Who - Thirty Years of Maximum R&B

I truly had forgotten how much I love The Who until I heard this collection. I never, ever listen to "classic rock" radio, and if I did, I`d probably only hear Baba O Reilly or Won`t Get Fooled Again. The "Oldies" stations would never play "I Can`t Explain", although it`s innocuous and catchy.

So I bought this. I saw it at a record store, yes a record store, not online, and was flooded with memories of Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy introduced to me at the tender age of ten by some stoner neighbor. But I never thought of them as one of the greatest. The Stones, of course, but The Who? Well, yes. Compare this to any of the Beatles collections. If you were trapped in a restroom for the rest of your life (I`m sick of the desert island scenario) which compilation would you rather have? Which has more substance, more diversity, more, can I say this, cajones as rock LEGENDS?

I just bought The Kids Are Alright here at Amazon. I can`t wait to see it again. It`s been 15 years.

By the way, Rock and Roll Circus wasn`t aired because Mick Jagger was angry that The Who blew them away. True story, I`m told.

Thank you, and rock on....man.

Besides the constant seguing, the other most annoying thing on here is the inclusion of way too many songs from `Sell Out,` a total of eight of the original thirteen. There`s also too much material from `Who`s Next` and the original LAL. Giving more than three or four songs from each album is no longer just giving a little sample of each album represented, and it feels jarring hearing them all played out of order, with so many songs from those albums included. Maybe that`s the reason why there were barely any songs from their sorely underrated Eighties catalogue, with only one song apiece from their final two studio albums and then the next two Eighties songs being really poorly representative of that period. They could have picked a better song from `Who`s Last,` as bland a live effort as it may be, in lieu of the live version of "Twist and Shout" they used, as well as a better song from the `89 triple-LP `Join Together` over the endless live rendition of "I`m a Man." The final song, a `91 cover of the Elton John song "Saturday Night`s Alright (For Fighting)," is fun and peppy, but could have been included somewhere else if it had to be included at all. That is not the track you use to close a boxed set with; it should have been so obvious that the final track should have been a blistering live version of "WGFA" or "SMFM"!

Still, the material included here is by and large great, along with some cute Keith skits done for the BBC, interviews, onstage dialogue, and studio conversations held before songs. There are also a lot of songs that were unreleased before this boxed set came along, though since then most of them have been released as bonus tracks on the CD remasters. And some of the songs are still hard to find on CD, are only on vinyl, or are hard to find altogether, whatever the format they`re available on, like the irresistably cute ditty "Dogs," "Call Me Lightning," and the High Numbers-era material like "Here `Tis" and "Zoot Suit"; before this, only the High Numbers song "I`m the Face" was available on an official release. It`s too bad they couldn`t have cut some of the superfluous songs to make room for more rarities, like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" or some of the songs on the out-of-print `Two`s Missing.` Overall, the many mistakes and annoyances aren`t enough to overlook the fact that it`s still great material. I`m lucky I found a used copy of this, complete with the booklet, for only in a used record store!