The Who has released the latest teaser to its upcoming “Super Deluxe” edition of the band’s 1967 The Who Sell Out album. The massive box set, which drops on April 23rd, includes a total of 112 tracks over five discs. The collection includes never-before-heard outtakes and Pete Townshend demos — along with a heaping dose of replica memorabilia from the era.
The new sampling of alternate tracks represents the pop art masterpiece's faux commercials that are interspersed between the album’s “proper” songs. Now available for downloading and streaming are “Heinz Baked Beans – Takes 1 & 3,” followed by “John Mason Cars/ Speakeasy/Rotosound Strings/Bag O'Nails,” and “Premier Drums – Takes 1&4.”
Art college connections aside, Pete Townshend said that he always felt that there was a certain thematic kinship between the early Who music and Queen: “We were talking a little bit about Queen, and how Queen's music has never really been taken hugely serious by musicologists, despite it's huge success. Because it's so ironic and so humorous, and the Who's early stuff was a lot like that. Y'know, it was 'I'm A Boy' which was about a boy in a set of quads, who for the sake of convenience dressed him up as a girl — even though he was a boy. There's was 'Pictures Of Lily,” which was about masturbation. There was 'I Can See For Miles,” which was about jealousy — ostensibly about a boy with x-ray vision — they were kind of silly songs in a way.”
The Who recently dropped a trio of Pete Townshend demos from the Sell Out box, including his one-man-band takes on “Pictures Of Lily,” “Odorono,” and the previously unheard tune, “Kids! Do You Want Kids” — a tongue-in-cheek anti-smoking “message” song.