New Super Deluxe Box Set Coming For ‘The Who By Numbers’

The Who have had some lavish treatments of their classic albums including ‘The Who Sell Out’, ‘Tommy’, ‘Who’s Next’, ‘Quadrophenia’ and ‘Who Are You’ but curiously, the one album in their run from 1967-1978 that hasn’t been given the full spa treatment is ‘The Who By Numbers’, the Hall of Fame band’s 1975 album that had the playful hit “Squeeze Box”, a song still played on classic rock radio.   Now the album is getting a 5-CD box super deluxe box set that comes with a book, blu-ray – plenty of unreleased tracks – 92 in all. Recently, some of the tracks were found after being lost for years, so all the demos, remixes, and 2 live shows, a video show from Michigan, 1975, and an audio concert from 1976 in Wales.

But ‘The Who By Numbers’ has always been seen to have an identity crisis.  Is it a Who album or a Pete Townshend solo project.  As the leader of the band, Pete usually wrote the majority of the Who’s material and here he’s written 9 of the 10 songs but much of the feel of the compositions and sound of the album is so much calmer and so much more introspective, that it’s like Townshend was going the confessional songwriter route.  

It was the one smaller, intimate sounding album from The Who in the 1970s where they were lighting up stages with action-packed live shows and massive hard rock moments like “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Who Are You”.  But ‘The Who By Numbers’ shows a sensitive side to the band with some fine compositions like “Slip Kid” and “How Many Friends?” that leave behind the rock n’ roll attitude for some straight-laced pop/rock.  Still, a portion of The Who fanbase love this like it was Pete Townshend’s personal journal, and swear it’s as good as the rest of the catalog. 

The new box set should be out on October 30^th.