The Who By Numbers appreciation thread

It's the best version I've heard.

 

My first Who single, bought the 45 when it came out. That's all us kids at the time could afford on paper route money. Had to save up to buy an LP.-

 

I do like the 1996 remix and to my ear the 2011 SHM original mix cd sounds pretty close to the original MCA. Maybe a little more bass on the SHM and a bit less sparkle....??(going from memory from the last listening session)

 

The one thing that I prefer from the remix is the removal of Daltrey's double-tracked lead vocal effect on In A Hand Or Face.

 

Wasn't there some confusion between boots of the Philly & Largo shows or am I remembering it wrong?

 

Yes, the confusion was that when KBFH first aired the Philly '73 concert in 1974, they mistakenly believed and announced that it was the Largo show instead. It wasn't until when KBFH remixed & remastered their tapes in 1999 and added never before comments of Daltrey mentioning that they are playing Philly, that it was discovered. KBFH rebroadcast the show later that year in 1999 (not the entire show, unfortunately, but the sound quality was much improved).

 

Gaaah no way! I'm always totally against any actual CHANGES in what's actually on the as-released recording. Does the first MCA cd match the original lp in this respect?

 

I would have loved to have seen Dreaming From the Waist performed live... Of the Moon era records, I put it above Who Are You but not the rest.

 

You must then loathe a lot of the mid-1990's catalogue remixes. I would imagine the original MCA cd was faithful to the original LP version, but with The Who, one never knows.

 

Absolutely, not every song has to be a big statement. I like artists that have a lot of diversity in songwriting. The most touching song on this album, IMHO, is Blue Red Grey. The definition of a light ditty.

ps the remix is a must, if just for the boosted brass parts in BR&G

 

I never did get the QUAD because I was warned about such shenanigans, including the excision of the iconic "weird grunty noises" after "used to fight" in Dirty Jobs.....(I have never listened, so maybe I got that wrong.)

I do have those late 90s versions of WBN, WAY, and SELL OUT as my current digital versions, so if there are things I need to know about the latter two, break it to me gently.... (I have those CDs of FD and IH as well but more frequenly listen to vinyl on those. I do believe I heard something about actual recording differences in IH but I no longer remember what they were specifically. Something about vocal lines in Eminence, and the length of Known No War?)

 

Love this album-By Numbers and Quadrophenia are the Who albums I play most often.

 

Hello,

I have to admit to to always knowing who the "Who" were, but they seemed to have past me by growing up in the 1970's, & I found other musical interests etc etc...So I was a late starter....

Anyhow, around 2008, I purchased a copy of "Who's Next" for a tenner at a petrol station ( gas station ), & that started me off on collecting everything they ever made LOL, meaning the whole discography, including the then near new release of "Endless Wire", with absolutely no regrets, & a huge range of great music spanning 4-decades...

Anyhow, after happily force feeding myself a steady diet of the band for around the next 12-months, I have to say that "The Who By Numbers" really stood-out for me among their many great records. I see it as an equal to anything they released from "Tommy" on-wards, but it lacked sides 3 & 4 to truly make it a monumental Who album, such as its predecessors were. All the ingredients were there & working as well as ever, but maybe not enough meat & potatoes to give it the stature of the predecessors.

I like the other informed posts from folks who were living the album upon release, & tend to agree that in hindsight, it's original release success was marred by the theatrical release of "Tommy". This said, the music presented on the record is great, & I'm glad to have discovered it, & appreciated it by my own reckoning many years later, without outside intervention from fans etc.

In finishing, every Who album is markedly different from what came before & what followed IMO, so this makes "By Numbers" an equally vital link from Quadrophenia, & into Who Are You.

Cheers,

Gregster

 

Great thread with lots of interesting commentary. Since I agree with most of it, I will be brief.

It's one of their greatest records and when I play it, it just flies by and leaves me wanting more. All the songs are economical as well. In this regard it kind of reminds me of a Beatles' record.

Townshend achieved a very mature style of writing here at the ripe old age of 30. Sadly it's been all downhill since and this IMHO is his peak. The songs are interesting, inventive, and not like anything else.

Since the OP brought up the fact that WBN was released in a big "Tommy Year", I was going to aim a bit of criticism towards Slip Kid. You see for nearly 42 years I had misjudged a lyric. Just found out as I was double checking before opining here. I always thought the opening words were "I've got my pinball, textbooks, meet me at the station, yeah I'm off to the civil war". I was going to say, "why does this guy keep bringing up pinball"?

Yes, I'm a dork. And as much as I know The Who, I am not real good with their lyrics as I started on 8 tracks without lyric sheets for Tommy and Quadrophenia and never bothered with them when I finally got LPs. Or course Who By Numbers never had a lyric sheet.

Either way, my hearing "pinball" in place of "clipboard" kind of makes the case that maybe Tommy really did overshadow this release as first mentioned by the OP.

 

Has anyone confirmed whether or not this is just a capture of the WV stream?

 

Upon its arrival, for me, Who by Numbers seemed like a letdown on the heels of the magnificent, sprawling opus that is Quadrophenia. I've always had at least one foot in the "oh, here's poor Pete feeling sorry for himself" camp of WBN interpretation. There's a fair amount of "I'm so drunk, but I've got so much money, I don't know what to do other than write songs about how hard it is to write songs, boo hoo," lyrically speaking. But having said all that, what's so wrong with it? He was being honest, at least. And, as presumably hard as they were for him to write, it's a suite of songs that manages to capture his mood somehow.

Despite being initially underwhelmed (at 16, mind you), over the years the album has grown on me a great deal. As many others have pointed out, the playing is superb by all hands, and Roger was definitely still at the peak of his game. For the most part, the songs are great (I can do without Squeeze Box too). How can you NOT like Blue, Red, and Grey, which I feel is one of Pete's best songs ever?

So yeah, I reach for Who by Numbers as often as for any other Who album when I get in the mood for The 'OO. It's easily in my top five.

I don't remember why but I missed the '76 tour... darn it. Saw the original quartet only once, in '74, and didn't see The Who again until Kenney Jones in '79.

 

As I said, it is the WV stream, but remastered by the bootlegger - it sounds good!

 

Sounds more like yer describing Who Are You and not The Who By Numbers there...

 

The Who By Numbers is The Who's second best album, topped only by the majesty that is Quadrophenia. I adore WBN, I love Pete's confessional songs that aren't about teenage concerns, I love that it feels like a concept album without having a gimmick, I love "How Many Friends", which may be the best song Pete ever wrote (well, maybe "Sea and Sand"). An exceptional record and one of the two high points of Pete Townshend's and The Who's career.

 

No, they're not about teenage concerns at all. They're about a thirty year old rich and famous rock star who is trying to cope with the fact that he is a thirty year old rich and famous rock star. I think people tend to forget that for the most part, in 1975, the idea of a thirty year old rock star was still sorta uncharted territory. Rock and roll was supposed to be a young man's game, and here was Townshend, thirty, losing his hair (and hearing), with only his Courvoisier for solace, obviously in it for the long haul asking the hard questions that others might have wanted to ask but were afraid of the answers. I salute him for that.

Keith Moon actually broke down and cried when he heard the finished album for the first time. Obviously some of Pete's sentiments hit close to home for Moonie as well.

 

Interesting I had the opposite experience. For years I only had the 96 version, and when I finally got and heard the original MCA CD I thought the double tracked vocals sounded great!

 

Even more especially poignant when you think that his most famous lyrical line is "I hope I die before I get old".

 

And yet, Roger Daltrey is still out there spitting out that line at the ripe ol' age of 73 (?)...

I don't doubt that when Townshend wrote that line in 1965 that's how he felt. Ten years later, obviously he was thinking, "F--k, I'm still here!" and that is reflected in the Who By Numbers material.

 

WhoTapes1, this sounds like a lo-fi recording to me yet I really like the balance of instruments. Nicely meshed sound. The drums in the quietest parts sound really good and clear to me in the mix and then the bass guitar during the "I'm The Face" bit too. Some of Moon's 'fills' for this 'ballad' seem quite 'remarkable' to me. A pretty together Sea and Sand there. I imagine the source tape could be a very slight sonic upgrade too with this being heard as it is on you tube and all.

(Below is Sea and Sand from 1 of the 6 Quad Tour concerts in France in early '74)

 

I fell in love with this record after playing it through the iPod each time I mowed the lawn last summer.
It occurred to me that many of the albums by bands I loved released between 75-77 have a certain fin de siècle feel that really appeal to me. The sound of bands unraveling or about to unravel, or feeling their way in the dark, or struggling to reassert their place in the pantheon (eg., Presence, Animals, Black and Blue) that I hear in these records really endears me, whereas I avoided them in my teenage years.