New Wax Wednesday

While The Who are currently traversing North America on their (allegedly) “final-final” tour that’s been dubbed (of course) The Song Is Over, they’re also quite keen on continuing with a finely curated catalog reissue series that’s been chock full of remastered originals and unreleased studio and live tracks galore. To that end, The ’Oo have just announced that their Who Are You 180g Deluxe Edition 4LP box set is forthcoming from Polydor/UMe on October 31, 2025.

Included in the new Who Are You vinyl box is a newly remastered version of the original August 1978 album on LP1, in addition to 22 previously unreleased live recordings from the band’s 1979 U.S. tour on LPs 2, 3, and 4. These live tracks have been culled from The Who’s shows at the Masonic Temple in Detroit (November 30, 1979), the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit (December 7, 1979), and at the Spectrum in Philadelphia (December 10, 1979).

The lift-top Who Are You box includes the remastered original LP in a single sleeve and those live-track-laden 3LPs in a triple gatefold sleeve, together with a 28-page softcover book with new sleeve notes by Matt Kent. In addition to the 4LP vinyl box set, Who Are You Mach 2025 will also appear a) in 180g 1LP form in a replica single sleeve, and b) a half-speed-mastered LP that’s also housed in a replica sleeve, in addition to c) a more lavish 7CD/1BD Super Deluxe Edition featuring 71 unreleased tracks in total, including, along with the live material, various studio outtakes and rehearsals (the latter studio-centric cuts of which are not on any of the announced vinyl releases, sorry to say; more on that in a bit!) and a Dolby Atmos mix on the BD by the ever-ubiquitous Steven Wilson, and d) a 2CD edition featuring a second disc with a smattering of studio session tracks, demos, and live material.

To get a better taste of what’s in store with the expanded Who Are You box set editions plural, check out the official YouTube preview clip below.

Whither the cost? Glad you asked. The Who Are You 4LP box set’s SRP is a quite reasonable $89.98, and you can pre-order it from the official Who store here. Also available for preorder at the Who shop is the half-speed-mastered LP (shown below) for $39.98, and the yellow vinyl edition (shown later in this post) for $29.98. And, for all you Who completists out there like yours truly, the mondo 7CD/1BD box set with the entire kit and kaboodle (or should that be “kit and KaWhoodle”?) goes for $174.98, and the 2CD edition runs $19.98. While each version of the new Who Are You is, at least as of this posting, only pre-available via the Who store, some/most of them will likely be made available from favored retailers like Music Direct at some point. [Update, 09.05.2025: The Who Are You 4LP box set is now available in the MD store here, and/or via the MD link graphic below, ahead of the tracklisting section.]

I freely admit that I’m very much looking forward to the Who Are You 4LP box to hear all of that 1979 live material “officially” on wax, if you know what I mean. Plus, I plan to get my hands (and ears) on the separate, half-speed-mastered vinyl edition — most likely mastered by Jon Astley at Close to the Edge, with the half-speed vinyl masters cut by our man Miles Showell at Abbey Road, both of whom had also helmed recent-years HSMs for other Who studio LPs in addition to the comprehensive Pete Townshend solo catalog LP reissues (Footnotes 1 & 2) — to see how well it compares to my 2009 200g Quiex SV-P edition via Classic Records/Polydor Deluxe (2490 147), the Sound of which I rate at 8.5. My earlier, well-played 1980 Canadian pressing (MCA-37003) of Who Are You, one that I literally just retrieved from offsite storage ahead of this past weekend, will likely remain on the shelf for now. (My original 1978 U.S. MCA LP long ago gave up the ghost — so you know it must have been in really, really bad shape for me not to have kept it!) [Update, 09.04.2025: During a Zoom interview this morning across the Pond, Miles Showell indeed confirmed with me directly that he cut the vinyl masters as noted above.]

Oh, as for how my Music rating for Who Are You goes, I give it a solid 8. It baffles me somewhat that this album has oft-been described as a “return to form,” since I felt the lads’ previous studio LP, October 1975’s The Who by Numbers on Polydor/MCA, was a solid effort that only improves and/or reinforces its worth with age. (Numbers also sounds extra fab on its own Astley/Showell HSM, I might add.)

Some more stats now via the official press release, along with the typical MM additions. The initial sessions for Who Are You took place at The Who’s Ramport Studios in London, as produced by Glyn Johns and Jon Astley. As has been documented elsewhere, the recording process was, quote, “fraught with challenges and creative tensions.”

Initially released in August 1978, Who Are You peaked at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard 200 top-selling albums chart and No. 6 on the U.K. Albums chart, and it also achieved double platinum status (i.e., 2 million-plus in sales). It was also the last studio album to feature the band’s legendary founding drummer Keith Moon, who sadly passed away on September 7, 1978, at age 32.

Who Are You saw the band, quote, “pushing boundaries once more,” with certain songs referencing the in-the-moment influence of the British punk movement. Most notably, the title track (Side 2, Track 4) was written by Townshend after a night out with guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols, and it also reflected sentiments he expressed in “Music Must Change” (Side 1, Track 5) and “Sister Disco” (Side 1, Track 4). Townshend also delivered some of his more ambitious and intricate arrangements on Who Are You, incorporating layers of synths and strings into the band’s powerful backing tracks. Said synths are easily heard to immediate effect right out of the box in “New Song” (Side 1, Track 1).

The aforementioned title track “Who Are You” preceded the album in early July 1978, and it became an instant anthem. It has also rightly remained in the band’s setlist to this very The Song Is Over touring day. Aided by appearing in the CSI TV franchise in the early 2000s, “Who Are You” is also one of the band’s Top 5 most-streamed tracks (217.8 million and counting on Spotify alone). Me, I’ve always admired how Roger Daltrey’s unmistakable, recurring sneer of “who the f--- are you” during certain strategic points in the song’s choruses never seemed to get edited or bleeped out during its peak FM airplay back in the day. Also, on an unrelated note, I retain a special affinity for “Guitar and Pen” (Side 2, Track 2), due in no small part to the fact that some dear friends of mine who worked for Stereo Review when I first joined the magazine’s editorial staff back in the late 1980s referred to its title as “Guitar and Hen,” for reasons still unknown to me to this day. (But I digress.)

Anticipation for a tour to support Who Are You was indeed high, and the band’s plans for doing so had to change, following Moon’s passing. They introduced their new drummer, Kenney Jones, formerly of the Faces and The Small Faces, in May 1979, along with new keyboard player John “Rabbit” Bundrick. The earlier noted live tracks on LPs 2, 3, and 4 come from the newly mixed live tapes from the U.S. leg of that ensuing 1979 tour, capturing a good amount of the shifting nuances that new lineup brought to Who songs both old and new.

A few additional notes regarding the digitally inclined Super Deluxe Edition (shown above, for context) that features, for the first time, the rejected original Glyn Johns mix of the album, a newly remastered version of the released Jon Astley mix, and fly-on-the-wall rehearsal sessions from Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England, which the band owned at the time. This edition also includes a wealth of unreleased material — demos, alternate takes, and in the case of “Sister Disco,” a previously “lost” guitar solo rescued from the multi-track tapes by Steven Wilson.

Here’s hoping most, if not all, of that studio-derived material gets onto vinyl at some point as well. Y’all know we analog heads would gladly pony up for the chance to drop the needle on all that stuff, don’tcha? Oh, I really wanna know. . .

THE WHO
WHO ARE YOU – DELUXE EDITION
180g 4LP (Polydor/UMe)

LP1, Side 1
1. New Song
2. Had Enough
3. 905
4. Sister Disco
5. Music Must Change

LP1, Side 2
1. Trick Of The Light
2. Guitar And Pen
3. Love Is Coming Down
4. Who Are You

LP2, Side 3 **
1. Substitute
2. I Can’t Explain
3. Baba O’Riley
4. The Punk And The Godfather
5. Boris The Spider

LP2, Side 4 **
1. Sister Disco
2. Behind Blue Eyes
3. Music Must Change
4. Drowned

LP3, Side 5 **
1. Who Are You
2. 5.15
3. Pinball Wizard
4. See Me, Feel Me

LP3, Side 6 **
1. Long Live Rock
2. My Generation
3. I Can See For Miles

LP4, Side 7 **
1. Dancing In The Street
2. Sparks
3. Won’t Get Fooled Again

LP4, Side 8 **
1. Magic Bus
2. Summertime Blues
3. How Can You Do It Alone

** LPs 2-4, subtitled “Live U.S.A. 1979,” feature previously unreleased live material

Footnote 1: You can check out our review of the Who’s Next HSM LP here, which we posted on October 3, 2023. If you want to dig even deeper into that historic album, you can read my review of both the 10CD/1BD and 4LP box set versions over on our sister site Sound & Vision here, which posted on December 26, 2023.

Footnote 2: Speaking of Pete Townshend’s solo HSMs, we reviewed The Iron Man and Psychoderelict here on November 22, 2024, while Rough Mix and Empty Glass were reviewed here on July 14, 2023.