The 33 1/3 music-criticism series of books remain some of my favorite ways to while away the hours – tidy, compact books that take a single classic album as their focus, resulting in the perfect thing to read while you blast your stereo. The nearly 40 books in the series to date have taken on artists from The Beatles to the Beastie Boys. Two of the newest books in the series focus on classic '60s albums – The Who Sell Out and Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited.
The Who Sell Out by John Dougan takes a new look at the mod band's somewhat overlooked third album. Sell Out came out a year or so before the blockbuster Tommy, and it was a uniquely British kind of tribute and parody of pirate radio, with songs joined together by advertising jingles and station lingo. Compared to the band's later, better known work, Sell Out is still a bit of a curio, and its clannish, in-jokey feel restricts its audience, but Dougan maintains, "Sell Out is nothing less than rock's greatest example of pop art."
Dougan uses Sell Out as a springboard for a look at pop art, swinging London's heyday and the strange restrictions of the British Broadcasting System of the time. It's hard to imagine now when any kind of music is available to anyone at the click of a mouse, but there was a time when you were at the mercy of what your radio station played; and in the case of the BBC, their dismissive, even contemptuous attitude toward pop and rock music at the dawn of the 1960s made it difficult for bands to get a foothold.
Only a few hours a day would be alloted for popular music on the BBC – and as a result, as a way of getting around the draconian restrictions, "pirate radio" stations were set up offshore, funded by American or other interests, and playing whatever they wanted. Until the BBC finally changed its ways in 1967, these stations were often the only way to hear certain bands.
The Who Sell Out was a kind of stew of the notion of pirate radio, of swingin' London, pop art and commercialism – the album "unashamedly celebrates the act of selling out in an exuberant, sensationalistic and uncritical way," Dougan writes.
Who frontman Pete Townshend had, as he often does, lofty ideas with Sell Out, only some of which came to fruition. "We live pop art," he boldly told one interviewer. Even though it's not an utterly successful concept album – the "ad breaks" disappear after the first few songs – it's still full of classic pop, including "Tattoo" and "I Can See For Miles." "Sell Out unrepentantly embraces the contradictions inherent when artistic aspirations collide headlong with market forces," Dougan notes.
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