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The Who Sell Out [Super Deluxe Edition] [Box Set] Image
Metascore
96

Universal acclaim - based on 8 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The Who's 1967 album is remastered from the original stereo and mono masters and includes 47 previously unreleased songs, mixes, outtakes, and demos.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 8
  3. Negative: 0 out of 8
  1. Mojo
    Apr 23, 2021
    100
    The Who Sell Out still remains fresh 53 years after its original release, and is thus worthy of this lavish and careful archive treatment. [Jun 2021, p.97]
  2. 100
    Taken in total, The Who Sell Out Super Deluxe Edition is in fact the ultimate box set bonanza. It’s one that any diehard devotee will not want to do without.
  3. Apr 23, 2021
    91
    It’s hard to imagine most people needing to hear some of the titles here more than once. But this sprawling deluxe edition of “The Who Sell Out” is like a living museum of a group beginning to realize its greatness, and the thrill of their discovery — in 1967, no less — remains vivid 53 years later.
  4. Uncut
    Apr 23, 2021
    90
    Pete Townshend’s songwriting reaches deeper and wider with the unveiling of left field gem “Sunrise”, celebrated pocket opera “Rael” and the mighty “I Can See For Miles”. The band’s playful spirit also means it carries its conceptual weight lightly. [May 2021, p.46]
  5. Apr 23, 2021
    90
    There are also multiple versions, in markedly different running times, of numbers like “Magic Bus” and “Call Me Lightning,” which may be redundant except for completists and the inordinately curious. How much interest a listener has for that content may well correlate with an appreciation for the overall concept at work. ... But the Who’s leaps of artistry, viewed from the broad vantage point of this Super Deluxe Edition, with proverbial twenty-twenty acumen, appear nothing less than spectacular, no matter how tongue-in-cheek the interpretation of the Sell Out title.
  6. Apr 23, 2021
    85
    The best and most essential part is the fifth disc: Townshend’s solo demos, scratchy and awkward, like a novelty private press album by someone with far too many ideas to capture on tape, on his own. The good news is that it all holds up. Minus the eternal “I Can See for Miles,” none of these songs found a permanent home on classic rock radio and so they belong entirely to this album, unburdened by decades of overplay.
  7. Apr 27, 2021
    80
    Historically The Who Sell Out hasn’t always been given the serious critical attention afforded its successors Tommy, Who’s Next and Quadrophenia. Yet, it’s just as significant a touchstone in the Who canon, a pointer to, in particular, Townshend’s desire for the band to test both themselves and their audience. It makes this extensive and richly textured ultimate edition a “ragbag” worth rooting through.

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