Here's where it all comes into focus.

By the middle of 1967 The Who had their first American hit single, had played the Monterey Pop Festival, and done their first Stateside tour, leaving many a smashed hotel room and shattered ear drum in their wake. They had begun to accumulate a wealth of tapes from odd sessions recorded on their days off from the whirlwind of activity that constantly surrounded them. When they got back to England in late summer they learned that their beloved Pirate Radio stations were being shut down.

Broadcasting from ships docked outside port to escape BBC law and guidelines, these renegade DJs were challenging the bland playlists enforced by the BBC Radio London and Radio Caroline were the two major Pirate stations. They were an invaluable help to the group when the BBC would frequently deem their music too noisy or just plain distasteful to put into heavy rotation.The band decided to show their solidarity with the movement by making their new album a simulation of these stations,sticking fake adverts between songs and generally creating an explosive tribute to all things teenage, loud and "disposable".This time, instead of creating chaos, they would reflect it, pimples and all.This is the context out of which The Who's first masterpiece, The Who Sell Out, was created.

There were many great albums released in the year 1967, needless to say. What puts this one above all others is it's acknowledgement and even submersion into the absurd psychedelic circus of the times and yet it's absolute refusal to take any of it at all seriously. What makes it the greatest of all concept albums? Its very nature. Sure, the idea of filling a "concept album" with puerile ditties about acne, body odor and tattoos is totally ridiculous, but that's the point -- to take what is most "disposable" of pop culture and make it art. Pop Art. Andy Warhol, Brian Wilson and Jackie Susanne all understood this. The Who understood it the best of all. This album stands as a gigantic push pin stuck into the balloon of all artistic pretension. A transcendence. And wasn't that what everyone was trying to achieve in the 60's, anyway?

About the record: this album was rightly considered a flawed work because of the abandonment halfway through of its radio format. In 1995 the producers of the CD reissue of "Sell Out" dug up more than a half hour of extra material -- songs and adverts alike -- recorded in the same period of creativity. They added it all in the mix and, in my opinion, truly "completed" the album. Usually, attempts to tinker with or alter in any way classic source material end up total disasters. Here,it somehow works beautifully. A 40-minute great album has been turned into a 75-minute masterpiece. Hurray!

About the songs:Pete Townshend finally took a righteous hold of his own compositional abilities and produced a wealth of songs in extremely contrasting moods and feelings. Especially notable are the almost unbearably poignant love songs ("Our Love Was", "I Can't Reach You", "Sunrise") that dot the album and were almost totally unique in their catalog at the time. It must have taken a lot of courage to take perhaps the quintessential aggressive male group in this bold new direction. The pointed satire of story-songs such as "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hands", "Odorono" and "Tattoo" is totally on target, managing to be tuneful and merciless at the same time. He also experiments here with psychedelia ("Relax") and even the token mini-opera (the very underrated "Rael" which originally ended the album and here blends into a beautiful organ and vocal passage entitled "Rael 2").

This record also houses the very greatest of singles by the greatest singles act of the 60's: "I Can See For Miles". Everything that threatens to explode in the rest of the LP does so here. Every guitar note, every rim shot, every harmony is placed perfectly. Forget "Satisfaction". Forget even "My Generation". "See For Miles" blew the 60's apart from within and continues to do so each time it is played.

John Entwistle's tracks, ("Heinz Baked Beans","Medac", "Silas Stingy"), while yielding no classics perfectly compliment the mood of the record. Ironically the first track on the album is a cover of Townshend pal Speedy Keen's "Armenia City In The Sky". From the very beginning, you know this is a Who album unlike any other. Otherwordly vocal harmonies,shrieking guitars and bleating horns blend into an atmosphere of total weightlessness and acidic frenzy. A very startling intro to a very challenging album.

About the performances: Townshend hits an early peak in his career here. He utilizes every trick in the book to create a sonic wall of guitar texture. From his trademark crunching fuzz attack("Armenia", "See For Miles") to softly picked acoustics ("Mary Anne", "Tattoo","Sunrise") he has every base covered. He also took the bold step of singing lead on the songs he felt were most personal or unsuitable for Roger Daltrey's style. Remember: At the time, Pete had only one full vocal performance to his credit ("A Legal Matter"). Today we associate the sound of Townshend's voice as much as Daltrey's with the vocal sound of The Who, but again, it was very courageous of him to step forward in this way. Not that Roger's voice is anything less than great, though. He may have been yet to discover his most distinctive voice, but the one he had at this time was more than fine. On the track "Tattoo" for example, his totally fragile vocal performance, especially in light of his previous tougher-than-tough persona, is a large part of what makes the song so affecting. The one disappointment performance-wise on the album is John Entwistle. Not that his playing isn't sterling,it is. He is simply sorely undermixed here and that's a pity. Of course, Keith Moon continues to blow doors off with his tireless energy and invention.

About the bonus material: As mentioned above, the bonus material perfectly compliments and in fact, manages to expand the album in every way. Aside from the aforementioned "Rael 2", these include the Pete-sung raver "Glittering Girl", outtakes such as the heartbreaking "Melancholia", the intense "Jaguar" and a raging run-through of the classical theme "Hall Of The Mountain King", Entwistle's fab B-side "Someone's Coming", the tuneful rejects from the pens of Daltrey and Moon "Early Morning Cold Taxi" and "Girl's Eyes" (how their songwriting had grown from their inept attempts on "Quick One"!), a different take of "Mary Anne" and the pre-"Tommy" fragment "Glow Girl" (previously issued on the "Odds And Sods" collection). The program is filled out with more insane ads, the best of which being the two crunching Coca-Cola ads the band was not able to issue due to licensing troubles.

On a final note, for casual Who fans expecting The Who of "Who's Next" or "Live At Leeds" you will be disappointed. My advice: either turn back or open your mind to this odd but glorious chapter in the world's greatest rock band's existence. To anyone else in the least bit interested in The Who, Pop Art, the 60's, or real Rock 'n Roll, do this: tune in, turn on and Sell Out!!!