Released bang in the middle of their brown flares and Brandy Alexander era, The Who’s seventh album is one of the most depressed musical statements ever released by a major rock act. Whereas their previous record, Quadrophenia, was an attempt to reconnect with what The Who meant to their audience – and vice versa – just eight years earlier (a pop culture lifetime in those days), By Numbers looked at where they were in 1975. And it wasn’t pretty.
Written by Pete Townshend during a prolonged period of alcoholic self-loathing, it’s a sodden howl of despair from a 30-year-old rock star who felt his generation were slipping into irrelevance. Townshend had always been prone to introspection in his songwriting, but By Numbers abandons all pretence of being about anything other than himself and his dysfunctional band. Another Who concept album, except this time with the masks ripped off
Now we can immerse ourselves in its thundering angst like never before with this exhaustive three-LP, two-CD and limited-edition five-CD/one-Blu-ray reissue.
Highlights include the remastered closed-circuit video footage of the band’s December ’75 concert at the Metropolitan Stadium in Pontiac, Michigan, which at the time set a world record for the largest ever indoor rock show attendance. Running for almost two hours, it captures The Who in high spirits and on terrific form. Keith Moon may not be the powerhouse he once was, but this footage proves he was still capable of brilliance during his final tour with the band.
The set also includes a barrage of previously unreleased tracks and mixes (92 in total), some new Atmos, 5.1 and stereo mixes overseen by Townshend himself, 11 demos from his seemingly never-ending archive (Keep Me Turning is the great Who song that never was), tracking sessions, guide vocals, and the most complete audio version yet of their concert at Swansea’s Vetch Field football stadium.
There’s also a fun snippet of Hancock’s Half Hour-inspired banter between Townshend and Moon, plus an amusingly pointless John Peel interview with Moon in which the drummer admits he hasn’t actually heard the finished album. It all sounds great, of course, a purposefully overwhelming dissection of a phenomenal band teetering on the edge yet somehow keeping it together. You might need a lie down afterwards, though.
(LouderSound)
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