Hola todo el mundo. Como estás?

Muy bien.

I made another post about The Who a few days ago, so have a look at it if you want.

In that post I mentioned that Summer 2010 was when I began to listen to The Who, and recognised them for the ball of talent that they were back in the day.

However, I had only listened to a few songs by them. In order to get a sense of what their music was about, I would have to listen to one of their albums.

But which one? Where do I start?

Now, I knew that their ‘magnum opus’ was considered to be their album ‘Who’s Next‘. It contains two of their most well known songs, and it is the one where each member had reached their peak at their positions. Together, there was no stopping them.

For me, there was something that prevented me from listening to it. I don’t why. I think it’s just because I had only heard of those two songs, and if people only liked the album for them then what was the point?

So what better way to start my Who experience…. than with their 1967 release, ‘The Who Sell Out‘? Seeing its article on Wikipedia, I saw the praise that it received (full marks by the ones listed), the whole radio concept thing amused me, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to listen to it.

It’s probably their most under-appreciated album. It is their only release where a majority of songs are not written by Pete Townshend and not only sung by Roger Daltrey. Everybody gets to sing, I have the 1995 remastered version which features ‘Jaguar’ with lead vocals by Keith, and ‘Girl’s Eyes’ which is written by him and sung with John Entwistle. It’s really one of my favourite albums.

“DUUUUUH-DUH Monday……..” is the first thing you hear when listening to ‘Armenia City in the Sky’, the first song of the album. The Who Sell Out incorporates radio adverts that were transmitted on a rogue radio station, ‘Radio London’, which would normally be broadcast from a boat in the middle of an ocean. This ‘Days of the Week’ interlude carries on until Sunday, which is when a weird backwards guitar fades in, and boom. The actual song begins.

Another unusual thing about the song is that it’s not actually written by any members of the band. In fact Pete’s chauffeur, Mr John Keen, wrote the song and is also singing it along with Roger Daltrey. Although it’s hard to make it out, seeing as there is this weird pitch shifting effect that is used on the vocals. Maybe they didn’t want people to know that someone who wasn’t in the band was singing.

Listening to it with headphones is another weird experience. You basically have Keith and John playing the rhythm section in the left channel, whilst there are these backwards trumpets and hazey backwards guitars playing in the other. That along with the lyrics, for example:

‘The sky is glass, the sea is brown, and everyone is upside down,’

makes this song one of the trippiest from the album.

I guess as it was 1967, this was supposed to a spoof of the psychedelic material that was coming out, only because this is the only song on the album that uses that sort of drugged-up-on-LSD sound. The others are solid songs that don’t try to sound like it at all.

The solo is backwards too, so that screeching bird-call in the middle is still a guitar. After two repetitions of the title, the band maintain the pace and rhythm, a weird insect-sounding voices says ‘Freak out, freak out’ and the song ends with an explosion that echoes into the next radio transmission.

All in all, it’s a perfect start to a perfect album.

This is how the backwards sounds in the song sound originally.

Until next time.

Jamie.