50th Anniversary 3LP-Set featuring Original Mono Album, Mono Bonus Tracks & Pete Townshend's Demos from Before the Album's Release!
In the half century since its release The Who's debut album My Generation has lost none of it's raw visceral power and still stands as the ultimate musical declaration of teenage rebellion. The title track alone has been covered innumerable times by the likes of Oasis, Green Day, Patti Smith, Billy Joel, Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden amongst many more. Back in 1965 the band were considered to be so dangerous that the tailors tasked with turning a Union Jack into a pop art mod jacket for the cover feared that they would be jailed for desecration of the nation's flag. The Who's surly demeanor that day in 1965 at London's Surrey Docks and the brazen appropriation of the symbol of state is the best advert possible for My Generation. It's an album that sounds like it looks: terse, confrontational and full of youthful angst and energy.
Brunswick Records first issued My Generation in the UK in December 1965, and later in the US, under the title The Who Sings My Generation, in April 1966. It was produced by Shel Talmy who shot to fame with his work with The Kinks, a group that the teenage Pete Townshend admired greatly. During a break in touring in 2015 Townshend discovered tapes in his audio archive featuring previously unheard demos for the album which also included three totally unreleased songs that the other members of The Who hadn't ever even heard, "The Girls I Could Have Had," "As Children We Grew" and "My Own Love." This 50th Anniversary 3LP-set features the original mono album, 12 mono bonus tracks and the aforementioned unheard songs and Townshend's unreleased demos.
Townshend comments "Gathering these demos for this collection has been enjoyable; it's wonderful for me to have these tapes made fifty-two years ago to listen to. I hope you enjoy them. They have a naiveté and innocence, a simplicity and directness, and an ingenuousness that reveals me as a young man struggling to keep up with the more mature and developed men around me. What an incredible group of strong, talented, young and engaging men they were!"
Features:
• 50th Anniversary 3LP-set
• Includes the original mono album.
• Disc two features a selection of mono bonus tracks
• Disc three features 11 of Pete's demos from before the album's original release
• Packaged in a stunning gatefold sleeve with period/rare photos