Released in the U.S. in January 1968, "The Who Sell Out" was,
according to critic Dave Marsh, 'a complete backfire...the album
sold well, but not spectacularly [and was] ultimately a nostalgic
in-joke'. Who but a pop intellectual could appreciate such a thing?
Further rarifying its in-joke status was its unapologetic
Englishness; 13 tracks stitched together in a mock pirate radio
broadcast, without a DJ, with cool, anglocentric commercials to
boot. In the 36 years since its release, "Sell Out", though still
not the best selling release in "The Who's" catalog, has been
embraced by a growing number of fans who regard it as the band's
best work; one of the few recordings of the late 1960s that best
represents the ambitious aesthetic possibilities of the concept
album; without becoming mired in a bog of smug, self-aggrandizing,
high art aspirations. "Sell Out", powerfully and ecstatically,
articulates the nexus of pop music and pop culture. As much as it
is an expression of the band's expanding sonic palette, "Sell Out"
also functions as a critique of the rock and roll lifestyle. Not
the cliched mantra of sex, drugs, and rock and roll but in the ways
that commercial advertising fabricates a youth-oriented cultural
reality by hawking pimple cream, deodorant, food, musical
equipment, etc., and linking it with rock and roll. In this sense,
"Sell Out" is a reflective work, one that struggles with rock and
roll as a cultural expression that aspires to aesthetic permanence
while marketed as ephemera. From this conflict, emerges a pop art
masterpiece.
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