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The Who: The Ultimate Collection

The Who - The Who: The Ultimate Collection Audio CD

A fair review of the The Who "The Who: The Ultimate Collection" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Who reviews here, or go back to the The Who tabs.

Band: The Who
Title: The Who: The Ultimate Collection
Rating:

Release Date: 2002-06-11
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: I Can't Explain 2: Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere 3: My Generation 4: The Kids Are Alright 5: A Legal Matter 6: Substitute 7: I'm A Boy 8: Boris The Spider 9: Happy Jack 10: Pictures Of Lily 11: I Can See For Miles 12: Call Me Lightning 13: Magic Bus 14: Pinball Wizard 15: I'm Free 16: See Me, Feel Me 17: The Seeker 18: Summertime Blues (Live) 19: My Wife 20: Baba O'Riley 21: Bargain 22: Behind Blue Eyes 23: Won't Get Fooled Again 24: Let's See Action 25: Pure & Easy 26: Join Together 27: Long Live Rock 28: The Real Me 29: 5:15 30: Love Reign O'er Me 31: Squeeze Box 32: Who Are You 33: Sister Disco 34: You Better You Bet 35: Eminence Front

Magnificent Collection but extremely bad remastering
I thought that Ultimate Collection was an excellent intro the their music. I am very new to the Who. I loved the music and their unique sound and style. What I found out right away was that the remastering was done at an extremely high volume. This resulted in that the sound on many of the songs was muffled and distorted, especially on the Who's Next songs where the bass guitar was used so much. The sound of the bass guitar was very distorted. The day after I bought the collection I ran out and bought the Who's Next album on vinyl, and oh boy what a difference. The overall sound on these CDs was very distorted because of the bad remastering. So much of the playing and singing was muffled and distorted. The sound on the vinyl was really great. I regret buying this collection and not the Very Best of collection instead.
Well, nonetheless, this collection certainly has inspired me to get more of the Who's great music. But I want to advise people to get the older remastered Very Best collection of instead of this.

The best overview to The Who apart from Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy

Many fans were complaining/p*ssing and moaning "yet another collection" but this time it's a Who compilation on 2 CDs and covered a great deal of The Who's classics and then some on this 2-CD set. The Who's 2-CD retrospective entitled The Ultimate Collection was released in June of 2002.
Also this collection, unlike 1996's My Generation - The Best of The Who, all of the tracks have their original mixes (and not the Jon Astley 1990s remixes which some griped at) and the tracks were all painstakingly REMASTERED from the original tapes (somewhat tasters of the eventually released remasters of the original mixes of Sell Out, Tommy and Who's Next).
The song selection represents the best of guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend, lead singer Roger Daltrey and the late great bass player John Entwislte and the also sadly missed seemingly 4 armed and 4 legged drummer Keith Moon (two of the tracks feature his successor Kenney Jones).
The groups first two single A-sides "I Can't Explain' and "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" from 1965 are included and are still classics 45 years on.
The Who's debut album My Generation is represented by three track which were the classic title cut, the UK hit "The Kids Are Alright" and the underrated "A Legal Matter".
The band's two 1966 monster hit singles "Substitute" (a UK Top 5) and "I'm A Boy" (one of the first songs to tackle on child abuse) are included proving why The Who were one of England's great singles bands in the 1960s although those 1965/66 initially tanked here Stateside.
The band's 1966/67 second effort A Quick One (titled Happy Jack in the US) is represented by The Ox's arguable classic "Boris The Spider" and "Happy Jack" (which was not on the original UK version of The Who's second album but became The Who's first Top 30 hit here in the States back in 1967).
Another 1967 single "Pictures Of Lily" is included here and is a classic rocker.
Then the group's 1967 effort The Who Sell Out is represented by the band's biggest US Top 10 hit "I Can See For Miles" which is still a great number today (although the song tanked in the band's native Europe).
Two songs from the 1968 US only release Magic Bus are represented by "Call Me Lightning" and its US hit title cut (here in the stereo mix, I do prefer the Mono Mix which is on The Kids Are Alright soundtrack).
The group's first US Top 5 album, the rock opera Tommy, is represented by the classics "Pinball Wizard" (the album's biggest hit), "I'm Free" and the finale to "We're Not Gonna Take It" called "See Me Feel Me" (which was another US hit).
The group's 1970 single "The Seeker" is also included and is a great rocker.
The classic live effort Live at Leeds (another US Top 5 effort from 1970) is represented by "Summertime Blues" (the band's classic rendition of the Eddie Cochran classic which they made their own).
Then over half of the band's best selling album, 1971's Who's Next (which reached #4 on the US charts) is represented by the Ox's classic rocker "My Wife", the rocking ode to Meher Baba and avant garde musician Terry Riley called "Baba O'Riley" (which was mistitled Teenage Wasteland but is a classic and features Dave Arbus on violin), the rocker "Bargain" (which ends disc one and got a new lease on life when used in a Nissan commercial in 2002), the US rock radio smash about vengeance called "Behind Blue Eyes" (which kicks off the second disc of this best of and this great track was unfortunately defacated by Limp Bizkit in 2003) and all eight and a half minutes of The Who's US Top 20 smash "Won't Get Fooled Again" (which is still a classic today).
The first of three Who's Next outtakes "Let's See Action (Nothing Is Everything)" is next and this track was not released on a US album until 1981's long out of print 2-disc Hooligans set.
Next is another outtake "Pure and Easy" which is a classic and was first released on The Who's 1974 rarities album entitled Odds and Sods (which reached #11 in 1974 in the US).
The US Top 20 single from 1972 "Join Together" is next and was another Who's Next leftover and is a classic. This song first appeared on a US album on the 2-record set Hooligans.
The track "Long Live Rock" is next and was intended for Quadrophenia but was left off and was first released on 1974's Odds and Sods.
The 1973 rock opera Quadrophenia (which reached #2 in the US) is represented by the tracks "The Real Me" (a great rocker), the classic "5:15" (a hit single from the album) and the classic finale "Love Reign O'er Me" (which was released as a single here in the US but flopped yet became a US rock radio staple and is one of The Who's best songs).
1975's The Who by Numbers (which peaked at #8 here Stateside) is represented by the Top 20 smash hit "Squeeze Box" which is the only rock song I know that had a banjo solo and still kicked *ss (some lament the absence of "Slip Kid" which was the other well known rock radio gem off this album).
1978's swan song with the band's classic lineup before the death of drummer Keith Moon, the #2 charting Who Are You album is represented by the classic Top 20 title cut and the attack on disco called "Sister Disco". If you got the UK issue of The Ultimate Collection, the John Entwistle penned rocker "Had Enough" is also included (that track was a US rock radio staple).
The Who's 1981 album Face Dances which reached #4 here in the US (kept out by AC/DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (released in 1981 in the US) at #3, REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity at #2 and Styx's classic Paradise Theatre was #1 in the States whilst Adam Ant was #1 in the UK) and was their first with former Small Faces/Faces drummer Kenney Jones replacing Keith Moon and represented by the first song to ever top Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart called "You Better You Bet" (which was a great rocker which hit #18 on the Billboard Hot 100). If you buy the UK version, there are three more from this album which are "Don't Let Go the Coat", The Ox's "The Quiet One" and the other US rock radio smash "Another Tricky Day" (why this isn't on the US version I won't know).
Finally, we end with a track from 1982's It's Hard (which peaked at #9 in the US) which was the rock radio hit "Eminence Front" which was one of Pete Townshend's best tracks. On the UK version, the album's US Top 30 hit "Athena" is also included.
The Ultimate Collection did well upon release hitting the US Top 40 and went Gold quickly (very well for a 2-disc best of not released during Christmas time (like most 2-disc best ofs usually are)) but just two weeks after this compilation came out in the States, Who bass player John Entwistle passed away from a heart attack brought on by drug use. This compilation turns out to be a tribute to John.
However that aside, if you want a great start place with The Who, this is RECOMMENDED!!! .

Who Are You!
After all these years, The Who,along with the other Many British Bands like The Kinks,The Animals,The Yardbirds,The Dave Clark five,Herman Hermit's & Of Course,The Beatles, The Music Still Lives on!.

Great but pointless
Nice sampling of songs though. If you already love The Who enough to buy this thing, thing you already probably have all the songs here. I still hate Squeezebox, however, and was annoyed by its presence here. :D

Ivan Rorick .

Classic Rock Radio Staple
Perhaps it's enough to remind readers that Foreigner and Lynrd Skynrd are also classic rock favorites and anyone who likes those bands is really not on an adult level and thus should not be allowed to purchase anything relating to music unaccompanied by someone with a little more taste and intelligence. I don't know, maybe it isn't self-evident that anything that can be described as a staple of classic rock radio is rather low on the totem pole of popular music.

This is probably about the 59th "best of" compilation that the Who have released since about 1983. The sad thing is they're all about the same depending on whether it's a single disc compilation or a double like the one in question. Has "Won't Get Fooled Again" ever not been included on one of these superfluous "best of's"? I highly doubt it and if nothing else it is comically ironic as some fans who have reviewed this item have shown that they will indeed get fooled again and again.

A journey with one of rock's most overrated and least deserving of virtually any accolades they've ever received begins largely uneventfully with a healthy slab of harmless, run of the mill R&B based 60's pop. We won't judge them too harshly here as all of their contemporaries went through this phase, even the markedly superior Kinks. There is one exception to this rule however, the putrid and remarkably dated "My Generation". I don't know why anyone thought this song was worth the paper it was scribbled on, but it has to be one of the worst singles of the 60's or any time for that matter. The bright side of course is that it has put Townshend and company in the embarrassing position of having to sing a line like "hope I die before I get old" at 65. A virtual gift to all critics. Keith Moon's wish was granted. Tonwshend's, perhaps to the chagrin of anyone with taste, was not.

"Boris The Spider" is a daft ditty about a spider dubbed Boris. Its main point of interest comes in the way of providing ample justification for why John Entwistle was rarely allowed to write songs for The Who.

"Happy Jack" is the kind of song you'd be embarrassed to listen to if anyone else was around. Even alone, you may well blush.

"Magic Bus" is a silly song about some idiot that catches a bus to see his girlfriend. It has perhaps the worst lyrics in Townshend's catalogue, though granted the list of contenders is legion. The listener is spared the tedium of the various live versions which often found a lame 3 minute song inexplicably and unjustly extended to 10 or longer. Really painful experience.

Next we come to three contributions from the "Tommy" album, which is a very bloated and overrated album whose tracks deserve no serious commentary and so they won't get any.

If we can gloss over "Summertime Blues" because it sucks (not that it stands alone in that category by any means) let's mention that we next have five selections from the 1971 album "Who's Next" plus two songs that were from those sessions and subsequently released as singles. The message here is clear. If anything good can be said about this band, it's located solely in the realm of "Who's Next". The band knows it and that is why every complilation is packed with material either from this album or from its sessions while most of the rest of the albums are glossed over or treated disparagingly (as in the case of Tommy and Quadrophenia which have only 3 songs each present here although the full albums both contain close to 20)

"Long Live Rock" is an absolutely embarrassing and pathetic single recorded in about 1972 and understandably shelved for seven years. The only mystery is why it was ever released but the answer seems fairly clear; Whatever there was to Townshend's songwriting "genius" had been steadily drying up since about 1973 and he was probably at a loss to come up with anything at all, let alone something good (he usually is as records prove)

"Who Are You" is not bad lyrically, but the music is very, very dated and a little sad to listen to now. All 59 Who compilations edit this song, which is understandable because it does go on for far too long, but they stupidly cut out the third verse which incidentally is the best verse in the song. There's more than enough dull musical interludes and repeat chorus chants that should have gone in its stead.

"Sister Disco" is Townshend's attempt at a scathing commentary and it's perhaps unnecessary to say here that it is largely unsuccessful. Townshend I think mistakenly believed that the rise of disco in the late 70's was a direct threat to his livelihood, not perceiving that his own total dearth of inspiration and fresh ideas was much more damaging.

Not surprisingly the eighties period of the Who is barely mentioned and this can be attributed to the fact that they only made two albums that decade and more importantly to the fact that the most interesting thing about them then was the myriad ways in which Townshend attempted to conceal his hair loss.

This compilation begins with 1964 and ties it all up with one track from 1982 which may lead a less informed listener to believe the band dropped out after that. Sadly, in spite of releasing only one new album in the last 27 years and losing too another member in 2002, neither Daltrey nor Townshend has done the respectable thing and hung up their rock and roll shoes (probably velcro by now given that they're both well into senior citizenship) Instead they've mastered the art of self parody as they continue to spread their revival act to audiences whose only excuse for still showing up is that maybe they've suffered the same degree of hearing loss as Townshend over the years. .

You can see a complete list of all The Who discography, or go back to the The Who tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.