The Who. The best band name in the history of rock. This is one of my all-time favorite albums and for a simple reason. its amazing. the first four tracks are 4 of the best songs ever by them. slip kid reminds me of this friend i have who is the class clown and doesnt care and basically slips by. however much i booze, the line where pete goes "there ain't no way out". squeeze box is funny and in dreaming from the waist the line where he goes "i've got that give and take 5 o'clock in the morning feeling" just makes me shiver. thats awesome. the next tracks slow down a bit but are still great. how many friends and in a hand or a face are good closing songs. i just think this album rocks so check it out.

I have vivvid memoriess of my father playin sevral music record from his one collexion by the 70/80 poprock group Numbers. They were an american ensemble of four or five members and played to rock the place. I believe they had 3 or maybe 2 dics before the contract broke after illusory troubles.

Anyway I found this CD of the band called The Who? A strangest title but I thought let's play it.

Well my conviction is it is rather bad and stupid, totally unlike the discs my fathers used to have about Numbers.

I am thinking it must be another group.

This doesnot rock at all!!!
The lirrics are undetectabe and sound silly and the purformance is really like bad.

Avoid this bad music and search for good stuff by the original band Numbers.

The Who's ninth album The Who By Numbers was released in October of 1975.
The year 1975 may have been seen as rock being king to some whilst others were pushing an underground machine music called disco to the mainstream. Many veteran rock acts reached identity crisis mode. Some acts like Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd released their arguable greatest works that year with Blood On the Tracks, Physical Graffiti and Wish You Were Here respectively. Other acts like The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath and Paul McCartney were releasing what was seen as forgettable works like It's Only Rock and Roll, Sabotage and Venus and Mars. That year also saw rock acts as diverse like The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, KISS and what not break into superstardom that year.
It was also the year that The Who unleashed The Who By Numbers which was their most personal album up to then! Roger Daltrey's vocals are almost flawless, Pete Townshend's guitar was flawless, John Entwistle's bass playing smoked and Keith Moon's drumming was starting to slide but was not at crisis stage yet! This album was the studio follow up to 1973's masterwork Quadrophenia! How is it, read on!
We kick the album off with the hard rocker Slip Kid which became a rock radio staple and is a rocking number. Pete steps on lead vocal for However Much I Booze which was starting to lament on how his alcohol problem was starting to overtake him. Next is the classic Top 20 US hit Squeeze Box which has the humor that The Who were known for and featured Pete on banjo for the solo. The song was only one of two numbers the band played from this album on the tour. Next is the best song on the album and the only other number regularly featured on the 1975/76 Who tours Dreaming From The Waist which is a killer hard rocker that is sure to please and Townshend's guitar playing really shines on this track! We end the first half with the acoustic number Imagine a Man which is a beautiful song.
We kick the second half off with Entwistle's hard rocker Success Story which is such a cool song and all I can think of is when John Entwistle shoots a Gold record with a machine gun in The Kids Are Alright movie and is guaranteed a laugh, especially with John portraying the fairy godmother as Boris and The Ox did a killer bass guiatr solo. We slow down again with the ballad They Are All In Love which had Nicky Hopkins on piano and the lyrics had one line saying "Goodbye you punks" which ironically, punk rock and punk fashions would become the rage in the UK a year after this track was recorded whilst it took 15 years to go mainstream in America. Pete's ukulele tinged number Blue Red and Gray is a really beautiful song as Pete sings passionately with a ukulele and some brass from The Ox. Next is the best ballad the band ever recorded called How Many Friends which has killer leads by Pete, and has Roger alternating from falsetto during the verse to power singing in the chorus. We close the album with the rocker In a Hand Or A Face which ends like you are falling down a spiral as the chan "I am going round and round" repeats like a cyclone.
When The Who by Numbers came out, the cover was done by John Entwistle and was their cheapest artwork cover whereas the Quadrophenia's was the most expensive album cover The Who did.
Also, The Who by Numbers peaked at #8 on the Billboard album charts and would eventually hit Platinum status like the three studio efforts before it.
In November of 1996, The Who By Numbers was re-released with a new mix from Pete's brother-in-law Jon Astley which cleaned up some of the muddiness the original 1975 mix had and a superb remastering job by Bob Ludwig. You also get three bonus live cuts from a 1976 Who show in Swansea featuring Squeeze Box with a funny Moonie intro, Behind Blue Eyes and a spirited Dreaming From the Waist with a bass solo from The Ox. Also, you get a 20 page booklet with an essay on the making of the album, photos and recording data on each of the album's tracks.
Highly recommended!

The Who By Numbers, the Who's seventh studio album, released in 1975 is definitely up there with the Who's top efforts. This is by no means a heavy really hard rock album but it still achieves in transmitting music of great energy, passion and imagination. With this album, we see the Who return to a singer-songwriter effort, having 2 years earlier put out the remarkable and successful 'Quadrophenia' rock opera and my do they do it well. Townshend certainly proves why he is one of the great songwriters with this album and just shows how well he can move from concept album to an album of separate songs. The Who had been producing albums for 10 years by this stage and certainly show no signs of dropping in standard with this album.

So what is 'The Who By Numbers' all about? The answer to this is both simple and complex. The simple way to put it is that with this album we see the music move onto a theme of 'mid-life crisis' as opposed to the 'teenage wasteland/lifehouse' themes of previous discs. However, within this crisis theme are plenty of complex issues which were certainly annoying and depressing Townshend (in particular) at the time - you can see Townshend spilling his guts with his songwriting just by some of the song titles (i.e. 'However Much I Booze' and 'How Many Friends'). I don't personally have a problem with these themes (some people who have listened to the Who dislike this songwriting direction which Townshend took, for some reason) and they certainly work well with the Who style (they had a similar if slightly lesser success with this in their follow up 'Who Are You'). There is no repetitiveness on this album, each track gives you something different. The current available CD edition is also good from the point of view of the extras it gives you on top of the original 10 tracks on the album. Included at the end are 3 excellent live tracks which they performed at Swansea Football Ground in June 1976 - they do a fantastic version of 'Behind Blue Eyes' here. The album also has a great cover showing the band as 'joining the dots' characters. John Entwhistle was working on his cartoon history of the Who at the time and this was one of his drawings - a great idea for a front cover.

So onto the tracks on the album themselves. The whole thing starts off in a great rocking fashion with 'Slip Kid' and is followed up 'However Much I Booze' a track with a catchy riff and some powerful lyrics. 'Squeeze Box' is one of the more amusing tracks and also one of the more commercial efforts on the album. 'Dreaming from the Waste' and 'Imagine a Man' are both typical Townshend songs which are very effective with the lyrics they give. 'Success Story' by John Entwhistle and 'They are all in Love' a slower effort are both worth a good listen. 'Blue Red and Grey' follows these, its probably my least favourite track on the album but it is still an intersting acoustic effort with a brass band sound incorporated in the later stages. 'How Many Friends' is a fantastic track and certainly one of my favourite songs by the Who and perhaps one of their most underrated tracks. For me it epitomises the Who's music, with a great guitar sound in the background - for me it is the strongest effort on the album. 'In a Hand of a Face' makes a good finish.

So certainly this is another great effort by the Who. With this 1975 they again showed listeners that they never needed to hide behind their mask of concept albums as this work contains some excellent songs which make it worthy of 5*'s anyday. It may need a few listens for the work to start to appeal but that in no way detracts the album's overall standing. This is ceratinly the kind of Who album to get after listening to works such as 'Who's Next' and 'Tommy'.

The Who By Numbers isnt the best album The Who ever made but it's pretty damn good! Roger Daltrey's vocals are almost flawless, the rythem section of John Ensthwistle and Keith Moon is as always over the top, and Pete Townshends guitar playing was never better!

The album opens with 'Slip Kid' which is a hard rock thats perfect for starting of the album. 'However Much I Booze' is a cool song that features Pete on vocals, this is a very fun song that your sure to love. The we go into the classic 'Squeeze Box' that has the humor that The Who were known for. I laughed so hard the first time I heard this song, it's awesome truly one of a kind. Next is the best song on the album 'Dreaming From The Waiste' which is in my openion one of The Who's all time best songs. It's a sexy/sleazy hard rocker that is sure to please, and Pete Townshends guitar playing really shines on this track! I really like 'Imagine a Man' it is a really beautiful man that almost reminds me of some of the material on Tommy. 'Success Story' is such a cool song, I used to close my eyes and listen to this and imagine myself up on stage playng some amazing guitar solo. 'They Are All In Love' is kinda cheesey and slow and somewhat stupid, its the only weak track on the album, but Rogers vocals are really really solid though. Im not sure what to say about 'Blue, Red, and Gray' its a really beautiful love song, I could listen to it over and over and over again. Easily the best ballad the band ever recorded. 'How Many Friends' is a heavy rockre with killer leads by Pete, and amazing ability to right compelling lyrics really comes through in this song. 'In a Hand Or A Face' closes the album and its the best song to do so, it has that classic harmony of voices that The Who were famous for and the vocals are amazing. Of all the songs on this album this one features the best guitar playing, just listen to Townshend play his riffs and leads! It was a sign of things to come from him.

The Whos By Numbers is by no means in the same ball park or even league as Who's Next but it is still a great rock and roll record and any fan of The Who will love this record!