They Didn’t Actually “Sell Out!”
After having success in the mid-60s’, The Who made another masterpiece work in the form of an album. Following their 1966 album A Quick One, they released their 1967 album The Who Sell Out with a different approach.
The Who Sell Out consisted of unrelated songs joined together which are public service announcements and commercial purposes jingles.
The Who Sell Out has a similar sounding to A Quick One in some ways, but more experimentally and it is more refined and has a lasting feel it – like a psychedelic trip to it.
The Who albums set their way into radio-friendly sounding music that’s why they dived into advertisements and jingles.
Some of the great songs from this album were:
Rael 1:
The song is very difficult to define musically speaking because it is unrelated to the entirety of the album. However, it is the most awesome track and you can hear no radio jingles or advertisements to it.
Technically, one of the most impressive works of The Who, and it uses the theme from Tommy — meaning that it’s their greatest work.
Relax:
A song mostly underappreciated, and it showcased the strong vocals, but in a relaxing way, of course. It’s more of a soft rock sounding and builds into a hard-rocking sound. Townshend’s solo part was one of his best as well.
I Can’t Reach You:
Never ever we have thought that The Who would make a love song as they were a great hard rocking band doing all kinds of rock music. But this song has proven that they can do all kinds of music. The song is very straight-forward and simple sounding, and the lyrics, not the music, are the most important part of the song.
I Can See For Miles:
The album’s best stand-alone track and the most radio-friendly track out of the album, that’s why it got pretty much decent radio play to this day. If you give it a listen you’ll understand why because it has a simple yet effective lyrics, and Keith Moon does what he does best, showcasing his trademark as one of the best behind the kit. It’s a classic!