Now this exhaustive, super deluxe edition box set is showing the genius at work behind The Who Sell Out.Īlthough the collection is structured like a conventional box set - two discs devoted to the album in stereo and mono with B sides, another to outtakes, a fourth to abandoned takes, and a fifth to Pete Townshend’s demos - everything in it provides a holistic look at the period surrounding the making of the LP, going back to recordings the band made while on the road in the U.S. But thanks to all the cheeky winks and nods that the Who dressed the record with, it transcended mishmash status. On its own, the LP, the band’s third full-length, would have been a perfectly fine stopgap release to get some product out quickly before 1967, the year of Sgt. Yet the commercials held it together and made it one of the Who’s most pivotal releases. There was one brilliantly chiming anthem “I Can See for Miles,” a South American flavored pop rocker called “Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand,” and a psychedelic mini-rock opera “Rael,” which set the stage for their next album, Tommy, among other experiments.

Without the gimmick, the songs themselves were a glorious hodgepodge. They linked the songs together with tongue-in-cheek commercials for deodorant and pimple cream and even hired a real ad agency to pour Heinz beans over Roger Daltrey for the cover art.

The Who Sell Outwas rock’s first perfect package of irony - a wry marriage of highbrow and lowbrow art disguised as a concept album where the only real notion was that the Who wanted cash.

The sellout review