How Do You Say "Wretched Excess" in Yiddish?

Okay, as you may have heard yesterday over at our pal Sal's invaluable BURNING WOOD BLOG (or elsewhere on the Intertubes), but there's a brand new six disc (CD and Blu-ray) box set of The Who's 1975 album The Who By Numbers just out. I haven't heard it yet, nor am I likely to anytime soon; frankly, a) it's a little pricey, and b) I'm still trying to digest the recent 7CD complete Lovin' Spoonful anthology on Cherry Red I got as an early birthday present the other week. Plus, at this point in life, my attention span is pretty much shot to shit, and I'm reminded of a friend's comment when I asked if he'd seen Christopher Nolan's recent and much-raved about film version of The Odyssey. "Are you kidding?" he replied. "Jeebus, it's like four hours long."

Yeah, yeah, both he and I were kidding about the above to some degree, and in fact, I've loved most of TWBN since forever, although to be equally honest I haven't listened to it since probably sometime in the last century. Still, upon reading Sal's thoughts on the album, I got curious as to what I had said about it when it was new. So here, exactly as it appeared in the January 1976 issue of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, is my critique. If you have difficulty reading, you should be able to click on it to enlarge.

I'm not sure I still completely agree with all the judgements expressed in the piece, but I think I got most of it basically right. In any case, please enjoy if possible, and cut me some slacque, Jacques -- I was a kid at the time. 😎

Your thoughts?