hungry screaming vultures, all the while

    Roger Daltrey and Speedy Keen appear to be balloons filling with helium and losing their gravitational pull, joint voices getting higher as their lifted off the face of the earth. The power is absolutely punishing compared with any track except “I Can See For Miles”, and it’s far and away their most far out there track-never before or again would The Who be this psychedelic and far from home. Literally getting ‘high’ to get away from the “rumors that turn to fact”, “the sky is glass, the sea is brown and everything is upside down” during this freak out freak out.

    Even the opening jingle is heavy psych like a crazy mirror to the song as it the horn blasts between every deeply slow zombified day mentioned. The bridge sounds as if Daltrey and Keen are petrified right before the backwards horn seagull sounds whizz past during another amazing brass moment interchanging with that fuzzing, sizzling motorcycle guitar feedback that terrorizes.

    By the end, the Radio London announcer is also loaded with helium declaring “freak out freak out" within the sonorex. A mesmerizing opening that is one of the album’s heaviest moments, one that deceives us as what’s to come when life lightens up with a track that brings us back 200 years in a nanosecond.
     
  9. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    2. Heinz Baked Beans/More Music, More Music (n/a)
    With a 1,2,3,4, we’ve shifted from 100 years in the future to a 100 years in the past with a marching band horn section complete with pounding bass drum. With each segment of the short “Heinz Baked Beans” an instrument is added (kind of like The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” 8 months later, and a new member of the family is introduced. A single horn then son, to a banjo & horn then father, to an organ, marching drums, banjo, horn then impatient father, to multiple pennywhistle, horns, organ, banjo, marching band drum beat then funny grandmother, repeated with heavy bass drum until they all declare that their tea will come with “Heinz baked beans!”. A curious but complex minute of music that continues the odd opening of a Who album. All this is unprecedented territory for rock, but the Who we know and love will arrive.
     
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  10. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    3. MARY ANNE WITH THE SHAKY HAND
    On 12-string guitar, Townshend and company ring out a folk-rocker about a very playful lady who guys come from every city just to shake her shaky hand. The music trembles like Mary Anne is shaking Daltrey and Townshend as they duet a “Pictures of Lily” like ballad, keeping with their past humorous moments. The sound has got a bit of a Spanish feel to it in the way the acoustic guitar strums amidst the loud guiro, castanets and tambourine. The song imitates “Strawberry Fields Forever” as the fade out fades back in with Moon’s stimulated speedy drums punching out louder and louder as we hear something that sounds like “Mary-Anne’s rough!” repeated. The catchy chorus and fine melody. It ends with a quick Radio London sounding horn riff that squeals to a squeamish stop before finishing up like a upright DJ tried to take it off the record player just then realizing the disgusting atrocity of the jack off lyric. Rock can’t get much funnier than this.
     
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  11. Mike Bass

    Mike Bass Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    When I saw this thread, I was about to ask if anyone ever sequenced a double album with the superb outtakes! Don't have to anymore. Love it! It really should have been a double! :righton:
     
    WilliamWes likes this.
  12. dirkster

    dirkster Senior Member

    Location:
    McKinney, TX, USA
    Love it! I tried to do my own version of this years ago but somehow never got around to finishing it. You have now inspired me to at leasr give it a go again with your own tracklist as, at minimum, an excellent starting point.
     
    WilliamWes likes this.
  13. Mike Bass

    Mike Bass Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    I'm not sure if this has been discussed in depth here before, but is there a reason why side 2 has nearly no advertisements?
     
  14. Summer of Malcontent

    Summer of Malcontent Forum Resident

    I don't know the full answer to your question, but the "1 & 2" title goes back at least as far as the first version of the album I owned, an pre-CD eighties twofer with A Quick One:
    [​IMG]
     
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  15. NothingBrightAboutIt

    NothingBrightAboutIt Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    There's a theory that Side A broadcasts at AM, and B at FM, but it's likely they just ran out of steam by the second side (despite the number of ads in the can). As mentioned, "Sunrise" was added at the last minute, and "Rael" had its own history of being shortened, so B was probably quickly put together.
     
    Mike Bass likes this.
  16. Mike Bass

    Mike Bass Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Thanks for the info! Both sound possible. Your second theory is probably the answer, but I love the AM/FM theory!
     
  17. Summer of Malcontent

    Summer of Malcontent Forum Resident

    That's because Glow Girl was recorded for their next (unreleased) album, and the Deluxe Edition (unlike the 90s CD) stuck pretty faithfully to the actual Sell Out period. We need a Sell Out Super Deluxe AND a Who's for Tennis? Super Deluxe!
     
  18. Bill

    Bill Senior Member

    Location:
    Eastern Shore
    Many years ago, after commenting on Sell Out here, someone PMed me and offered to send me a CD-R of the jingles on the album and others created by the radio production company. It's awesome, and evidence of the great and generous things SHTV members can and do do for each other. Love this place!
     
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  19. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    4. ODORONO
    A choppy rhythm guitar and 12-string guitar lead a romance ruined by a stinky lady from the stage who forgot to use her Odorono deodorant so she ‘couldn’t face another show-no’. I was surprised the first time I heard this that it was actually a full song. When I saw the title, I didn't know it would be a full ballad with verse and chorus. Another cute song but again the glittering gown she wears is like the story continues or started with “Glittering Girl”.
     
  20. NothingBrightAboutIt

    NothingBrightAboutIt Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    You could make a box set of all the albums the Who didn't release. :laugh:
     
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  21. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    5. TATTOO
    Beautiful arpeggio guitar follows along an elegant pop melody that has a catchy chorus and nice harmonies as two brothers get tattoos. “My dad beat me cause my said ‘mother’ but my mother naturally liked it and beat my brother cause his tattoo was of a lady in the nude and my mother thought that was extremely rude” is one of Townshend’s funniest lines but the melody really shows growth in composition. Those harmonies that are so soothing here is missing from a lot of their 70’s and 80’s material, but here it brings a sense of innocence.
     
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  22. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    6. OUR LOVE WAS (B+)
    The 12-string guitar is back for a poppy love song that drives hard like a rock song and the sense of separation between pop and rock stapled together here show how the Who could deconstruct pop/rock whereas most bands did one or the other more obviously. Another fine melody, the raveup in the middle shows just a hint of their power as Moon awakens after staying quiet for the past tracks. Entwhistle also comes in with more great horn tones along the chords and Townshend whips out a stinging guitar solo towards the end to compliment his softer playing throughout. Daltrey, who’s not heard as much here as on other albums sings sweetly without the bravado he gets as the 70’s comes around.
     
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  23. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    7. I CAN SEE FOR MILES (A+)
    One of the Who’s nastiest, roughest performances just knockout all competition with one of the best hard rock songs of the year-a thrill ride of paranoia from a love perspective, with Daltrey threatening “you’re gonna lose that smile” as he tells off this sly woman. The band rides up and down the hills, rhythm building and calming with an intensity rarely seen in rock before. Townshend windmill whirl-about on his riffing is tremendous and his fierce buzzing solo matches the power found on “Armenia City in the Sky”. The song seethes with evil and towers over the other songs here like the Eiffel Tower and Taj Mahal, two sites mentioned in the lyric. Moon is a tireless beast, easily his best performance here with some of the best drumming the 1960’s produced in any genre.
     
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  24. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    8. I CAN’T REACH YOU (B+)
    Though they can see for miles they can’t reach this woman who mentally torments them. Townshend takes the lead vocal as the song needs a more sensitive vocal “my body strains but the nerves are dead” and the chorus has a great downslide melodically as Daltrey joins in realizing that they are too weak to deal any further, no more willing to go on in vain attempts. Again it feels like a pop song but the instrumental performance has so much rock to it, it brings out the drama in both ways at the same time.
     
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  25. Quadboy

    Quadboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leeds,England
    I can't say I'm a great fan of Keith's few Who compositions.............but 'Girls Eyes' is my fav bonus track across both extended versions.
     
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