Who 20: Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B

Plenty of big acts had received the box set treatment by 1994, when Who freaks finally got one devoted to their favorite band. Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B—more accurately summed up as 15 years with a lot of years sitting around—is one of the better career retrospective sets in that it includes all the hits, a pile of rarities and bootlegged nuggets, and effectively promotes the catalog, with better sound to boot.

The journey begins, fittingly, with the sound of Pete Townshend yelling at an audience. We get three tracks from their days as the High Numbers, then it’s into the Shel Talmy era and pertinent singles, which sound really good. A little license is taken by using the Leeds version of “Substitute”, and then it’s into the pop art/pirate radio era.

“A Quick One While He’s Away” is a mix of the intro from Rock And Roll Circus and the album track, ending in 1968 again. To further develop the compliers’ affection for the Sell Out approach, dialogue and studio snippets frame the first appearances of “Early Morning Cold Taxi”, one of the “Coke” jingles and “Girl’s Eyes”.

The second disc strikes gold with “Rael 2”, a kickass take of “Melancholia”, “Jaguar” and “Fortune Teller”. Tommy is oddly distilled, with only half of the “Overture” and a mislabeled “Underture” from Woodstock (it’s actually “Sparks”, as heard on The Kids Are Alright), coming out of the famous “Abbie Hoffman Incident”. Half of “See Me Feel Me” from Leeds is stuck onto the studio version. In fact, the box includes all of side one of Leeds, albeit with the clicks from before the tape was fixed.

Disc three covers the Who’s Next period, with live tracks and the contemporary singles, ending with only a few songs from Quadrophenia. And for some reason, an odd rehearsal/audition/disco version of “The Real Me” with Kenney Jones sits here. The fourth disc spends a little too much with Keith’s “hilarious” antics, and the crossfades really begin to take over, since there’s only so much space left. Key tracks from By Numbers and Who Are You are interspersed with Keith comedy bits before screeches to a near halt with the inexcusable inclusion of “Guitar And Pen” and only one track from each of the Warner albums. John yells “Twist And Shout” from 1982, “I’m A Man” tries our patience from 1989, and it all closes with the phoned-in studio reunion for Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s All Right (For Fighting)”.

Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B is not perfect; in their zeal to get everything in the compliers made some weird edits and crossfades. But it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do, and best of all, set us up for the flood of reissues.

The Who Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B (1994)—4