The Who Sell Out
It's Music Monday and the album of the week is none other than my favorite Who album "The Who Sell Out". Let's dive right in!
It's a concept album
The album is structured as a collection of unreleased songs interspersed with fake commercials and public service announcements. Hence, the "selling out" part.
Speedy Keen (vocalist of Thunderclap Newman) wrote the intro track
The 'Something in the Air' singer was a friend of the band and also sings on this track. Allegedly the original title was 'I'm an Ear Sitting in the Sky' but it was misheard by the band thus bringing us 'Armenia City in the Sky'. It's the only song on the album not written by any members of The Who.
The album caused the band to receive lawsuits post release
Due to the real product mentions in the faux commercials and on the album covers, many real world commercial interests took offense including Odorono. The makers of the real Radio London jingles also claimed the Who used them without permission.
It was the band's lowest-charting album on the UK Albums Chart
It peaked at number 13.
However, the single 'I Can See For Miles' became the band's highest-charting single
'I Can See for Miles' peaked at number 10 in the UK and number 9 in the US, becoming the band's highest-charting single and only Top 10 hit in the latter region.
You can hear early workshopping for "Tommy" on the final track 'Glow Girl'
The line "It's a girl, Mrs. Walker, it's a girl" is repeated four times at the song's end. On the band's next album "Tommy", Pete Townshend sings: "It's a boy, Mrs. Walker, it's a boy" on the first track after the 'Overture' appropriately titled 'It's A Boy'.
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