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1[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/11872633_350_350_7138.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:320:''Wonderful radio... London''.]]
3
4''The Who Sell Out'' is the third studio album by Music/TheWho, released in 1967. A ConceptAlbum, it is formatted as a collection of unrelated songs with fake commercials and public service announcements in between them. Part of the intended irony of the title was that The Who were making real commercials around this time.
5
6Lawsuits followed the album's release due to the mention of real-world commercial interests in the faux commercials and on the album covers, and by the makers of the actual Radio London jingles, who claimed the Who used them without permission.
7
8The album is best remembered for "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand" and "I Can See for Miles", the latter which indirectly inspired Music/TheBeatles song "Helter Skelter" on ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum''. Music/PaulMcCartney had read that The Who had written the "heaviest rock song ever" and, without having heard the actual song, felt that ''they'' should top that. And they pretty much did.
9
10----
11!! Tracklist:
12
13[[AC: Side One]]
14
15# "Armenia City In The Sky" (3:48)
16# "Heinz Baked Beans" (1:00)
17# "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand" (2:28)
18# "Odorono" (2:34)
19# "Tattoo" (2:51)
20# "Our Love Was" (3:23)
21# "I Can See For Miles" (4:44)
22
23[[AC: Side Two]]
24
25# "I Can't Reach You" (3:03)
26# "Medac" (0:57)
27# "Relax" (2:41)
28# "Silas Stingy" (3:07)
29# "Sunrise" (3:06)
30# "Rael (1 And 2)" (5:44)
31
32----
33!! Bonus Tracks (1995 Reissue):
34
35# "Rael 2"
36# "Glittering Girl"
37# "Melancholia"
38# "Someone's Coming"
39# "Jaguar"
40# "Early Morning Cold Taxi"
41# "Hall Of The Mountain King"
42# "Girl's Eyes"
43# "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand (Alternate Version)"
44# "Glow Girl"
45
46----
47!! Principal Members:
48
49* Roger Daltrey - lead vocals, percussion
50* John Entwistle - bass, backing and lead vocals, horns, sound effects
51* Keith Moon - drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals, sound effects
52* Pete Townshend - guitar, backing and lead vocals, keyboard, pennywhistle, banjo, sonovox
53
54----
55!!Her deodorant had let her down--she should have used Troperono:
56
57* AlliterativeTitle: "'''G'''littering '''G'''irl", "'''G'''low '''G'''irl", "'''S'''ilas '''S'''tingy".
58* AlmostKiss: "Odorono"
59--> ''But his expression changed, she had seen\
60As he leant to kiss her face\
61It ended there\
62He claimed a late appointment...\
63[[ProductPlacement If only she'd used Odorono...]]''
64* {{Bathos}}: "Odorono" blends an account of a woman's emotional rollercoaster into a fake deodorant ad.
65* BreakUpSong: "Melancholia"
66--> ''The sheets are gray, left since the day she went away, I lost all power''
67* BuccaneerBroadcaster: The album is recorded InTheStyleOf a pirate radio broadcast. Tongue in cheek, of course.
68* ButNowIMustGo: "Odorono"
69--> ''She was happier than she'd ever been\
70As he praised her for her grace\
71But his expression changed, she had seen\
72As he leant to kiss her face\
73It ended there\
74He claimed a late appointment\
75She quickly turned to hide her disappointment''
76* CavalryBetrayal: In "Rael", the narrator is trying to fight off the "Red Chins", who are trying invade the titular country. He tells a captain to attack if the Red Chins take over Rael. The captain thinks the narrator is insane and abandons him.
77* ConceptAlbum: In its original LP release, the concept gets more or less abandoned by the start of side two. Later CD releases correct this error by including real-life commercials recorded by the band to pad out the concept.
78* DaysOfTheWeekSong: The album starts off with a distorted voice saying "Monday", "Sunday", "Tuesday", "Saturday",... This has been SampledUp a lot too.
79* DoubleEntendre: "Mary-Anne With The Shaky Hands"
80--> ''Mary is so pretty\
81The prettiest in the land\
82Guys come from every city\
83Just to shake her shaky hands''
84* EmbarrassingTattoo: "Tattoo"--played with in that the owner of the tattoo doesn't find it embarrassing, but he does assume he'll regret it one day.
85--> ''Welcome to my life, tattoo\
86I'm a man now, thanks to you\
87I expect I'll regret you''
88* EndOfAnEra: The album as a whole evokes this for the golden age of pirate radio, which was coming to an end following a UK government crackdown. By the time the album was released, most of the pirates had gone off air, including Radio London, from which the between-tracks jingles were taken.
89* FaceOnTheCover: Pete Townsend applies Odorono deodorant, while Roger Daltrey sits in a bathtub full of Heinz baked beans on the front cover. The back cover depicts Keith Moon applying Medac from an oversized tube and John Entwistle in a leopard-skin suit, squeezing a blonde woman in a similar outfit with one arm and a teddy bear with the other.
90* FadingIntoTheNextSong: All tracks fade into each other to give the feeling of a radio broadcast.
91* FakeRadioShowAlbum: All throughout the album fake commercials and genuine radio station jingles are heard. Several songs are also lyrically similar to a commercial.
92* IntercourseWithYou: "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand", who apparently is very talented with her hands
93* ListSong: "Mary-Anne With The Shaky Hands"
94--> ''I danced with Linda\
95I danced with Jean\
96I danced with Cindy''
97* LongHairIsFeminine: "Tattoo"
98--> ''Our old man didn't like our appearance\
99He said that only women wear long hair.''
100* {{Medley}}: "Rael" was originally intended as one, but was never completed and until the 1990s, only the first part was commercially available.
101* MinisculeRocking: Most tracks are rather short to mimic a radio commercial.
102* NewSoundAlbum: Aside from all the jingles, there's quite a bit of psychedelia on this album.
103* NoEnding: "Rael 1" was intended as the first part of a longer "mini-opera" in the same vein as "A Quick One, While He's Away." Only Pete Townshend didn't finish writing it, so the story ends abruptly before it really has a chance to get started.
104* ObsessionSong: "I Can't Reach You"
105--> ''I can't reach you\
106With arms outstretched\
107I can't reach you\
108I crane my neck\
109I can't reach\
110Tryin' to get on you\
111See, feel or hear from you''
112* OneWomanSong: "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand", "Glittering Girl", "Glow Girl"
113* OneWordTitle: "Odorono", "Tattoo", "Medac", "Relax", "Sunrise", "Rael", "Melancholia", "Jaguar".
114* OverlyLongGag: The album ends with a looping plug for their label, Track Records.
115* PackagedAsOtherMedium: The album cover is designed to look like an advertisement in a magazine. The album itself is meant to sound like a radio broadcast.
116* PapaWolf: "Someone's Coming"
117--> ''Your father doesn't like me''
118--> ''Told you that you couldn't see me anymore''
119--> ''That's why we meet in secret''
120--> ''That's why we're hiding here''
121* ParodyCommercial: One of the most famous examples in rock history and presumably one of the first to have such on an album.
122* ProductPlacement: Real life products are shown on the album cover. The track "Armenia City In The City/Heinz Baked Beans" name-drops "Heinz". Several tracks follow a pattern of a commercial by telling a story and then naming the fake product in the last stanzas, for instance in "Odorono"
123--> ''She ripped her glittering gown''
124--> ''Couldn't face another show, no''
125--> ''Her deodorant had let her down''
126--> ''She should have used Odorono''
127** "Medac" is another song that appears to be an advert. It's about an adolescent who suffers from acne.
128--> ''Then, when just about to crack''
129--> ''He found another cream - Medac''
130--> ''When Henry in the mirror peered''
131--> ''His pimples all had disappeared''
132--> ''Henry laughed and yelled "I got 'em!''
133--> ''Me face is like a baby's bottom"''
134* RiseOfZitboy: Henry Pond, in "Medac".
135--> ''Henry Pond had no fun''
136--> ''Had a face like a currant bun''
137* TheScrooge: "Silas Stingy", about an old miser.
138* SelfPlagiarism: In ''Music/{{Tommy}}'' they used an instrumental tune from "Rael 1" as a leitmotif.
139** The song "Glow Girl", recorded during the ''The Who Sell Out'' sessions but unreleased for a number of years, ends with a short song fragment ("[[GenderBender it's a girl, Mrs. Walker, it's a girl]]") that is recycled almost verbatim as the second track of ''Music/{{Tommy}}''.
140* SelfTitledAlbum: The band is mentioned in the title.
141* SellOut: This album is a massive [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] of the group's numerous commercial endeavours during the late 1960s, including recording radio promos for Coca-Cola, Heinz Baked Beans, a car dealer, a maker of guitar strings, the United States Air Force, and anyone else they felt would reimburse them for their trouble. [[http://www.thewho.net/linernotes/WhoSellOut.htm The original plan]] was to entice the companies mentioned on the album to pay for the references. No one was interested, but the band was blatant enough about it that many listeners [[IMeantToDoThat took the album as intentional satire]].
142* ShoutOut
143** Near the end of "I Can See For Miles" the Charles Atlas body-building course commercials are referenced.
144** Petra Haden did an ACappella version of this album in 2005, where every single instrument was covered with her voice.
145* SiameseTwinSongs: All the songs on the album are connected this way, in order to mimic a radio broadcast.
146* SpecialGuest:
147** Al Kooper plays organ on this album.
148** John "Speedy" keen from Thunderclap Newman wrote and sings backup on "Armenia City In The Sky".
149* SpokenWordInMusic: "Heinz Baked Beans" has a fanfare playing and every time the music stops someone speaks:
150--> ''What's for tea, Mum?''
151--> ''What's for tea, darling?''
152--> ''Darling, I said "what's for tea?"''
153--> ''What's for tea, daughter?''
154--> ''Heinz baked beans''
155* StepUpToTheMicrophone[=/=]VocalTagTeam: The album is a very collaborative work vocally, as opposed to its more Roger Daltrey-focused predecessors and successors. Listening to it, one wouldn't even necessarily assume that Daltrey was the band's designated lead singer. Pete Townshend sings lead vocals on "Odorono", "Our Love Was", "Can't Reach You" and "Sunrise". He also has co-lead vocals on "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hands," "Tattoo," and "Relax". John Entwistle sings lead vocals on "Heinz Baked Beans", and "Medac", and co-leads on "Silas Stingy" with Daltrey. For the 1995 reissue, Townshend sings lead on "Rael 2" and "Glittering Girl," the latter of which contains a verse sung by Entwistle; Townshend and Entwistle also sing alternating sections of "Jaguar." Daltrey and Townshend duet on the electric version of "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hands" and "Glow Girl," while Entwistle and Keith Moon sing together on "Girl's Eyes".
156* TopTenJingle: The album contains several original songs written as faux-jingles for Heinz Baked Beans, Jaguar automobiles, and other popular brands of the time.
157* TruckDriversGearChange: "I Can See For Miles" neatly [[LampshadedTrope lampshades]] it - Daltrey mentions the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal immediately after the key change.

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