It’s time to dig into the early stuff. “The Seeker” “Magic Bus” “Can’t Explain” “Pictures of Lilly” “The Kids are Alright” a great mid 70s cut is “Squeeze Box”
@@dimedraweriv258 Yes, "Pictures of LIly" was the song that Townshend described in an interview as being "power pop," thus giving a name to an entire subgenre of rock.
Reminds me of the early days after Alex joined Andy and they reacted to about 5 or 6 Who songs over a few months, and by and large loved them all. Their enthusiasm for these classic rock staples was so infectious. Glad to finally be getting back to The Who!
Keith Moon was a major influence on me as a drummer, and this particular song is one of the main reasons. He is just so aggressive and it works so well. Take it away and put a straight beat to it and it's no longer the same song.
I'm a Brit who dates from the early Who era, and there's loads of amazing stuff you haven't touched on which fell between 'Substitute' and this fantastic track. Check out 'Pictures of Lily', 'I'm a Boy' and 'Magic Bus'. Love your work!
@@TTM9691 I love "Dogs" ... the original "Dogs": "Eh, where's me wage packet? Ah, I'll put twenty-five knicker, please On Yellow Printer Oh, I hope the wife don't find out Yes, it's sure to win, isn't it? Yes, I know, it's a good dog I saw it run at White City, just last week Broke the record, Yellow Printer Nice dog, yes, lovely form Lovely buttocks..."
Just before “Sell Out” was released Townshend bragged to the press that they just recorded the loudest song in the history of music. Paul McCartney read it and went to EMI Studios and wrote Helter Skelter. True Story.
HA! That's the funniest thing I ever heard, brilliant! I wish I could smash the like button ten more times for that one. The guitar solo too. Best one-note guitar solo other than maybe "Down By The River"!
The Who Sell Out is an often overlooked masterpiece. It features more songs with Pete Townsend singing lead. The “commercial” breaks between song tracks are a unique feature. Maryanne With The Shaky Hands is one of May favorite songs. Sunrise is just all Pete singing and on acoustic and is a beautiful song. Give the whole album a listen.
I LOVE that album. LOVE it. Sunrise is GORGEOUS. And Rael is mindblowing. So is the first song. Oh my god, I can talk about this album all day long. This and "We're Only In It For The Money" - which came out practically the same time - they are like twin musical commentaries/satires of the 1967 music scene. Add "Their Satanic Majesty's Request" and you've got three wild, super psychedelic reactions to "Sgt. Pepper"!
Just like The Rolling Stones, people didn’t know that The Who who could also get psychedelic with the best of them. All of the elite groups of the ‘60s did psychedelic rock. And nearly all of them had at least one S-tier song. And it was specifically *because* they did a lot of psychedelics. Drug culture makes music better. It just does. It’s a shame that too many great stars just couldn’t handle it without becoming addicts.
This song was dubbed the heaviest rock song yet by a rock critic when it was released in 1967. Hearing that comment led Paul Mccartney to write the song "Helter Skelter" as an even heavier song. The rest is history.
1967 was quite a year. Seemed like all the cultural and generational elements that had been cross-pollinating and simmering below the surface "suddenly" achieved critical mass and the whole world blew up. This tune was one of the anthems for the period. Easy to understand why our parents were so freaked out by everything that was happening, seemingly all at once. Kinda like now.
What more can you say about these fellas. All Stars in their own right. I had a huge crush on Roger Daltry and still love him today. I showed my kids the movie "Tommy" and they loved it. They literally invented the "Rock Opera". No one swings a mic better than Roger. 🎙️🎤
I saw Tommy in the theater in 7th grade because I heard Elton John was in it. Never even heard of The Who before the movie. It turned me into a Who fan but the baked beans scene burned Ann Margaret into my memory forever...
This song came out when I was 12 and it was the first time I realized that love can be dangerous. Quite the epiphany for a 12-year-old girl, lol. Lesson learned.
Back in the 90s used to drive through the hills of Wales on the A44 listening to a Rock mix-tape which was great. Then I'd crest a hill, this song would come on (full blast of course) , and I'd be in that magic zone staring at the view and being controlled by the music. Amazed I never crashed.
It's a great song to listen to when you've discovered you're being cheated on, and the cheater doesn't yet know you know. Then you see how they look, trying to keep up the facade. And you can see it for miles.
Yep. Captured perfectly in the bridge couplet: The Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal, my eyes can see on clearer days, You thought that I would need a crystal ball to see right through the haze.
No ,Deborah , they never do and its epic in their body of work..They never played it on FM radio going back to the 70's and The Who never played it in concert ..Maybe they broke the string by playing it once or twice in recent years just for yuks and grins ,but I don't think so .
The Who were trail blazers. I remember buying the 45 as young teen when it came out. Moon's drumming caught my attention at first. There was so much raw power in it, always on the edge, tightly controlled but wild and reckless at the same time. This was a great song for the time... and a classic now.
I love Moon's powerhouse drumming on this. Your next Who song should be "Can't Explain." Killer guitar work and staccato drums. One of my favorite early Who songs.
For years they played it as the first or second song at every show. Pete used to say he could tell how the show was going to go by the first chord of that song.
This song is from the album 'The Who Sell Out,' a concept album which came out just before 'Tommy.' It's a fun album, perhaps a bit underrated compared to their later, more well-known albums (Tommy to Quadrophenia). Highly recommended for a 'first time reaction' as an album. Other suggestions are The Seeker, Join Together, Relay and Let's See Action (all of which were released as singles and are not on any major Who album).
The whole album that it's from (Who Sell Out) is a brilliant pop at the music industry and a perfect representation of the way music was heard by the listener they made the album to sound like an actual radio station programme complete with made up ads 1967 came out. I like it.
Some of the ads -- the radio station jingles -- were actual ads that were swiped from Radio London, the offshort "pirate" radio station that had such a big influence on British popular music radio listeners back in the 1960s.
Your main unexplored area of The Who is early Who, so that's where I would go next. I'd say your next Who song should be either "Substitute" or "The Kids Are Alright". The Who had some great singles in the '60s.
It's funny. The song The Kids Are Alright isn't actually in the movie by that name. So even if A&A have watched the film for Patreon, it would still be a new song for them.
Now that you're back to the Who, I want to go back to recommending "Slip Kid" from their underrated "Why By Numbers" album from 1975. Rocks hard with different phases to it, something you liked in their other songs.
For the 60s I’d recommend Pictures of Lily or Dogs. For the 70s, I recommend My Wife - it was actually written by the bassist, John Entwistle. He also did the vocals for that track. For the 80s, I’d recommend Athena 😄
When "I Can See For Miles" came out in 1967 I was 9 years old & it was the first record ( 45 ) I ever bought. The "B" side was "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand".
As always, love your reaction, but boys...this a solid "S+" every day of the week! I do not understand your hesitation about needing a certain context for listening to it. This is not only an iconic song, but one of their biggest radio hits, constantly played from the moment it first came out right up to five minutes ago. The only other song from this era that is close to its equal is "The Seeker", which is another banger you must give a spin to ASAP (the lyrics are amazing!).
Took me a long time but I finally realized that Entwistle and Moon were perhaps one of the best rhythm sections in rock. The drumming on this song is impeccable.
Hmmm. I'd say it was more like 64-69 (Mods to Tommy)....or really 64-66- Shel Talmy and 66-69 - Kit Lambert's weird but cool production style / 70-73 - (the zenith of Leeds-Who's Next-Quadrophenia...their sound finally captured, both in the studio and on the live album)/and 74-78 (Keith in decline: the Tommy movie, the neurotic, aging rock star angst of Who By Numbers and Who Are You, Keith's death). And then post Keith. I mean that's a completely different sound with Kenny Jones. I don't lump in Who By Numbers with Face Dances and It's Hard in any way. That's an odd of way of dividing their career. 68-74? Sorry, but "Call Me Lightning" is a long way from "Quadrophenia" in sound.
I’m glad they liked this song which I enjoy a lot also. But this review, to me, emphasizes how wrong Alex was in the Carpenters Superstar review. He criticized the lyrics for saying baby baby 5 times but has no problem with The Who saying miles and miles a hundred times. I know you can’t compare the groups or the songs, I’m just saying the song writers have their own reasons for repeating words that we may never understand their thought processes.
Different context , different bands , different music. A band like The Who can get away with it because of the type of music. I just don't understand a comparison between the two. Maybe if you comparing them to Bread , Little River Band , or some of the other mor/soft rock bands of the era I'd understand.
@@pandacosu8217 Why? Just because you prefer one kind of music, doesn’t make it better or worse than any other style. I personally prefer The Who’s music over The Carpenter’s, usually, but I don’t go around putting down whomever likes it.
@@loosilu Absolutely! The stuff did with analog technology, especially on this albumin Tommy, makes the digital technologies we have no seem superficial.
@@kenjohnston1257 Well, they had just released Revolver. They were going far but in a completely different direction. This was a fertile time when bands were pushing each other and trying to outdo each other.
Andy, Alex, WTF? I've seen you give mediocre artist's with mediocre songs an "S" tier rating. But when you hear one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded you can't decide if it's an "S" tier or not? I am shaking my my head in disbelief.
Reminisce from an old guy: The whole album, starting with the title "The Who Sell Out" and the cover photos (Moon and Entwistle are shown on the back cover, using other products), is parody/irony on several levels. In the original-release vinyl, there was no silence between tracks, instead there were little radio ads for products and other goofy stuff. Apparently, some of those were actual jingles that were used without permission, so there were some lawsuits. And then at the end of Side 2, after the last music track, a voice in the trailing grooves kept saying "Shut it off... shut it off... shut it off..." and if you let it play all the way down into the locked groove it would endlessly repeat "shut the d* thing off." Since almost all record players would automatically lift and swing out the needle arm before the needle reached the locked groove, you only got to hear that if you were playing the disc on a cheap kiddie unit. After the success of See For Miles and of this album, The Who released another album along with their single Magic Bus. That must've been an impulsive/last-minute marketing decision, since two of the album cuts from Sell Out were also put on the Magic Bus album to bring it up to standard content size. (I bought and owned the original U.S. pressings of both albums.)
IT's a tribute to pirate radio stations. At the time, they were the only stations in the UK playing rock music. They were instrumental in the Who's success.
This song is all about the drums. Keith just takes you on HIS ride from start to finish. Question: is it really the Who with half the band missing? Life long fan here and it hurt seeing them without Kieth. When The Ox passed on, it became too sad to see them live any more. How can you still be The Who when every single original member was a genius and top 5 on any list of exceptional musicians in their own genres? I still remember John playing an extended solo at the Hollywood Bowl. Never heard anything like it before or since. Amazing.
Keith Moon wore my visor while playing this song. My head was larger than his, so it sat on the ridge of his nose. And he went absolutely insane. For the first time, my little girl crush on Daltrey was totally overshadowed.
@@loosilu I was in the front row, having my own little Sally Simpson moment, and threw my visor on stage. It landed perfectly on Moon’s cymbal. He put it on his head, and it dropped to his nose. He wore it for the rest of the song, and was savage. The whole concert was incredible, but he definitely had my undivided attention for the rest of the song!
Yes, except it was still catchy enough to get heavy radio airplay alongside the Beatles, the Bee Gees, the Rascals, Aretha Franklin, the Grass Roots, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, The Turtles, Mary Hopkin, Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, etc.
I appreciate your love for The Who, but you've been missing out on one of the Greatest live albums Ever - LIVE at LEEDS. Recorded in 1971 on a night when the band was in top form, they deliver one raw banger after another. Like a runaway freight train, they keep on coming. Young Man Blues, Magic Bus, Amazing Journey/Sparks, and my favorite, a 15 minute version of My Generation which is a medley of 7 different songs.
Totally agree! Even though they have recently seen The Who live, it's not the same. In my opinion, nobody from that Era, and few since, could match the raw fury of The Who live; a whole different level of intensity and passion from their great studio work. Plus, live, Pete's guitar really steps to the forefront. Live at Leeds may be the best live rock album ever, easily top3.
mojoesixpack - They didn’t see The Who. They saw the Pete & Roger Show. The Who were one of those rare bands where each member was indispensable. The band stopped existing after Entwhistle passed and they barely got away with it after Moon died. Although Zak with Entwhistle still in the band did have magical moments ❤️
He wrote it for his mum! Pete penned the song in the earliest days of the Who -- they might've still been called the Detours or the High Numbers at that point -- when he was studying jazz guitar. He wanted to impress his mother, to prove to her that he could be "a proper musician" like his dad.
Context? My immediate mental gestalt of this song is walking across a park with a winter sky on way to a grade 8 school dance (one of my firsts and my crush was going to be there too in a crinkly minidress that felt so good to be embraced with and slow dance to - another story) - full of excitement and looking up at the constellations, thinking I can see miles and miles into the universe and humming this song - probably Oct/Nov 1967. One of my favourite delicious memories of my life. That's my context...
Wow, I can't believe this was a cut-out! I felt so lucky to have the early Who albums (and Mothers of Invention albums too!) because a lot of those weren't in print! Zappa had so many albums out, no one had them all! lol. Anyways, what's my greatest cut-out score? Hmmmm. The only thing coming to mind right now is finding a Robert Fripp album at a Caldor, lol.
Great choice - I've been lobbying for this track for years, since my opinion is that it opened the door to "heavy" music. I still have the vinyl. This was my theme song in Vietnam in 1967 (flew a Huey gunship)....fit perfectly with what we did every day.
The Who was the group for Misfits! Everybody liked Beatles, Stones, etc. The Who had a sense of humor and they were the Zepplin before Zepplin. Everyone was discovering pot and freedom of whatever. You are correct, this was the ultimate cool song! Other great later songs: songs "You better, you Bet" . and "Mama's got a squeezebox"!! LOL,
Guys expand your music knowledge out of American and English bands, Australian band cold chisel far more popular than AC/DC in OZ, try “when the war is over”, “bow river” or “you’ve got nothing I want”
Great reaction and great song. You used the perfect adjective for the feel: "menacing". It's raw and psychedelic but never meandering. It's sharp and focused. One of their best. A unique one that you might want to try: "A Quick One, While He's Away."
In the era of singles, Pete put everything he had into this song, convinced it would go to #1. When it charted disappointingly, he gave up on singles and started work on Tommy. So as much as I like this song, I’m glad it fizzled, or we might never have gotten some of the greatest concept albums ever recorded.
It didn't fizzle in America. It got to #9 on the *Billboard* chart, the highest of any Who single ever. But it only reached #10 in the U.K., where the Who had already had six higher-charting singles, which led Townshend to comment, "To me it was the ultimate Who record, yet it didn't sell. I spat on the British record buyer." Also, Townshend didn't give up on singles. The Who continued releasing them throughout their career -- including such stand-alone singles as "The Seeker" b/w "Here For More" in 1970, "Let's See Action" b/w "When I Was a Boy" in 1971, "Join Together" b/w "Baby, Don't You Do It" in 1972, and "Relay" b/w "Waspman", also in 1972. Finally, the album on which "I Can See For Miles" appeared -- *The Who Sell Out* -- is itself a concept album ... and it's arguably the best concept album that the Who ever did.
This is such a spectacular early song by the Who. I understand why Pete thought it would be huge and was disappointed when it didn't meet his expectations. It's so great.
It fizzled in England; it was a hit in America. But I agree about "Tommy". Whatever it takes to bring me "Sparks" and "Underture" is fine by me! And of course, "The Who Sell Out" is practically a dry-run for "Tommy" in many ways.
@@TTM9691 It didn't fizzle in the U.K. It reached #10 on the British charts, which was only one spot below where it landed in the *Billboard* Hot 100 in America, and there's no way that a Top Ten single can be described as a fizzle. It's just that it didn't vault straight up to #1, which is where Townshend felt (rightfully, IMO) it should've reached.
The beans thing needs the zeitgeist of living in the UK in the 60s in certain degrees of poverty. It’s arguable that ubiquitous baked beans as a foodstuff for some kids lit the fires that gave us The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. etc. etc. Those shiny guitars in the shop windows were the ticket out of a miserable life for many kids.
My favorite Who song! Their first big hit in the U.S. before Tommy. Listen to the whole album! It's a concept album, supposed to sound like British pirate radio stations, which broadcast illegally from ships offshore in the late 60's. Check out the movie "Pirate Radio" for the full story.
Two other deep cuts on this album that should be heard: "Armenia City in the Sky" (pure psychedelia that rivals early Pink Floyd) and "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand", a very dirty, dirty song...in the best way.
I had forgotten how good this song is! I really enjoy early Who, even though I think their Who’s Next album is their greatest album. If you two haven’t covered it yet, I recommend Magic Bus as another early Who hit.
My wife, (girlfriend at the time) saw The Who in the Cleveland Music Hall in the early 70s. Keith was still alive. They were supporting Who's Next. Great concert.
I love this band and I listen to this song when I need to get motivated or I need to bring up my mood. It is not about the lyrics for me though I know every one by heart, it is the charge of the music, this song keeps hammering like a freight train moving down a track it has a rhythm that is relentless and it really powers me up. Thank you for your great reactions.
Fantastic post-song analysis. Alex's argument for upgrading the rating is completely correct: looking at it in the lineage. And as far as the context for this song? End of side one! That's all I'm going to say! The moment that song slams in after what comes before it is magic! Alex is also correct: it IS a mockery! That whole album is them affectionately goofing on the pop radio of 1967 (and paying tribute to the pirate stations of the day).
Even though you likely heard it when you saw them live, “The Seeker” is still my pick for your next Who reaction. Especially because hearing it being played with Keith Moon on drums and John Entwistle on bass is just otherworldly.
"Sells Out" is an amazing album. It's based on the format of English Pirate Radio, the commercials you see on the cover of the album are on the album. There's little jingles and stuff. You need to listen to the whole thing 1 sitting.
All their early stuff was in your face for the time try "Boris the Spider" or "Pictures of Lily" or "I'm a Boy" all on best of LP "Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy"
Two words: Windmill Mania. If he did windmill every chord, his arm would almost never stop moving the whole song. The ultimate brand statement. What a glorious band.
The Who are the greatest lyricists of all time. The words written in their songs are timeless complex and imaginative... Not the greatest band but lyricists above all other
The Who have so many great songs. I had to liked it even if it's not up yet. This one is a very good kind of psychedelic rock song. I have hallucinated a lot while listening to this one... 😉
C'mon, guys! The album's "Sell Out" motif is exemplified by the bathtub of beans, the big underarm deodorant device, etc. totally MOCKING advertising, marketing, commercialism, and the very 60s concept of "establishment." The bean-bath is NOT an effort for a rock band frontman to attract babes.
MAGIC BUS, GOING MOBILE, THE SONG IS OVER, SUBSTITUTE, THE SEEKER, LONG LIVE ROCK (there are a lot of great songs from The Who you have yet to react to).
