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
No, it isn’t perfect, but it does do a reasonable job of providing an overview of the group’s career. Random thoughts:
ReplyDelete• I know that, at the time, Shel Talmy still had control over the 1965 material (I even saw an ad on Ebay where he offered the masters for $500K!). It would have been nice if everything else on disc 1 and disc 2 could have been remixed into stereo, however. Perhaps some multitracks were lost.
• I had never heard the single version of “I’m a Boy” before. This version, with a poppy feel, makes the lyrics a joke. I always found the lyrics disturbing, so I find the long version, with it’s creepy French horn, much more appropriate. I would have also preferred the studio version of “Substitute”. These two tracks still made “MBBB” a necessity.
• I don’t like the idea of editing studio and live tracks together. I suppose that the concept was to compare and contrast, but it doesn’t work. “See Me, Feel Me”/”Listening to You” was an American hit single, so it should have been left intact. The hymnal ending of the studio version is lost live. On the other hand, the glorious “Rock and Roll Circus” version of “A Quick One” blows away the wimpy studio version. The biggest blunder of the compilers.
• On disc 2, this stereo remix of “I Can See for Miles” is especially cool through headphones. This is one of the few places that I really notice any differences in the new mixes. They did blow it again by only including the shortened “Magic Bus”. “Heaven and Hell” is a nice surprise.
• Going to disc 3, there’s a major trifecta with the three 1972 “Lifehouse” singles. The extended ending of “Join Together” fading into “The Relay” is cool. This version of “The Real Me” is interesting. It has more of a live sound than the original studio version.
• I also find the Keith Moon “comedy” skits on disc 4 a waste of space. “Bell Boy” notwithstanding, I prefer Keith on the drums. The live stuff is especially welcome on this disc - that is, until we get to the end. Entwistle’s cocaine (I presume) ravaged voice makes the already pointless cover of “Twist and Shout” unlistenable. As for “I’m a Man”, this is where “The Who” became “The Who Revue”. The band got lost in the large supporting cast of backing musicians. This might as well have been a solo track by Roger.
• Only the two hits from the post-Moon albums indicate the band’s obvious opinion of them, at least at that time.
• As for “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting”, your description of “phoned in”, I suspect, is just about accurate. The drums sound programmed (since when did The Who do without cymbals on a rocker?). I would guess that the band overdubbed their parts entirely separately. This is reinforced by the interview in the “Two Rooms” video, in which only Roger and John appear. Although the drum sound sucks, Roger and Pete do deliver the goods.
I believe that most of the rarities here eventually resurfaced, except for the stupid Keith Moon skits, which everybody can do without. Nowadays, used copies of this can be found very cheaply. For anyone who wants more than hits but isn’t ready to get into the albums, this might be a good choice.
Crazy to think we've now had over Thirty Years of This Box Set. The concept has certainly evolved since then, but it was definitely terrific to have before the albums got upgraded (and expanded).
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