Mini-Review: Petra Haden Sings the Who Sell Out

Novelty songs are a dime a dozen. Novelty albums—a bit rarer. But a good novelty album? That, my friend, occurs once every dozen blue moons, and it is a truly special occasion. It ought to be marked by celebration, by feasting and dancing and possibly the sacrifice of an ox or two.

Well, it’s time to break out the oxen, because Petra Haden has achieved the miraculous and made a novelty album that doesn’t set your teeth on edge. No, I’m being too stingy with my praise. It’s a good album, almost a great one. Her “Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out” is the finest a cappella cover of a classic album in at least a decade. I grant that the competition for that title is not at all large, and is most likely non-existent.

Her idea was so simple it was bril…hold on, scratch that. It wasn’t simple at all. “Petra Haden Sings” may be the most needlessly baroque album since Emerson, Lake, and Palmer decided to write a twenty-minute electric concerto about a manticore battling a cyborg. But who says baroque is bad? In today’s music, when less is much, much more, and when the stripped-down sound is a Holy Grail, it’s nice to have something to indulge in. Consider it the aural equivalent of a slice of chocolate cake or a nice, juicy hamburger.

A bit of background: “The Who Sell Out” is one of the most underappreciated albums, not just in the history of The Who, but in the whole history of rock music. It might even be the first concept album—though God knows how many claimants there are to that throne. “The Who Sell Out” is meant to sound like a pirate radio station, complete with commercials and reminders that you’re listening to “wonderful Radio London.”

Petra Haden took a listen, thought a bit, and decided “Well, why not do it as an a cappella album? And more, why bother with anybody else? I’ll just multitrack my voice a couple times, add in some overdubs, and presto!” Presto indeed. It was so crazy that it just did work.

Everything you hear on the album is Petra Haden’s voice. Everything. All the voices, all the instruments—the drums, the guitar, the bass, even the trumpet fanfare that opens the song “Heinz Baked Beans.” It’s been said that no instrument, not the saxophone or synclavier or snare drum, can match the incredible flexibility of the human voice. Haden’s album is Exhibit A in that regard.

Take her cover of “Odorono”—one of the album’s best songs, which happens to double as an ad for deodorant. It begins with a pulsing series of soft “dat da da”s; if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear they were produced by a machine. Then Haden’s voice—again—comes swooping in on the lead, high, almost falsetto, wonderfully human. On the chorus, every vocal part swells to a climax, richer than anything you could wring out of the usual guitar-bass-drums trio.

Haden’s weirdness brings out the weirdness inherent in the album. Everything sounds strange and new when you hear it done with the human voice instead of instruments. You pay more attention, for instance, to what the singer is actually saying, rather than being swept up by the fancy fretwork going on the background. And on “The Who Sell Out,” what’s being said is usually something outrageous. Take the chorus of “Tattoo”:

Welcome to my life, tattoo
I’m a man now thanks to you
I expect I’ll regret you
But the skin graft man won’t get you
Be there when I die…tattoo.

If you think that’s strange, wait’ll you hear it sung 1) by a woman 2) a cappella.

I’ve had some bizarre songs in my time. I once listened to a death metal cover of “Smoke on the Water” where the singer sounded like he had just undergone a tracheotomy performed with a spork; another time, I heard a bluegrass version of AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” But Haden’s album tops them all.

Every song is good, in part because all the songs on the original were good and partly because Haden’s interpretation is so wonderful. My favorites, in no real order: “Odorono,” “Armenia City in the Sky,” “Tattoo,” and “Relax.” My least favorites: Hmmm…well…I’d have to choose “none of the above.”

Go get it! Go listen to it! I don’t expect you’ll hear anything like it soon. Not unless the album inspires a new generation of garage a cappella bands. But I’m sort of doubtful that’s going to happen.