My Generation (1965)

All songs written by Pete Townshend, except where noted.

My Generation
Side one
1."Out in the Street" – 2:31
2."I Don't Mind" (James Brown) – 2:36
3."The Good's Gone" – 4:02
4."La-La-La-Lies" – 2:17
5."Much Too Much" – 2:47
6."My Generation" – 3:18

Side two
7."The Kids Are Alright" – 3:04
8."Please, Please, Please" (Brown, Johnny Terry) – 2:45
9."It's Not True" – 2:31
10."I'm a Man" (Bo Diddley) – 3:21
11."A Legal Matter" – 2:48
12."The Ox" (Townshend, Keith Moon, John Entwistle, Nicky Hopkins) – 3:50

The Who Sings My Generation (US version)

Side one
1."Out in the Street" – 2:31
2."I Don't Mind" – 2:36
3."The Good's Gone" – 4:02
4."La-La-La-Lies" – 2:17
5."Much Too Much" – 2:47
6."My Generation" – 3:18

Side two
7."The Kids Are Alright" – 2:46
8."Please, Please, Please" – 2:45
9."It's Not True" – 2:31
10."The Ox" – 3:50
11."A Legal Matter" – 2:48
12."Instant Party (Circles)" – 3:12

UK #5 US-did not chart

singles:
"My Generation" UK #2 US #74
"A Legal Matter" UK #32
"The Kids Are Alright" UK #41 US #106

Although there are some great songs here I've never felt this was truly an album, more or less songs cobbled together from the same timeframe which was common in the day.
Regardless, it's still a landmark collection of recordings, though I'm not a fan of a few of the covers (I do like "I'm A Man". "My Generation" the song, goes without saying is one of the most important Rock songs ever recorded and what can you say about the bass playing and drumming?
Plus, songs such as "La La La Lies", "Out In The Street", "A Legal Matter" and "The Kids Are Alright" are amazing for guys so relatively young.

And let's not forget the Deluxe Edition:

Deluxe Edition
Disc one
1."Out in the Street"
2."I Don't Mind"
3."The Good's Gone" [lacks double-tracked vocals]
4."La-La-La Lies" [lacks double-tracked vocals]
5."Much Too Much" [lacks double-tracked vocals]
6."My Generation" [lacks lead guitar, but is available on disc two in its original mono format]
7."The Kids Are Alright" [lacks double-tracked vocals]
8."Please, Please, Please"
9."It's Not True"
10."I'm a Man" [complete with ending]
11."A Legal Matter" [lacks lead guitar, but is available on disc two in its original mono format]
12."The Ox" [complete with ending]
13."Circles (Instant Party)" [lacks Entwistle's French horn and double tracked vocals]
14."I Can't Explain" (bonus track) [lacks tambourine]
15."Bald Headed Woman" (bonus track)
16."Daddy Rolling Stone" (Otis Blackwell) (bonus track) [alternate version to that found on Thirty Years of Maximum R&B]

Disc two
The second disc contains additional bonus tracks.
1."Leaving Here" (Holland-Dozier-Holland) [alternate version to that found on Thirty Years of Maximum R&B]
2."Lubie (Come Back Home)"
3."Shout and Shimmy" (James Brown)
4."(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
5."Motoring" (Mickey_Stevenson)
6."Anytime You Want Me" (Garnet Mimms)
7."Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" (alternate take)
8."Instant Party Mixture"
9."I Don't Mind" (full length version)
10."The Good's Gone" (full length version)
11."My Generation" (instrumental version)
12."Anytime You Want Me" (a cappella version)
13."A Legal Matter" (mono version with guitar overdub)
14."My Generation" (mono version with guitar overdub)

NOOOOOOO!!!!! Couldn't you let me catch my breath??? We haven't even finished the frigging Van Halen thread yet!

Okay...breathe....

Yep, not an album in the sense that we think of it today, or even that the Who would think of it in just a few years.

There's some really good stuff here that got overshadowed by some bigger tracks, and, of course, what the Who did later. "My Generation" and "The Kids Are Alright" need no defense - both classic timeless tracks. But things like "The Good's Gone", "La-La-La Lies" and "A Legal Matter" got lost in the wake of the other singles and big tracks of the era. Beyond that, some decent stuff, but nothing that hints at what was to come. In that sense, they were like the Beatles and Stones - where they started and where they ended up were light years apart.

Alan

I love all the Shel Talmy material, although the album at the center of all this suffers from the fact that two of the best songs from this era ("Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" and "I Can't Explain") were left off of it and released instead as singles.

Talmy-era factoids:

An unedited version of "The Kids Are Alright" wasn't available in the U.S. until the "30 Years Of Maximum R & B" boxed set. An alternate version of "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" that was released on a French EP was a bootleg staple for years before showing up on the 2002 deluxe edition.

In 1966, the Who would re-record both "Heat Wave" and "Circles."

The year before recording this album, the Who recorded three songs as "The High Numbers." Two of these tracks, "Zoot Suit" and "I'm The Face" were released on a 45, while the third, "Here 'Tis" was bootlegged for years before showing up on the 1994 boxed set. Liner notes for the boxed set claim that "Leaving Here" was also a 1964 High Numbers song, but this is not true. However, the expanded 1998 version of "Odds & Sods" contained an acetate recording of "Leaving Here" and "Baby Don't You Do It", recorded in 1964, also predating the Talmy sessions.

The Talmy material that wasn't released back in 1965 instead appeared (in stereo) on the 1985 "Who's Missing" and 1987 "Two's Missing" US comps. For some reason, most if not all of Talmy's Who material was officially OOP in the UK for years. As a result, scores of pirate/counterfeit versions of this album have been manufactured and sold over the years. The 2002 deluxe edition of "My Generation" came about when Talmy finally reached an agreement with Townshend and the Who and allowed them access to his master tapes; I believe that "The Ultimate Collection" was the first Who best-of to contain remastered Talmy material.

Officially released Townshend demos include "Circles" (on "Scoop"), "La La La Lies" and "The Kids Are Alright" (on "Another Scoop"), and "My Generation" (on a flexi-disc included with the 1982 printing of "Maximum R & B" by Ruchard Barnes).

A 2-disc Japanese set released in 2008 apparently gathered together the mono and stereo mixes of all of this material, including:

1. The mono album, remastered for the first time.
2. The unedited, mono "I'm A Man"(edited on "Two's Missing")
3. Mono versions of the other "Who's/Two's Missing" tracks.
4. An alternate take of "Circles"
5. Both versions of "Leaving Here" (the "Who's Missing" version and the 2002 deluxe edition version)

I've never heard any of this stuff, but apparently bootleg outtakes of the Talmy sessions began to circulate at about the time of the 2002 deluxe edition. However, "Instant Party Mixture" was apparently the only unreleased song from this era left in the vault.

The Who have released some of my favorite albums of all time. In high school I considered myself sort of a punk mod and The Who, The Jam, The Clash, and Gang of Four were THE bands for me. I look back at that time with a mix of embarrassment and pride, but the music still has such a vitality to it. This is a fantastic album.

It's going to be weird to comment on these albums because so many of my first memories of rock n roll are associated with them. I really do believe they helped me become a sentient human being.

I own the Deluxe Edition of this. Is a one-CD version even available? It never seemed like there was when I was buying Who discs 10 or so years ago. At any rate, I like it and I'm glad I have the two-disc version. "My Generation" and "The Kids Are Alright" get most of the attention (and for good reason) but I think "A Legal Matter" is great too, and an early indication of Pete's story-telling talents.

There's still the original old MCA 1 disc version of the US tracklist......it's the only one I have. I stayed away from the deluxe when I saw Amazon reviews saying songs were butchered and having overdubs missing.

I only really like early Who (pre-Tommy), and think this album has lots of great songs. The Good's Gone very underrated. I love Circles, but think the Fleur de Lys cover version tops it.

I have the old MCA "Who Sings My Generation" single disc version from the 80's; if there was ever a single-disc official CD of the UK version, I would wager that it was released in Japan as a mini-sleeve at some point within the past ten years.

This may well be my favorite Who album, despite the (relative) weakness of the three covers. Everything else is just so great. The Who criticized Talmy a lot over the years, but it wasn't until Live at Leeds that they managed to sound this ballsy again on a record. Whatever he did, he made them sound powerful. And Moon certainly never played better than on this album... I still notice new details his drum work every time I listen to it. Amazing he was just 18 at the time.

The Deluxe Edition was such a disappointment... the stereo mixes are really bizarre and unsatisfying. Mono is the only way to listen to this album. By the way, I'm pretty sure The Kids Are Alright on the Deluxe Edition features a completely different vocal than the mono, rather than just a single-tracked vocal. At :44, Roger sings "Bells chime/I know I got to get away" and on the original mono mix he sings "I know I gotta get away." Also, The Good's Gone is missing a (very brief) French horn overdub that's on the mono mix.

Being a big Paul Revere and the Raiders fan, it always pissed me off that Who's Missing credited "Lubie" to Townshend, when it's actually a cover of the Lindsay/Revere composition, "Louie, Go Home." I'm glad that the credit was fixed for the Deluxe Edition.

That's one of those things that has always driven me nuts about the Who over the years--the long-running feud with Talmy, despite the fact that the material they created with him was excellent (the subsequent Kit Lambert material itself was excellent, but the production...not so good) and the bad blood between them and Jeff Stein, depite the fact that "The Kids Are Alright" is perhaps the greatest tribute that anybody has ever paid to them.

I'm sure the missing overdubs and alternate vocal tracks of the Deluxe Edition would bother me if I were more familiar with the original versions. As I indicated above, at the time I was buying Who CDs the Deluxe Edition was the only one I could find. Now I'm curious to hear a more representative version of this album.

I believe that the SACD of this album contains a version of "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" which lacks backing vocals and is available nowhere else.

Even though I initially got into The Who via Who's Next, Quadrophenia & Tommy when I was in my early teens, I always loved the earlier albums as well (even though I didn't get them until several years later). Of course the hits on the debut are great, but songs like "The Good's Gone" and "The Ox" are classics as well. The Deluxe Edition is amazing, but I think of it as a completely separate release. I was especially amazed by the pristine sound quality of the recordings, as though Shel Talmy had stored the tapes in an airtight room for 40 years.

Here's the old MCA US version......most representative of how it was.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000002PE4/?tag=imwan-20

I was unaware of a feud between The Who and Jeff Stein. Can you elaborate on this or can you link me to something that sheds more light on this?

I was in attendance of a Who function at the Waldorf-Astoria celebrating "The Kids Are Alright" DVD launch a few years ago (2003) and Jeff Stein was there. Didn't notice any bad blood between Roger and Jeff. Bill Curbishley, the Who's manager was also there.

This site http://www.thewho.net/linernotes/TKAA.html has details about the dispute I haven't read elsewhere. I know, you can't believe everything you read on the internet, but Stein alluded to this conflict in an interview on the commentary track for the 2-disc DVD of the film--a set for which only Daltrey was interviewed, and which included no unreleased performances and very little outtake footage. He is credited with directing the "Live At Kilburn" film, although it is unclear how much he had to do with the actual 2009 release of that film. Maybe its me--the distance between the Who organization and Stein just seems odd--it's hard to see "The Kids Are Alright" as anything but a love letter.

A Quick One (1966) US title Happy Jack

1. Run Run Run 2:52
2. Boris The Spider 2:29
3. I Need You 2:23
4. Whiskey Man 2:55
5. Heat Wave 1:52
6. Cobwebs And Strange 2:31
7. Don't Look Away 2:52
8. See My Way 1:51
9. So Sad About Us 3:02
10. A Quick One, While He's Away 9:09

UK #4 US #67

singles:
"Happy Jack" UK #3 US #24 (appears only the US album)

bonus tracks on remastered version:

11. Batman 1:37
12. Bucket T 2:12
13. Barbara Ann 1:59
14. Disguises 3:11
15. Doctor, Doctor 2:59
16. I've Been Away 2:08
17. In The City 2:22
18. Happy Jack 2:55
19. Man With The Money 2:45
20. My Generation / Land Of Hope And Glory 2:06

A quirky, enoyable romp, A Quick One sees Pete Townshend's genius starting to shine, especially on tracks like "So Sad About Us", "Happy Jack" (US only of course), "Run Run Run" and "Don't Look Away", plus we get the epic "A Quick One, While He's Away" which is just great.
The rest is a mish-mash as everybody got in on the writing on the promise of 500 lbs each. But there are some fun songs written by the others, and since I hate spiders, "Boris The Spider" I hold in high regard and I also like "Cobwebs And Strange".
The "Pop Art" album cover is cool too. The Who were on their way to being an album band really soon.