To begin with, we have "Instant Party Mixture", which is essentially fluff, amusing but disposable. Then the full-length versions of "I Don't Mind" and "The Good's Gone", which had been trimmed for album release. Nice to have, again, but I'm not sure exactly what the uncut versions add; and if those uncut versions were what the band originally intended, why not do what eventually happened with the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" and "New Age", and reintegrate them within the album itself in place of the cut versions? Then an instrumental version of "My Generation", which sorely lacks Roger Daltrey's voice to fill in the spaces, and the vocal track of "Anytime You Want Me". Neither especially necessary.

Finally we come to what are, in a way, the most galling bonus tracks: the mono single versions of "A Legal Matter" and "My Generation". The notes state these have been included for purposes of comparison, as they include some different guitar parts not found on the stereo tapes. Ultimately I think this is what bothers me the most about the My Generation reissue, the fact that the mono version wasn't also thrown in. I've come to the conclusion since hearing the recent bootleg CDs of the mono versions of the Rolling Stones' 1960s albums that music from the 1960s is indeed perhaps best heard--at least sometimes--in mono; and as rough as the old CD version of My Generation was, it at least had the virtue (as I now recognise it) of being monaural.

The new My Generation is presented in proper stereo for the first time, remixed from three-track masters (yes, they didn't even have the four tracks that the Beatles were using at the same period) The resulting stereo picture isn't as artificially wide as stereo mixes tended to be in those days (bass on the left, drums on the right, and all that), but it might've been nice if this deluxe edition had included the original mono version too (cf. the most recent reissue of the first Velvet Underground album, or Love's Da Capo, or the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, which feature mono and stereo versions of each album), given that the latter differs from the new stereo mix in some quite remarkable ways. This page enumerates the differences, should you be interested.

All up, it's hard to avoid the feeling that My Generation Deluxe Edition is a bit of a missed opportunity; this article from Ice Magazine claims the original plan for the reissue was to include some 40-odd tracks as opposed to the 30 ultimately included. Still, none of this is to detract from My Generation itself; though condemned at the time by the band themselves whenever they got the opportunity, it stills holds up as a cracking debut, and its return to circulation in whatever form is an undeniably good thing. Just don't abandon that old CD version just yet.