The Who By Numbers appreciation thread

The summer of 1975 I walked out of the theater having just witnessed the rock and roll excess that was Tommy the motion picture. I was young at the time and blown away by the entire experience. Elton John's version of Pinball Wizard was indelibly etched into my mind, both visually and musically. From then on I was a Who fan and went on to compare and contrast soundtrack Tommy with the original. Who's Next, Quadrophenia, and Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy soon found their way onto my record player.

In the fall of 1975 my older brother came home with The Who By Numbers. He listened to it, liked it and explained to me that it was the band's back-to-basics album. I liked it too, but the quality of the album seemed amiss. I distinctly remember listening to Imagine A Man and hearing the song suffering a muddled sound. Fast forward years later I picked up a CD of the album and still thought sonically it didn't quite resonate as some of the band's other albums. I still however enjoyed the music and even more so as getting older helped me appreciate the songwriting more.

A couple of years ago I saw The Who perform a benefit show in a smaller venue for Teen Cancer. Eddie Vedder was the featured guest and he performed Blue Red and Grey alone with ukelele in hand. This quiet performance made my night. I have seen The Who more times than I care to admit starting from 1979 to the present. Besides seeing the band perform Squeeze Box in 2000 I believe, I have never heard anything played live off of this album. It has always bummed me out that The Who By Numbers' collection of songs has never translated to the band's stage act.

I recently picked up Classic Records 200 gram version of this album and I am glad I did. The warmth and range of this album has never sounded as good to me. The songwriting on this album is damn near timeless. The performances by the members of the band are superb without ever trying too hard. This was a band knocking out songs so completely in their wheelhouse, the tunes effortlessly flow with terrific piano accompaniment by Nicky Hopkins. Listening to Entwistle's delicate brass work on Townshend's Blue Red and Grey is truly lovely. From start to end, this is a most enjoyable album to listen to. The rockers rock, the ballads are natural, and the pop is fun. The lyrics are as sharp and thoughtful as anything Townshend ever wrote. Entwistle's lone contribution Success Story is one of his best. Daltrey never sounded so good on record in my opinion as he does here. Moon's drumming was still stellar at this point. The menacing sound they churn out during In Hand Or Face and Dreaming From The Waist is balanced off so well with They're All In Love and Imagine A Man. Slip Kid is the pop masterpiece that just might be the best opening song on any album I own. How Many Friends hits too close to home to necessarily want to put on a mixed party tape but we all do relate to.

The Who By Numbers perhaps suffered from being released in the same year where yet another Tommy craze occurred due to the movie. Perhaps too it suffered as it was not another leap forward but a more back-to-basics album. Either way, the album is not bogged down by some indecipherable concept (Tommy and Jimmy and Ray High are thankfully absent from the songs).

This is my go to album for The Who. This recently mega-successful band had matured quite nicely and were capable of walking into a studio and laying down this quieter gem. Following the release of The Who By Numbers the wheels unfortunately started to come off. They never again put out such a solidly written and recorded album in my opinion. Townshend's solo albums, starting with 1977's Rough Mix with Ronnie Lane, probably had something to do with that.

The Who By Numbers is low on flash & gimmicks and high on musical muscle to this long time Who fan.

 

As a fan who saw the original band 30+ times I have to say I don't think it's even close to their best work. I've tried to like it as an album, and I have friends who love this album. The beginning of the end for me.

▶ The Who By Numbers - Success Story MFIT Original Mix Question

 

It is one of my favourite Who albums. I have known the album since its release. The recent hi res download I recently purchased is really good in my opinion. Always hoping that they do a deluxe of this album.
I love Rough Mix as well.

 

An excellent record, one of my favorite Who albums, the last worth a s*** if you ask me.
Top 3:
"However Much I Booze"
"Dreaming From the Waist"
"Blue Red and Grey"

 

I dig it. Definitely not their best but maybe the end of an era.

 

Absolutely. They remained a superb live act but I could live without any of the post Numbers albums.

 

Kinda peters out at the end but I'm still a fan of it. If you took the best tracks off of it and put them with the best tracks from 'Who Are You' you might have my favorite Who album.

 

It gets dismissed often as Pete's singer/songwriter or confessional album but it's the last Who album for me that feels like The Who.

Who Are You in comparison suffers from Keith's lack of fire. WBN still has some of the Keith of old and doesn't sound as resigned as Who Are You.

 

After the initial shock of not hearing any huge anthems, I enjoyed listening to the album regularly when it came out. I still listen to it several times a year, not a bad feat since I have thousands of albums in my library.

There were some great songs on this album, certainly more intimate in lyric, which called for a more subtle approach. It was the Who where they were at the time. I loved the intimate simplicity of 'Blue Red and Grey' and still get a charge whenever I hear it. It's a song that I can climb in to.

I imagine that trying to top the increasingly monumental music of the last several Who albums might have led to caricaturistic tracks, bombast-for-bombast's sake. In the case of where the music is created by the artist

 

Love the high bass on this one. Track nine on side 2.

 

I truly love this record and enjoyed putting down "Squeeze Box", when I had the luxury of putting down fantastic melodies and musicians because there were so MANY, give or take a drummer.
Yes, I was a harsh beauty pageant judge...

 

I was really taken aback by it at the time. I was one of the rare folks who thought Quad was a pinnacle of the Who and rock in general.
I wasn't very taken by the first side. Side two changed my mind.
They're All in Love was fantastic. The last verse was one of the most powerful and honest confessions I had ever heard a songwriter make. I knew then the Who were on their way out--Pete was telling us not to hold our breath for any more earth shaking albums. He was rusting.
But there was still hope--Blue Red and Grey, a wonderful celebration of innocence, nature, and love. It was like he wanted to immediately let us know he wasn't through yet.
Then we finish the album with back to basics power Who and a brief Keith thundering solo. (I didn't notice it at the time, but I didn't notice his drumming until then--bad sign!)
And we close with 'I am going round and round'--not exactly an encouraging thought to leave us with.
But then Who Are You comes out and Pete says 'Well, you thought that was depressing, get a load of this.'

 

Squeeze Box is horrible. The rest is very good indeed, together with Sell Out perhaps my favorite Who record taken as a whole. Yes, there are other great albums and albums with much greater anthems and better production, but sometimes its only Blue Red and Grey that gets you through.

 

It's The Who album I've listened too the most over the last five years. A switch to a more personal style of writing which I enjoy on his solo albums. I was hoping they would play more album live on this tour. You never know, maybe during this Spring tour. Dreaming from........

 

This is far and away my favorite Who album and in my top 10 favorite albums of all time by anybody. Sometimes top 5. And this is the only Who album that would probably crack my top 50 (well, maybe ‘Sell Out’), so you can see it really connects with me in a special way.

I appreciate the lyrical content, partly because I have at times felt similar forms of derangement throughout my life. But lyrics are only half the story. Musically it is also a superior product. I also appreciate the lack of synths. This album has a very organic feeling to it, unlike the albums which surround it in the catalog. The Who haven’t stood this naked on a studio release since “Tommy”. Not that I am entirely anti-synth, mind you, but sometimes it feels like their just getting in my way. We don't need them here. Just gimme Moon and The Ox doing their thing. And they do their thing with subtle sensitivity here. It's still hard rocking Who, but even when thrashing about there is an undercurrent of melancholy and reflection.

I first got this album on cassette from the Caldor cheap-o bin back in the mid-80's. Naturally, the track listing was all messed up. I eventually got the MCA vinyl and heard it right. I am also quite fond of the remixed CD (gasp!).

I love the album from start to finish, but if one were to look over all the compilation CDs and tapes I've made over my life "Dreaming From The Waist" and "However Much I Booze" would sprout up more often than the others.

"Dreaming" makes me want to drive my car into a brick wall during the verses, but then encourages me to take my foot off the gas at the chorus.

"…Booze" is a favorite because I once identified with the song way too much. "I lose so many nights of sleep worrying about my responsibilities". "I know the girls that I pass, they just ain't impressed." Luckily I'm a much more stable person now. But not that much. If I were a good person I'd happily declare "Who's Next" my favorite, tap my toe to “I Can’t Explain”, and not spend my free time wallowing in this mid-life crisis ode to doubt, depression, cynicism, and self-loathing. But I’m not, so it is.

Is "It's all like a dream you know when you're still up early in the morning..." a goose-bump moment or what? There's so many of them here. The whole album is a goose-bump moment. Well, aside from "Squeeze Box", which adds a much-needed moment of lightness and fun. Can’t let the entire album be so bleak or it becomes a tad monotonous, right “Sea Change”?

Roger Daltry's performance on this album is extraordinary. "Imagine a Man" is just incredible. This guy who could just as easily drink a pint, head-butt you and throw you down a flight of stairs can also somehow lift the human spirit to such heights using only voice and the words of Peter Townshend. He sells these troubling songs like he wrote them himself.

I always like John's songs and here his contribution is a perfect fit. This is the sound of four men who found the treasure at the other side of the rainbow isn't all it's cracked up to be. Your dreams can come true and you can still find yourself longing and empty. Samsara.

And Moon’s drumming is exceptional as always. He is my favorite drummer. He is so entertaining. Yet here he seems to be also playing with a black cloud over his drum kit. His playing reflects the source material he’s working with. His traditionally manic drum fills somehow seem to also be expressing a sense of longing and sadness. I don’t know how he managed to do this, exactly, but that is his genius.

Anyway, this is my favorite Who album, the only one I'd save in a fire. It says things I wish I could say myself at times, and that's why I love it.

 

It definitely seems like an under-appreciated Who album, and understandably so. After a string of ambitious albums (Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia), it was a straight-forward collection of mostly introspective songs without a lot of flash on the surface. Nevertheless the album contains some fantastic writing by Townshend and some tremendous vocal work by Daltrey. It is disappointing that the planned deluxe edition of this album never surfaced. It is definitely one of their best albums, at least to this fan.

 

It's my favorite Who album. Don't even know why anymore, but I just love it better than the rest.

Interestingly, to the OP, I also saw the same show where Vedder did Blue Red & Grey. I've also seen Daltrey perform it at a solo show. I've never seen Pete perform it though, which is quite a bummer!

 

Terrific contribution. Thanks for posting. I concur on damn near everything you shared. (I'm embarrassed to say I left out However Much I Booze from my original post... ugh!)

 

Keith Moon on point couldn't save Who Are You

 

Some of Pete's finest electric guitar work on record. This was the first Who album I bought, having first purchased the 45 single Slip Kid.

 

I wonder what percentage of the original coves were ruined with people connecting the dots of the who members, ive seen a few

 

Who Are You did not need to be saved. It may not be the band's best album, but it is a fine record.

 

Enjoy this album very much. Kind of understated in terms of a usual Who album.
Still one I listen to quite frequently.

 

Tommy the original album was my introduction to the band, as a teenager in the 1990's.

I went from there to one of their greatest hits, to Who's Next, to Sell Out, to Quadrophenia. So by the time I worked my way to By Numbers, I had heard most of the "important" Who albums.

I enjoyed Sell Out all the same, though. It's very charming, a return to basics after the (incredible) bombast of Quadrophenia. "However Much I Booze" and "Blue, Red and Grey" are wonderful songs.

I almost bought the used LP of this the other day.

"Hey, goodbye all you punks
Stay young and stay high
Hand me my checkbook
And I'll crawl out to die

But like a woman in childbirth
Grown ugly in a flash
I'm seen magic and fame
Now I'm recycling trash"

 

I'd guess it was my favorite Who album, although maybe The Who Sing My Generation is tied for first place. After the excesses of the early 70s, where all the beautiful backing vocals went away in favor of rock star lead singing, it brought back the Who I loved. And also Dreaming From The Waist is my favorite Who song of all time. Those amazing arpeggios that Roger sings on the chorus, etc. That song just breaks my heart whenever I hear it.