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Genre | Pop Rock |
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Artist | The Who |
7-Disc Super Deluxe Edition Box Set!
Rare, Unreleased & Exclusive Tracks!
80-Page Hardback Full-Color Book! 9 Posters & Inserts!
Stereophile: Performance 5/5 Stars / Sonics 4./5 Stars
The Who Sell Out is the third studio album by English rock band The Who, released in 1967 by Decca Records in the US. It is a concept album, formatted as a collection of unrelated songs interspersed with faux commercials and public service announcements. The album purports to be a broadcast by pirate radio station Radio London.
Part of the intended irony of the title was that the Who were making commercials during that period of their career. The album features the hit tune " I Can See For Miles" in addition to others like "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand," "I Can't Reach You," and "Relax" among others.
This super deluxe edition box set includes 5 CDs & 2 7" singles, totaling up to 112 songs, many of which have never before been released. CD1 features the original mono mix of the album, mono As & Bs and unreleased mono mixes. CD2 contains the original stereo mix of the album and stereo bonus tracks.
CD3 is made up of studio outtakes, "fly-on-the-wall" versions of early takes from the album sessions, "studio chat," etc. - previously unreleased. CD4, The Road To Tommy, contains stereo mixes of the studio tracks recorded in 1968 - some previously unreleased - plus 1968 As and Bs mono mixes (all tracks remixed from original 4 and 8-track session tapes in The Who vault).
CD5 includes fourteen of Pete Townsend's original demos, which are previously unreleased and exclusive to this box set. The set also features two 7" single reproductions, an 80-page, hard-back full-color book, including rare period photos, memorabilia, track annotation, new liner notes by Pete Townshend, and comments from Pete Drummond (Radio Caroline DJ), Chris Huston (Talentmasters Studio), Richard Evans (designer), Roy Flynn (Speakeasy Club manager), Arnold Schwartzman (designer) & Andy Neill (Who biographer).
A total of nine posters and inserts are also included, including: a 20"x30" Adrian George poster, a City Hall gig poster, a Saville Theatre 8-page program, a Bag o'Nails Club business card, a fan club photo of The Who, a Bath Pavilion concerts flyer, a crack-back bumper sticker, Keith Moon's Speakeasy Club membership card and a Who Fan Club newsletter.
We were hoping to get free Jaguars. We got fifty tins of free baked beans.
...[T]he whole set remains compulsively listenable as it teems with imagination. The Who seemed to keep inventing and reinventing themselves on The Who Sell Out and that process of discovery not only remains enthralling decades later, it's worthy of a comprehensive set like this.
This 5-CD box-set version of The Who Sell Out is the latest iteration of a 54-year-old work-in-progress. It contains an unrivaled wealth of recorded information covering the period between the Who's second album, A Quick One (Happy Jack in the US), and the monumental rock opera Tommy. At the package's core are remasters of the original album in mono and stereo. It also includes alternate takes and unreleased tracks related to the project, singles and their B-sides, and preparatory Tommy material. Forty-six tracks, including 14 of Townshend's wonderful home demos, have never been released before. Sonically, some of the partial takes, rehearsals, and demos are rough, but they fit the spirit of this package perfectly... The Who would never sound like this again.