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The Who Sell Out Deluxe Edition

The Who - The Who Sell Out Deluxe Edition Audio CD

A fair review of the The Who "The Who Sell Out Deluxe Edition" 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 Sell Out Deluxe Edition
Rating:

Release Date: 2009-06-02
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Armenia City in the Sky 2: Heinz Baked Beans 3: Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand 4: Odorono 5: Tattoo 6: Our Love Was 7: I Can See for Miles 8: I Can't Reach You 9: Medac 10: Relax 11: Silas Stingy 12: Sunrise 13: Rael 1 & 2 14: Rael Na�ve [*] 15: Someone's Coming [*] 16: Early Morning Cold Taxi [*] 17: Jaguar [*] 18: Coke After Coke [*] 19: Glittering Girl [*] 20: Summertime Blues [#][*] 21: John Mason Cars [*] 22: Girl's Eyes [*] 23: Sodding About [*] 24: Premier Drums [Full Version][#][*] 25: Odorono [Final Chorus] 26: Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand [US Mirasound Version] 27: Things Go Better with Coke [*] 28: In the Hall of the Mountain King [*] 29: Top Gear [*] 30: Rael 1 & 2 [Remake Verison] 31: Armenia City in the Sky 32: Heinz Baked Beans 33: Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand 34: Odorono 35: Tattoo 36: Our Love Was 37: I Can See for Miles 38: I Can't Reach You 39: Medac 40: Relax 41: Silas Stingy 42: Sunrise 43: Rael 1 & 2 44: Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand [US Single Mono Mix] 45: Someone's Coming [UK Single Mono Mix] 46: Relax [Early Demo - Stereo] 47: Jaguar [Original Mono Mix][*] 48: Glittering Girl [Unreleased Stereo Version] 49: Tattoo [Early Mono Mix] 50: Out Love Was [Unused Mono Mix] [Take 12] 51: Rotosound Strings [with Final Note - Stereo] 52: I Can See for Miles [Early Mono Mix] 53: Rael [Early Mono Mix]

not just a Sell Out.......!
Even though Sell Out is one of my all-time favorite albums, I ignored this release for a year, glancing at the track list and thinking, ahh, no great shakes here. . I mean, they added a whole 2nd disc, with TWO mixes of Someone's Coming, and DIDN'T include the treasure Melancholia at all, which was on the previous 1-DISC release? If you've had similar p-shawish reservations. . . . . .

Let them go. This is a wonderful release. Turns out there are some 9 or 10 items here that weren't on the previous release, and most of these have NEVER been released:
*mono Our Love Was, Is ~ the bad news: my rare, if muddy BBC version with the country-western guitar solo isn't really a BBC performance; the good news: it's the mono mix, now in pristine quality on this release!
*Our Love Was, Is, take 12 ~ a truly alternate version to boot!
*Relax ~ demo (none of the Scoops had this!). . Pete doing his best Keith imitation on drums, unless that's Keith adding to Pete's basic track? Need to hear it again.
*Sodding About ~ not just another lost commercial as I'd whiningly feared, but a MONSTER unreleased instrumental! Not half as long as the excellent Hall of the Mountain King, but makes up for it in ferocity. . . a heavier display of Ox-power than any other track on the album. Stacks up nicely to the studio Young Man Blueses of a year later.
*Summertime Blues ~ surprisingly, a different studio version from Odds n Sods/BBC. A bit shorter, but another one from the vaults nevertheless.
*Glittering Girl ~ not just two mixes, but two bonafide different performances (one by Pete, one by Roger, vocally), recorded months apart. The latter is another first-time release!
*I Can See For Miles/early mono mix ~ pre-overdub version, for completists and geeks only, perhaps, but isn't that us? An interesting listen. Though the added dressings sweetened it to perfection, this shows how few of those dressings there actually were.
*Rael remake ~ didn't know what this meant from the cover (a 2009 dub mix?), but it's a whole different take from back in the day!

All this, plus a few more commercials and a pair of highly enjoyable hidden items I'll maintain the silence on. . . . and spiced with outtake cover photos of each of our heroes (I remember the John one from the tribute photo montage in 2002) makes this utterly worth having.
As for dear departed Melancholia, I'm content with the explanation it was recorded in early 68, after the album's release ~ but I'll hang onto the '95 version.

And one should, for another good reason: RAEL. It's all well and good the compilers wanted to use the original masters--and the bonus "early" mono mix late on disc 2 does contain the long-lost 2nd verse, so it's here--but I think it's ridiculous they didn't use the '95 mix for the stereo album on disc 1. That mix finally restored that glaringly spliced verse, achieving the definitive version of this song after 28 years, and now you go back to an inferior version? Did the ghost of Kit Lambert influence this decision? I mean, Pete threw a chair thru the control room window over this at the time. . . . Not a deal-breaker, though ~ just keep your previous one, if it's the '95 version with bonus tracks.

On the mixes ~ need to listen to the mono mix again, but I agree with the reviewer that Someone's Coming greatly benefits from the mono (who'd have thought?). But Odorono suffers ~ Pete's voice is too low in the mix, and it just doesn't sparkle the way the stereo one does (and the way this song should! listen to the "ripped her glittering gown" line in stereo vs. mono). Nice to have both the "regular" (stereo) and the "shaky" (mono) mixes of the acoustic Mary-Ann with the Shaky Hands in one place. Previously, the 80's cd had the regular and 95's had the shaky (albeit in a new stereo version)--so I can finally ditch the former cd, there's absolutely nothing to recommend it now. Even the Rael purists get their original mix back on the new Deluxe.

The two different electric versions of Mary-Ann are under the same roof now, too. My Way (Easy Goin' Guy) could've been squeezed on, I guess, but that and the other Summertime Blues are already on Odds n Sods.

If all this sounds like geekdom. . . it is. If you've never heard The Who Sell Out, get the one-disc '95 edition with bonus tracks ~ just one version of each song for your listening pleasure. If/WHEN, however, this album is imprinted on your heart; or, if you're a Who nut, or serious collector, or all of the above ~ YOU'RE GONNA WANT THIS.
Too great a treasure trove to pass on.

Only Fair
Other then the uniqueness of the advertisements in between some of the songs, and the brilliant cover art, an album becomes essential largely when a band believes in the album, and performs the songs from said album. This album is not iconic, and probably did not deserve a deluxe edition. Once released, few if any of the songs on this disc ended up being performed live, and if so were soon dropped from the lineup, never to be performed again (this is unbelievable in light of "I Can See For Miles" being the greatest Who song ever for my money). Another great one is "Armenia City In The Sky". There were also a few other awesome tracks: "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand", "I Can't Reach You", and "Our Love Was", many of which were sung by Pete Townshend, instead of Roger Daltrey (not necessarily a band effort). The Who's set list became stale long ago, and unfortunately, other then "Relax" and "Tatoo", never included much of this album, which is criminal.

My favorite Who record
There is quite an eclectic assortment of songs here, and it may strike most listeners as "unconventional". This is probably my personal favorite Who record. The hilarious faux-commercials are especially odd. Rael is the best song here, and it's interesting to hear echoes of Rael in the Sparks track from Tommy. You definitely want to get teh deluxe edition of this LP with the wonderful bonus tracks and interesting liner notes.

The first Who concept album gets a king sized makeover

Up to Sell Out, The Who were a singles band and their first two albums The Who Sings My Generation and A Quick One (Happy Jack as it was known as here in the US) all had their moments but the band were still trying to find their feet as a band. The Who's third album entitled The Who Sell Out was released in December of 1967 in the UK and January of 1968 here in the US. While their first two efforts did well in their native England and even had a US Top 30 hit with "Happy Jack", The Who (comprised of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, the late bass player John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon (also dearly departed)) toured the US and gained a following. By the time The Who Sell Out was released, The Who were poised for superstardom as I found out when I first heard the album in June of 1989 on the double album repackage of this and A Quick One (Happy Jack).
The whole premise of the album is that it's a concept album about an outlawed British pirate radio station program complete with fake commercials connecting the songs. In fact, some of the commercials become full-fledged songs.
We open with Radio Jingle 1 which segues into "Armenia City In the Sky" which is a great British psychedelic rocker (and it wasn't even written by Townshend but by Thunderclap Newman member John Keene). Then after Radio London 2 is The Ox's "Heinz Baked Beans" (funny track). Next is "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hands" which is a nice acoustic piece (an electric version appears as a bonus track). Then after the Premier Drums/Radio London 3 jingle is Townshend's "Odorono" which is sung superbly by Pete and is a great rocker. After another Radio London jingle is the tongue-in-cheek "Tattoo" which would be a concert staple for The Who over the next 15 years off and on. Following that is another Radio London jingle which gives way to the lovely "Our Love Was" with its razor sharp electric guitar break (not present on the original mono mix) coupled with Townshend's beautiful clean electric playing and Entwistle's French horn accents. After this is Speakeasy/Rotosound Strings 1 which gave way to the ultimate Who single "I Can See for Miles" which is a great rocker and was The Who's biggest hit here in the US hitting the Top 10.
The second half starts with a country-ish Charles Atlas commercial which segues into the beautiful "I Can't Reach You". Next is another commercial penned by The Ox called "Medac" about an acne cream. "Relax" follows and is a nice number. Next is The Ox's tale about a Scrooge fellow names "Silas Stingy". Next is the beautiful "Sunrise" which is just Pete and his guitar. We end the original album with "Rael" which was a mini-opera along the lines of "A Quick One While He's Away" (which appeared on the previous album). Some of the themes here would creep into the next Who album Tommy. On both original mixes of the album there was a bad edit but the master tape was destroyed so the fixing from the 1995 reissue isn't present here. Hence why it's still good to have both versions to compare and contrast.
The Who Sell Out was another Top 20 hit album for the band in the UK and was the band's first album to hit the US Top 50 peaking at #48 in 1968.
When the album was first remastered in 1995 (in a re-mixed form), it featured loads of bonus tracks. In addition to several previously unreleased commercials (like Coca-Cola), there's the unreleased "Glittering Girl" and their version of "Hall of the Mountain King". Then there are the tracks "Rael 2", "Jaguar", "Early Morning Cold Taxi" and "Girl's Eyes" which were released a year earlier on the band's Thirty Years of Maximum R&B box set. Plus there is the Entwistle-penned "Someone's Coming" which first appeared on the 1968 US compilation The Who Magic Bus On Tour. "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands" featuring Al Kooper on organ was previously unreleased.
On this new re-mastered 2-CD reissue (which has the original stereo mix on CD 1 and the long out of print Mono mix on CD 2) and quite a few more unreleased tracks (one of which is the studio version of "Summertime Blues" and a previously unreleased instrumental called "Sodding About") and lost mixes of some of the album's tracks. There's also a very informative booklet that tells the story of the album plus photos and info on when each track was recorded and mixed).
RECOMMENDED!.

Not just the greatest Who album ever, but one of the greatest rock albums, period.
If you have never heard it, prepare to be stunned, amused, and blown away by how fun and great this album is. Go buy it, now. Play it from start to finish, and envision listening to a pirate radio station in 60's Britain. One of my favorite albums of all time.

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.