New Releases: The Who By Numbers (Deluxe)
Been curled up this weekend with the new 5-CD box set reissue of The Who 's 1975 album The Who By Numbers . I've always had a complicated relationship with the record. It was the band's current release when I first started listening to pop radio as a kid; "Squeeze Box" was in regular rotation on the local Top 40 station, and while it was a fun little ditty, it wasn't necessarily the ideal song to introduce me to the band. (Fortunately, as I started to move from the AM to the FM dial, I was exposed to much more of their back catalog, and discovering Who's Next in my middle school's record library a couple years later was pretty life-changing for me.) By Numbers has always suffered a bit from coming on the heels of one of rock's all-time great album runs, from 1967's The Who Sell Out through Tommy and Who's Next , culminating in 1973's Quadrophenia , my favorite Who record. (Hell, even 1974's leftovers collection Odds & Sods ...
