The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

I was going through some old posts recently and discovered some technical issues with enclosed links which I will attempt to rectify starting here.  I'll probably even try to go back and fix those old posts, although that may be an undertaking.  We'll see.

I stumbled upon this week's album last summer and I've been wanting to write about it ever since.  On one hand, it's very much a product of its time--on the other, I think it transcends that period with its satirical, even subversive, nature, something I've always been intrinsically drawn to.  Frankly, I wish someone would release something like this today.

The album itself is apparently supposed to sound like a broadcast from Radio London, a popular pirate radio station in the UK (also known as Wonderful Radio London and The Big L), which had actually stopped broadcasting a few months before the album's release.  It even features station identification plugs and fake ads for real products.  In fact, a lot of companies actually filed lawsuits after the album came out because allegedly no one got permission to use their products, either within the album or for its cover art.  And as much as I enjoy the subversion, I totally get that.  After all, I have not consciously eaten Heinz Baked Beans since I first saw Roger Daltrey on the album's cover sitting in a bathtub full of them.  In fact, I can't even see them on a grocery store shelf without thinking of that picture.

And while I'm sure we still have a few odd "pirate" radio stations in this country, I've never had the good fortune to hear them.  So when I first listened to this week's album, it seemed more to me like a satire of a licensed broadcast station, right down to the fake ads.  It reminded me a lot of radio stations that I would tend to listen to on a Saturday night when I was a teenager.  It was a weird mix of making fun of certain institutions as well as a sense of nostalgia for those institutions.

In retrospect, I think this is an album that could only be made with the arrogance of youth.  And even though Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey failed to die before they grew old, I wonder if they--or anyone over the age of 35--could make an album like that today.  But if anyone could, they would be the ones to do it.  Featuring their classic hit "I Can See For Miles" (the album's only single), from 1967, please enjoy The Who Sell Out.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill