Product Description

Remastered and expanded edition of The Who's landmark debutalbum. Long unavailable in the UK due to a legal dispute between The Who and the album's producer Shel Talmy this deluxe edition features the original album with the hits 'The Kids Are Alright' and the title track along with a bonus disc of rarities and alternate versions.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Out In The Street
2. I Don't Mind
3. The Good's Gone
4. La-La-La Lies
5. Much Too Much
6. My Generation
7. The Kids Are Alright
8. Please, Please, Please
9. It's Not True
10. I'm A Man
11. A Legal Matter
12. The Ox
13. Circles
14. I Can't Explain
15. Bald Headed Woman
16. Daddy Rolling Stone

Disc 2:

1. Leaving Here
2. Lubie (Come Back Home)
3. Shout And Shimmy
4. (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave
5. Motoring
6. Anytime You Want Me
7. Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
8. Instant Party Mixture
9. I Don't Mind
10. The Good's Gone
11. My Generation
12. Anytime You Want Me
13. A Legal Matter
14. My Generation

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2840 in Music
• Released on: 2002-09-09
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
My Generation, The Who's first album, has little of the roaring, raging quartet heard on Who's Next, Live at Leeds and Quadrophenia. But the Mod-fuelled, American R&B-inspired sense of ambitious pop that powers A Quick One, Sell Out and even Tommy isn't so hard to find here. This reissue not only expands the original with a bonus-disc treasure trove of 17 outtakes and rarities (including the Pete Townshend-penned, previously unissued "Instant Party Mixture"), but has been remixed from the original 1964-6 session tapes by producer Shel Talmy and released in true stereo for the first time. Anchored by early Who/Townshend anthems "My Generation" (also included in an instrumental version), "I Can't Explain" and "The Kids Are Alright", disc one's original LP set veers somewhat schizophrenically from Townshend's nascent power-guitar thrashing on the anthems and Roger Daltrey's ill-advised James Brown and Bo Diddley impressions on "Please, Please, Please" and "I'm a Man", respectively, to the surf-inspired John Entwistle-Keith Moon instrumental showcase, "The Ox". Not surprisingly, it's the Townshend originals (like "It's Not True", "Legal Matter" and the proto-psychedelic "Circles") that point to what the band would become in a few short years. The bonus material on disc two leans equally heavily on covers, but also contains its share of signposts to the future Who, including a rare, alternate version of "Anyhow, Anyway, Anywhere". Also included is a new booklet with many rare photos and a history of the album's recording by Andy Neill (coauthor of Anyway Anyhow Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle of the Who 1958-1978). --Jerry McCulley

From Amazon.com
A glowering cover photo, on-the-run sound quality, and music to match. That's My Generation, and while it's hardly as consistent as The Who Sell Out, it's just as much fun to play. With the band steamrolling the title anthem, "The Kids Are Alright," "A Legal Matter," and a couple of James Brown covers, you can bet it was for them, too. Rock & roll for the hottest day of summer. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Keith Moon classic
Worth buying because it's an album by The Who but I think Keith Moon's brilliant energetic drumming is what makes this album memorable.

If you only buy one album this year, make it this one.
Undoubtably, this album represents and captures a time in music that will never be surpassed. The Who contributed greatly to this era with this awesome debut album, and subsequent albums that followed. Listening to these tracks again helps you to rediscover what good music really is. Everyone knows the classic My Generation (is this the first ever punk record?). Some people may also know Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, with its amazing, and deliberately recorded feedback sound. The Ox is just astounding for its time. It is almost "heavy rock", in 1965!! There have been debut albums over the years from various artists, which help to categorise greatness. This album is one of them. If you only buy one album this year, make it this one.

At last!
The Who's 1st LP, originally released in the UK on Brunswick, one of Decca's group of labels, had been unavailable in the UK for decades, due to a legal matter involving the group's defection to their manager's new Reaction label, and the ownership of the album master tapes by their former producer, Shel Talmy. Thirty-five years later, after they had almost ended up auctioned on E-bay, the 3-track masters were re-mixed by Shel Talmy into true stereo for the first time and eventually released in a lavish 2CD set, overflowing with bonus tracks of unreleased out-takes and alternative versions. It seemed too good to be true, when first announced, but it almost isn't. The stereo sound is incredibly vibrant and powerful and the Who crackle with a raw energy and with a righteous commitment from each to outdo all the others, a clash of ambition and ego which provides glorious results.

There were slight variations between the UK track-list and its US release, The Who Sing My Generation, which came out later. I'm A Man was replaced by a newer recording, Circles, from 1966. This had been recorded as their intended fourth single, but had been abandoned when the band left the label (Brunswick cheekily released it later as the B-side to A Legal Matter, which was lifted off the album; they mistitled it Instant Party). Both items are included on Disc One, which also houses both sides of their first single and the UK B-side of their second (Anyway Anyhow Anywhere), which was the Otis Blackwell song Daddy Rolling Stone, covered first by Jimmy Ricks and the Ravens but known to the Who from a Sue label single by the Jamaican former-Top Note and Raven, Derek Martin. All of these are also mixed in stereo.

Disc Two begins with "additional bonus tracks", the first twelve tracks comprising material unreleased at the time, though some have subsequently appeared on 1980s compilations such as Who's Missing. Exceptions to this include the James Brown song Shout And Shimmy which became the UK B-side to My Generation, and Anytime You Want Me (Garnett Mimms and the Enchanters), unreleased in the UK at the time but found on the US B-side of Anyway Anyhow Anywhere. An a cappella version is also included, as is the instrumental version of My Generation.

It was the practice of the time to include well-known songs on albums and the Who's set was full of R&B, soul and Motown covers, many of which were recorded for their debut album, although Shel Talmy says in the notes that he was admirer of Pete Townshend's writing and would have been happy to include only original material. When early acetates of the sessions went out for review, the paucity of new material was commented on by Beat Instrumental reviewer John Emery, and so the release date was put back while some covers were replaced with Townshend songs: La-La-La-Lies, Much Too Much, It's Not True, A Legal Matter (featuring an early Pete Townshend lead vocal) and The Good's Gone.

The replaced tracks included, as well as those mentioned, Leaving Here (a Motown cover, originally by Eddie Holland), Lubie (Come Back Home) (an adaptation of Paul Revere and the Raider's Louie Go Home), Heat Wave and Motoring (both from Martha and the Vandellas), all collected here. Leaving Here exists in a number of different forms: a 1964 demo appeared on the expanded CD version of Odds And Sods, a version from April 1965 appeared on Who's Missing, and it was also recorded for the BBC's Saturday Club programme the following month (available on The BBC Sessions). The version here is an unknown alternative take from the April 1965 session. Heat Wave was re-recorded for the album A Quick One, copying the arrangement used by the Everly Brothers, whereas its clear from this earlier version that its genesis in the Who cannon was the Motown original.
Instant Party Mixture was recorded at the same time as Circles and was to have been its flipside. Circles was later re-recorded for the Ready Steady Who EP but Instant Party Mixture never saw the light of day until this release.

Full length versions of two of the album tracks follow. Their version of I Don't Mind is considerably adapted from James Brown's original, whether by design or out of necessity for a 3-piece group and a singer, and benefits from the extra minute or so, while what The Good's Gone owes to its inspiration, The Kink's See My Friends, is made much clearer by the guitar on the extended fade. Incidentally, See My Friends and other Kink titles were produced by Shel Talmy on 14 April 1965 at Pye Studios, while the Who were at IBC Studios cutting Anyway Anyhow Anywhere and several tracks for this album with the same producer. He must have been quite busy.

The band's extraordinary second single, Anyway Anyhow Anywhere, is unfortunately not included, but a rare early version with a slightly different title, which was released by accident on a French EP in 1966, takes its place. Apparently it was impossible to include a stereo mix of the released version as the vocal overdubs had been performed directly onto the final mono mix-down, a common practice at the time in order to minimize tape hiss.

This same practice affects the stereo presentation of a number of the album tracks, which are missing those final touches that were added at the mixing stage. These include vital guitar parts and some back-up vocals on My Generation and A Legal Matter, John Entwistle's french horn playing on Circles and vocal overdubs for La-La-La Lies and Much Too Much. This is partially addressed by the final two tracks on Disc Two, which are "monaural versions with guitar overdubs" (the great original mono versions of A Legal Matter and My Generation), and is made up for by the chance to hear these historic tracks in full stereo for the first time.

All of what is found here is so important and so fantastic to hear after all this time, and in such high quality sound, that one really doesn't want to carp. However, it would surely have been a good idea to have the entire original mono album on the second half of Disc One, with its three bonus tracks added to the second disc, along with the original mono version of Anyway Anyhow Anywhere, a top ten hit in the UK after all, and perhaps the Who's Missing version of Leaving Here. Maybe next time