THE WHO - The Who Sell Out

The Who's underappreciated treasure from 1967 has been reissued for the first time in fourteen years, in a deluxe double-disc package consisting of both mono and stereo mixes and a slew of bonus tracks. Before becoming famous for their rock operas, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and co. were very much a pop group--albeit an extremely loud and hard-edged one--whose success in the UK owed a great deal to airplay on offshore pirate radio stations. The British government ban on these stations in '67 incensed Townshend, who turned what could have been an album of unrelated songs into a tongue-in-cheek tribute to top-40 radio and crass commercialism. Fake commercials and genuine jingles link the most psychedelic tunes The Who ever recorded. Sell Out's mono version is a must-hear for guitar solos markedly different than the ones on the stereo mix, notably on the song "Our Love Was, Is". The bonus cuts include demos and material left off the original album which, in this reviewer's opinion, was The Who's strongest and strangest.