01. My Generation
02. Batman
03. Run Run Run
04. I Can See For Miles
05. Armenia City In The Sky
06. Circles
07. Pinball Wizard
08. Baba O'Riley
09. Won't Get Fooled Again
10. Naked Eye
11. Young Man Blues
12. I'm Free
13. Love Reign O'er Me
14. The Real Me
15. Slip Kid
16. Who Are You
17. Another Tricky Day
18. Athena
19. It's Not Enough

Amazon USA:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007XQOF6Y/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007XQOF6Y/?tag=imwan-21

Oh, good! A Who best-of. Have they had one before?

What a hilarious set of tracks. It's like they were chosen out of a hat lottery-numbers style.

Don't tell renny about this.

Shhhhh....!

Damn! They just missed releasing this one in time for The Who albums discussion thread. Another greatest hits really would have been interesting to talk about there. And where'd they come with that weird name for the album- "Pinball Wizard"?

At least the track selection actually indicates that somebody, somewhere, felt that it might be possible to actually create a Who comp that included songs that have never been previously included on any Who comp, ever. The inclusion of "Batman" gives me a tiny shred of hope that maybe this disc will include alternate (or at least lesser known) versions of at least some of these songs--the studio version of "Young Man Blues"? Have they dug up a stereo mix of the second version of "Circles"? Is this the Kenney Jones version of "The Real Me"? Somehow I doubt it, but...my God--this disc apparently will actually contain "Batman"! "Slip Kid" is included instead of "Squeeze Box"! "Athena" instead of "Eminence Front!" This is...interesting!

A very bizare compilation, not a very commercial release, not your typical 'hits' CD.
It will suit some fans.

Maybe a "Who's Compilation album" thread is in order

pete townshend needs more money, its the only explanation for this.

where is "who's next", we are way overdue for something new on this, there has to be a lost track somewhere in townshend's vaults that can be added to "who's next".

when ids the 45th anniversary of it's release?

Sometimes I wonder if Renny is on vacation and he has a staff that is re-running his old posts until he returns:

nope, it's really me, and i find it unbelievable that anyone serious about their music and their collections condone the kind of thing that townshend, the doors, hendrix, and the beach boys do with these re-re-re-re-re--repacking of thier songs. of course there are others (steely dan, bowie), but those 4 seem to be the worst, with townshend and the remaining doors as kings.

tell me mr. mcgee, do you find this type of thing acceptable, and if you answer yes, please tell me why.

I'm not sure we have the bandwidth for that.

Some day, there'll be a Best Of The Best Of The Who Compilations.

You do know that Pete Townshend doesn't have anything to do with best of discs, right? And besides he makes much more money licensing his music to films, t.v. shows, and adverts than cds.

We know. We just like to rank on Who compilations.

It's one of our favorite pasttimes.

is that entirely true?

no say whatsoever....i find that hard to believe, as he and the other members of the who will collect royalty checks from these, or won"t they?

enlighten me, please.

Earlier this year, Townshend sold off all of his publishing rights to his catalog. While he probably still earns royalties from the music, he reportedly no longer has any veto power on how the music is used.

http://www.spiritmusicgroup.com/news/sp ... -promoting
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... g-20120217
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry ... 4352.story
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-0 ... music.html
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118049157
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 56673.html
http://www.guitarworld.com/pete-townshe ... usic-group

why would he do that, paul mccartney did everything he could to get the rights for his music back from michael jackson! didn't pete townshend learn from that?

I'd actually have to agree with you on that one, Renny--so many artists get screwed out of these rights, it's depressing to hear of an artist selling his.

That said, the problem seems to be that Pete apparently can't get any financial backing for any project that doesn't involve Roger Daltrey or any song he's written within the past twenty years. He says the sale was intended to provide capital to fund such projects.

don't you find almost unbelievable that pete towshend needs money?

It looks like somthing you;d see at a truck stop. We actually stopped at a truck stop last night and they had a rack of $5 Cds.

According to the Sunday Times 2011 Rich List, Pete Townshend is worth 40 million pounds. So no.

The Who organization and its various holdings would seem to be spread among an indeterminate number of smaller companies. I tried to find out whether or not the 2006 "Live In Toronto" CD/DVD was a bootleg, an mission which led me to a Danish company called "Profile Publishing And Management, Ltd." which appears to be either owned or controlled by the Who,. but also avoids plenty of disclosure requirements (assets, partners, stockholders, etc.) by virtue of being located in Denmark and run by an offshore trust in Geneva. So I'm sure the figure of forty million pounds, while probably in the right ballpark, combines known holdings with pure guesswork.

But let's say that last year Pete was worth forty million pounds (just under $64.8 million US at current exchange rates.) By selling his publishing rights, Pete may have been trying to liquify some of these assets. For all of his money, Pete does not seem to have a publishing contract, and for (at least) three years he's been talking about producing this "Floss" project, which is some sort of semi-autobiographical rock opera for the stage...or something. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, about three years ago Pete was divorced from his wife of forty years.

If anything, Pete should be learning something from Bob Dylan, who nearly went broke back in the 1970's, personally bankrolling his own films ("Renaldo And Clara" and the 1976 "Hard Rain" TV special) as well as a costly, nasty divorce. For Pete to sell off his catalog in order to personally finance a stage production (or a new Rachel Fuller album) seems to me, frankly, foolish, but what the hell do I know.

I would also venture a guess that this particular best-of somehow ties in with that sale. It's noteworthy that this is an import; I'm not sure if "Spectrum Audio UK" is owned by or affiliated with Universal, Geffen, MCA or Polydor (the outfits responsible for all of the other Who comps from the past few years) but the track listing does indicate a desire to get some less familiar Who material before the public--a stated goal of the Spirit Music Group. Except for "Batman" and "Young Man Blues", all of these songs were written by Townshend and presumeably sold to Spirit--for some reason, after Entwistle's 2002 death, Who comps stopped including songs of his such as "Boris The Spider" and "My Wife".

As for whether or not I find the flood of comps "acceptable" or "unacceptable"--it really doesn't bother me either way. I made an ass of myself blowing a gasket on these boards five years ago when Sony issued three different (single disc, 3-disc and deluxe 3-disc) Dylan comps, and nothing changed as a result of my meltdown except for my blood pressure. If I accept anything, it's that this is just the current state of the music industry--downloads and MP3's have reduced the value of recorded music to where in 2012 I can now go to Walmart and buy Bob Seger's "Live Bullet" on a compact disc for less money than I would have paid in 1987 for a pre-recorded audio cassette of the same album--without even adjusting for inflation. There's nothing I can do about it. I don't get angry at another Who comp, just sort of depressed.

Still, this title contains "Batman", "Slip Kid" and "Athena"--I'd certainly reccommend it to any Who newbie for those three songs alone.