The Who - A Quick One (1966)

There are 3 guises of The Who: the 60's pop-art beat combo, the 70's planet-straddling arena rock gods, and everything after Keith Moon's death: The Poo Who.

On A Quick One, The Who's second album, the group are still lovable scamps in British Invasion mode, rock n' roll ragamuffins - not yet the grizzled road warriors they would later become.

There is a pervading sense of ramshackle fun and youthful irreverence to the offerings on display here, with plenty of slapdash experimentation in the songs but especially in the production...indeed, it is called A Quick One after all. It's also by a good mile their weirdest and most unfocused offering, however worth the price of admission alone for the shimmering pop nugget So Sad About Us.

I choose not to call attention to the groundbreaking title track A Quick One While He's Away (from whence sprang all this nonsense about rock operas) because the definitive version is their explosive performance on the Rolling Stones' Rock n' Roll Circus TV special from 1968 which invalidates any other performance of that song. The one on this album is like some shitty demo in comparison. It stinks, people!