The Who Sell Out

2nd September 2021 Listened on my phone in the day, Dan and Cox came round for dinner in the evening. I like the 60s radio inserts and the anarchic 60s style of the record.

2.5 - interesting enough to start with, as a concept album with the commercials and radio sound. Peaked at "I Can See for Miles" but fell apart after that. By the last few songs I was just waiting for it to be over.

Odd collection of tv adds and jingles.

the concept of this is completely lost on me. its just a load of fucking around. they must have thought they were so clever when they came up with whatever the concept is. townsend sings way too much on this album. there's a reason he isn't the lead singer, its because he's got a shite voice.

I was not very moved by this album. Just because an album is a concept-album, doesen't mean it's genius. But this is not bad at all, it's just not really for me... today I think.

Interesting concept, but a poor Who album in relation to their singles or later great rock albums.

Pretty average. 2.5

Not the best o the Who

Gillar The Who men det här var för konstigt för mig. Lite för psykadeliskt/60 tal

Boring

Ik ben niet zo fan van het wegfaden van nummers. Er zit precies ook veel verschillend op da album. I can’t reach you vond ik het leukst. Not for me tho

2/5

Quite listenable, disposable pop rock. Some of the songs are pretty stupid, like "Silas Stingy" and the half-baked concept of radio jingles adds nothing. I quite enjoy the way it waters down psychedelic rock into a poppier concoction. No idea why it belongs on this list when at least three of their stronger albums are already included! 2.5.

To be honest this album didn't really catch me. There's a few good songs. Definitely not my favorite Who album.

too eird

It's got one or two nice tracks on it, but the rest of it wears thin. The fake radio/ads thing gets old quick

2/5 way too light, I expected more

It's aight, best bits just make me want to listen to the kinks. Early sampling and stuff is G doe

Tjemig, ik was erg benieuwd naar dit album maar het werd me snel te veel. Jammer

Wat een onrustig gejengel!

Maar 2 nummers kunnen luisteren, dus kan er niet echt een eerlijk oordeel over geven.

Where's the book Pete? Apart from "I can see for Miles" and "the Last Time" found this distinctly average. They were capable of so much better than this. And still no one has seen that book that Pete Townsend was doing research for... 2/5

Not bad, but not a huge fan

pretty lame

It was pretty experimental for a rock group, but not great to listen to.

Didn't listen closely

This album is... odd. And the stuff that's not odd feels really average to me. It's pulling me more toward 2 stars than 3.

bara knas

buns bro

Dogshit

Høje ambitioner; fed idé; virkelig ringe udført

It's not for me. I don't really "get" the who particularly. I was pleasantly surprised by the first record with the R&B feel, but when they go more straight rock, I just don't see what's that interesting about it. Combine that with a goofy concept playing around with consumerism and I'm just frustrated.

i remember listening to this in high school because it was on beck's list of favorite album covers. i like the weird jingle bits, dont really care about the normal songs. mostly remarkable in that going through this list with youtube music is making have a big bone to pick with deluxe editions. all these classic rock albums have them, and you cant find the original except sometimes through user playlists sometimes. picking all the extra takes and demos and alternate mixes out my queue i didn't realize that for this album's original thirteen tracks, the deluxe edition has ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN. why would anyone want to listen to this nine times? still less annoying than hearing baba orilley for the sevenhundredth time in ones life

Well made but I don’t like 90% of it. You can put this under albums i wish were less committed to The Bit, because the persistent ads and jingles and general goofiness make me want to eat roofing nails by the fistful.

5eme album proposé après 'Tommy', 'My Generation', 'Who's next' (notés 3/5) et 'Live At Leeds' (noté 4/5). Et grande déception ! J'ai du mal à supporter les pubs en général, là elles me gâchent complètement l'écoute. En plus il n'y a pas vraiment grand chose a écouter ... J'ai eu du mal à aller au bout. Aucune envie d'entendre cet album une seconde fois. =>1/5

Fucking rubbish. I’m sick of having to keep hearing The Who on this list. Moon and Entwistle are such a solid rhythm section that I wish I could hear them in any other band. The Who were so obsessed with making a concept album about anything that they neglected to make good music.

Well, I suppose it's handy to know The Who can be terrible as well as good.

Weird.

Poop with a little bit of pee

Pile of steaming poop. Somebody must have told Pete Townshend that he is a creative genius, and the world needs his brilliant rock operas. Whoever fed his ego needs shooting.

Pretty ass

I never really liked The Who. I just don't get it. This record is annoying. I didn't enjoy any part of it.

Even without the painfully unfunny skit adverts they did, the music behind them wasn't any good and definitely not as good as their other albums on here, and I don't really see much in The Who at all. I'm actually surprised that it's even managed to get a sitewide rating of 3. I'm confident that if this was not released by The Who it gets nowhere near a 3. Also the less that I look at that album cover the better. Makes me wanna throw up.

I thought the definition of selling out sacrificing your artistic vision for the misguided sake of producing music that will sell. Here we hear The Who sacrificing music that will sell for the sake of their misguided artistic vision.

No es serio.

Uh... what was that? While I know the Who and one of the songs here, I'd never heard of this album or that they'd done this "concept". Probably for good reason based on the result. This felt like a joke from the start. And maybe the general concept was, based on the execution of the "ads". But the songs really weren't good either. I'm not sure if they just didn't put effort into anything when they made this, or if this is actually them trying. I'm also not sure which would be worse. My main issues came from the tone and the lyrical content. The music was over-manipulated (a lot of reverb/echo layers) with dreamy-sounding vocals. It reminded me of the Byrds, though I think the Byrds did it better. There was almost no bite to it, which felt odd to me given some songs I've heard from the Who. The childish lyrics weren't limited to the skits, but were unfortunately in every track as well. Honestly, at times I wasn't sure if I was listening to the start of a skit or an actual track. The more I listened to, the more annoying it all got. I don't really care for the Who as it is. Their other album I've gotten here so far (My Generation) was fine at best. This one falls well below that. The best track, I Can See For Miles, was actually worse when hearing it as part of the album. Whatever it is they're trying to sell here, I'm not buying. Overall: .75/5

Wow… this was definitely a choice. I was already in a bad mood today but this made it significantly worse. And why is there ads in the middle ?? 1/5

I Can See For Miles is a pretty good song but against the rest of this album it becomes a verdant oasis, a light in the dark. An album criticizing consumerism and examining music's place as yet another commodity would be intriguing but they did absolutely nothing with it. They could have at least committed to the concept/message and tried to incorporate it into the "real" songs. Instead it's just a jumble of unrelated songs with a few fake ads in the first half. It's dumb.

Only one The Who album needs to be on the list and we already listened to it (Who's Next, specifically). There are a lot of artists on the list who are overrepresented but fuck me if The Who aren't the most egregious anyway the gimmick here isn't nearly as cute or as funny as they think it is, I can think of at least 1001 other albums I'd recommend someone to listen to before they die before I'd even accidentally remember this one. it sucks. even the big hit off this is low tier The Who. I genuinely hate this

Mer eller mindre olyssningsbart

Felt like an injoke im not in on.

boring af

Meh

favs: our love was sunrise rating 0.7/5

buneknk

No

No, just no. The Who albums ive had have been music for Brexiteers and this is more of the same but with a shit concept about adding adverts in.

absolutely not

Quirky concept. I appreciate the lore but couldn’t get through enough.

An album that does absolutely nothing for me...

This was a journey. It was okay.

Absolute drivel.

estranho e com uma música muito boa. não escutaria esse álbum novamente. 1,5/5.

The Who are so hit and miss for me. A really great singles band but very few good full albums. This album is no exception - I can see for miles is a great song but damn the rest of this album is terrible. Also, I’ve always found the cover to be unsettling - no one should be sitting in a pile of baked beans. Yuck. One star for the one good song on this album.

This is awful. The conceit just does not work for me and there are not enough strong songs on here to overcome the crap. Give me Songs For The Deaf any day

boring

1/5

Something really irritated me about this album. I think because I expected more. Just a bunch of silly sounding songs. Sounded more like a compilation of shit b-sides. Nearly got a 2 because of the adverts, I like that concept, but couldn’t justify it.

The Who are a really good band, but this is a really bad album that doesn't deserve a spot on the 1001. It's a gimmick album and I just don't get the joke.

Yeah no, muchas canciones. No lo escuché ajdkk

Trash.

I love some Who, but not this Who apparently.

3/10 - honestly overrated, could be another generic 70s album

Día 9: mmm no :/ En general lo que había escuchado de The Who me gustaba, pero acá, si bien entiendo la idea y banco cuando las bandas hacen música más "satírica", no es un disco que me sentaría a escuchar en día cualquiera.

Not a lot of musically redeeming qualities on this album outside of one or two songs. It's another weird album and I don't appreciate the attempts at humor.

horrible, boring

Awful save for one song.

One of the ugliest album covers I’ve ever seen. It was fine music but yeah

Worst album I’ve listened to on this list so far. Lots of trash with a few decent songs in the middle, but even they feel unfinished.

1,4/5

Not a mood

Pretty meh. Doesn't hold up to time.

Weird. Maybe it was funny in the 60's but just falls a little thin these days. I can see for Miles a fairly strong song but the rest I'll never re-visit

No more the who please...

This is old style English psychedelic (sort of) music. I don't like it. It's schmaltzy and childish.

Really didn’t like this. I think that I’m discovering beyond Who’s Next I’m not so into the Who.

Previously I noted that I don't dislike Pink Floyd, I dislike Late Pink Floyd. This made me hate The Who, despite enjoying 'Who's Next'

this is the musical equivalent of the 'Scratch' chapter at the end of The State of the Art, not really any fully fleshed out songs just a bunch of thoughts mixed with capitalist psychobabble

Lots of schtick before and after "I Can See For Miles". Not even a good comedy album.

Terrible execution on an already dumb concept album idea. This came out after their debut album but somehow sounds even older than it. The commercials were stupid. The only song off of it that I’ve heard before was I Can See For Miles, but even that one wears out its welcome. Actively hated listening to nearly every part of this.

I'm starting to get a feel for Who albums...Tommy was garbage and so is this.

1 stern

I like a handful of The Who songs, but unfortunately not the ones on this album. It was unique with the jingles and pop art take. Hard for me to get through.

One great song doesn’t make it for me.

I did not enjoy this one. A bit too experimental for my taste

Overall, it's just bad. The only song worth a listen is, "I can see for miles" ~ 1.3 stars

as a certified The Who hater, you know i love hearing them at their most grating and self indulgent

This made me grumpy. Did not like at all.

The cover artwork is as campy as this album 😆

Sorry, but I don't like The Who at all. I made it to song 14, then I just listened briefly to the songs until the end.

I don't get The Who. Most of the songs on this album sound like something off a kids album - happy bouncy silly simple songs about strange characters. There's a concept to this album where fake radio jingles are interspersed among the songs... They're typically very short jingles at the end of a track, but then there's Odorono and Medac, which are either really long fake jingles that's are really long buildups for a dumb punchline, or they're just silly The Who songs with really long buildups for a dumb punchline. No, I did not care for this album at all.

I don’t understand their popularity, this is mostly banal with too much drum. Originally a decent singles band, but once you’ve written “I hope I die before I grow old”, you should stop, but concept albums and rock operas?

Nope, another one of their albums I detest. I’m not even much of a fan of The Who, besides some of their more famous tracks. This is just unlistenable for me.

I like The Who but I do not like this album

I normally reserve my 1s for music that is uninspired The Who were inspired by a concept here, it was just a reslly shit execution. Utterly annoying with cheeky chappy vocals. I Can See For Miles almost bumped it to a 2. Almost.

I just don't like em.

I don’t like the who

There is a reason why I’ve never heard of this album before. Because it isn’t any good

I usually like old school rock but the mojority of this album was just to strange for me. The distorted guitar sounds are really cool though.

ASDF IASDF aSDFE its so bad negative score aaaaaah

Rating: 1/10 A truly heinous album. Sounds like a Beatles rip-off if they had no musical talent whatsoever. I did not find a single moment of this to be enjoyable, in fact it's unbearably annoying.

I like the Who, but this was difficult to listen to. I get the concept, but they should've kept this hidden.

It's interesting to learn about pirate radio and the broader media/commercial environment in which this cohort of classic UK artists came of age and rose to fame. The album is an interesting artifact in that sense, but its appeal outside that is pretty limited. Worth including in a museum of rock, less so in a best albums list. Others did the flower power psych pop stuff way better, and The Who were way better as harder hitting proto-punks and massive guitar noise rockers. There are few moments where they do their thing, but it's always interrupted by something annoying. I think this band's ambition is their downfall - they got tired of doing what they were best at, started reaching for big ideas that got stretched incredibly over the course of a full concept album.

Was this music or just some lads having fun with beans in the studio?

When I saw it was an album from The Who I was kind of excited, but unfortunately this album is super juvenal with simple beats and riffs that are not catchy or fun to listen to. Seems like a lazy album made by some guys who were to high to care what they were doing. Hopefully I never hear this again.

Couldn't get into it. 1/5

Dramatisch album dit zeg... FAVO kan ik niet eens echt een favo noemen. Het is fijn dat The Who geprobeerd heeft om te experimenteren, maar dit is 9/10 gewoon echt dramatisch en klinkt gewoon slecht. Diepte punt is Silas Stingy, wat een herrie... Ik reserveer een 1 voor albums die gewoon echt kut klinken, en ik kan The Who dan ook feliciteren! Want dit was echt dra-ma! Is dit hun edgy "kijk we zijn geen sell-outs! We maken experimentele muziek hoor!" -album? In dat geval heb ik liever dat ze zichzelf verkopen, want dit is niet om aan te horen. Minst slecht: I can't reach you

60’s

I don't get it...

I look forward to Who albums as much as The Kinks albums. Ie not at all. And for the same reasons. I'm sure this shit was hilarious in the 60s.

2/10 this is the kind of self indulgent horse piss you get when someone creative isn't told no. 7-9-2024

Not worth the time I spent listening.

Genuinely don’t know how we made it through the 60s to start making actual good music

The Who’s The Who Sell Out is mind-bogglingly terrible. All songs are at best mid, and have no personality to them. I can’t stand the vocals on these tracks. Worst of all, throughout the album, the quality gets worse, and I have to look at this weird ass guy half-naked holding a bottle up his armpit. Get me out. All in all, The Who Sell Out is a horrible album. Best Song: Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand Worst Song: Sunrise

THIRTY TRACKS?!?! Damn. The Super Deluxe version of this album is over FIVE HOURS. Why? It all sounds the same; whiny, self-indulgent. late 60's Brit pop. I opted for the original \"Stereo\" release and still skipped though the monotonous, omphaloskepsis mess of it all.

Utter shite, could barely listen!

Don’t get it. Dont find it funny. Pretty arduous listen. Never got the who or why they had the career they had/have. This does nothing to make me want to explore them more. Awful 0.8

It feels very wrong to give a bad rating to The Who album, but it has to be done. It's a very boring and uninteresting record, not even one song stands out. Compared to any other album in their discography, The Who Sell Out looks like it doesn't belong on any list, except the one with biggest flops of the career. It almost feels like they decided not to use drums and guitars at all on this record, and just feature Daltry, who is not as good as a solo artist. Very disappointing.

Meh.

Perhaps the album will open up to you as a fan of the Who.

I love The Who but WTF is this?

...

Trash

1. armenia - 1 2. baked beanz - 0 3. mary anne - 1 4. odorono - 0 5. tattoo - 0 6. our love uuaz - 0 7. i can zee for milez - 1 8. i cant reach you - 0 9. medac - 0 10. relaz - 0 11. ztingy - 0 12. zunrize - 1 13. rael - 1 14. zhaky hand - 0 15 zomeonez coming - 1 16. our love uuaz - 1

Genre: Rock Instruments: 2/5 Modern Translation: 2/5 Dance Potential: 1/5 Listening Location: train to work Favourite Song: None Made me feel: this album sounded the same the whole way through. The only thing I enjoyed was believing that it began the phrase “what’s the tea”, which probably isn’t true.

I can’t. I just can’t.

Horrible

First time I've ever listened to the who. Didn't like it. Sounds like a grandpa-friendly mix of the Beatles and Monty Python.

I am sorry but I do not get this album. Its all over the place. Sounds like music for advertisements. The Who in general is popular in random movies and advertisements but this was just not good in my eyes.

I just don’t like these concept albums. “I Can See for Miles” is a great song on a bad album. DNF again.

Just didnt really care for it

First song so annoying. Few songs in the middle I liked. Silas Stingey so annoying. Didn't take to this album at all really.

5th Who album served to me here, which is too much. Regardless of that annoying fact, I consider this specific concept album to completely miss the mark. It reminded me why I never count myself as a Who fan or even appreciator.

Hey, at least they embraced the concept by making some of the most unlistenable shit possible. I don’t even mind the adverts, I think they’re quite fun in places, but the opener is such a reverb-soaked mess and Silas Stingy is painfully bad. Not even I Can See For Miles can redeem this one

Who bought this shit?

An absolutely infuriating album... this band are so far up their arses. Not even I Can See For Miles can prevent this getting a 1 due to the level of shite delivered on the rest of the album

i did not like it at all >:( not even one song

Not a fan. I'm hoping for better albums from The Who down the road.

I hate the fucking Who.

BORING!! COULD BARELY FINISH!

Awful

Oof

i admire the skill of the players at least.

Very experimental and I did not enjoy it

Don’t get it at all, massively bland

Kinda ass

Rating 1. I’m not a huge fan of The Who, but I like songs like Baba O’Riley, behind blue eyes, etc. You know, the hits. When I looked at the track listing for this album I recognize the song ‘I can see for Miles’. I thought I liked that song and so started listening to the album. I liked the idea of mixing advertisements with the music, but the execution fell flat. The first few songs reminded me a little bit of CSN. I gamely listened until the song that I knew came on and expected that to elevate the experience for me. But instead it made me like the song ‘I can see for Miles’ just a little bit less. I kept listening because that’s what this is about, right? Starting with ‘Glitter Girl’ and ‘Melancholia’ , I could recognize what I do like about The Who, which is more forceful guitar playing. However I don’t think I ever need to listen to this album again.

Not a fan

So pretentious. I can see for miles is great, but christ, Messers Townsend and Daltrey forgot to put any other enjoyable music on this wanky concept album

Geht einfach nicht.

Absolute Shite

much more psychedelic than memory, but boring ultimately

Finally the last WHO album i have to listen to on this GORAM project. 5 albums was too many, despite apparently their great prowess as songwriters. i like their album cover art this is the best of the items.

damn i hated listening to this. also fuck pete townshend that guy is a pedo.

Not a fan.

I can see for miles. all else meh

Ok