The Who: The Who Sell Out [POLYDOR]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 180g pressing comes with a psychedelic poster. "I Can See for Miles" reached No. 9 in the US, the band's highest-charting single there, and the album sits on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

This edition

• Remastered
• 180g vinyl
• Poster included
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Most bands spend their careers pretending they aren't selling anything. The Who put it on the cover. In the summer of 1967, managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp pitched a concept album built like a pirate radio station, a tip of the hat to Radio London and Radio Caroline, the stations that fed the mods their music when the BBC played very little of it. Songs run together with fake commercials, jingles and public service announcements, so the whole record plays like an afternoon spent with the dial.

Pete Townshend wrote most of it, John Entwistle added three songs and Speedy Keen penned the opener, "Armenia City in the Sky." "Heinz Baked Beans" and "Odorono" send up the ads, "Tattoo" is a sly coming-of-age story, and "I Can See for Miles" is the band at full roar. Al Kooper guests on two tracks, Lambert produced, and the second side drifts through the gentle "Sunrise" and "Silas Stingy" before the mini-opera "Rael" closes things out.

The title was a joke, of course, since the band had been making real commercials at the time. Critics have long rated it among the Who's very best, and some call it their finest hour. It's the rare album where the adverts are half the fun; we'd say the same about our own flyers, but nobody's asked.

Also at Kops: more The Who on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Track / Polydor (cat# 3715609), a reissue of the 1967 album.