(Credits: Bent Rej)
Thu 8 January 2026 17:28, UK
Since the 1980s, The Who have occupied a peculiar space in the music industry, as they have still been playing huge venues despite releasing very little music.
In 2025, their touring career was brought to an end with one last farewell trip across North America. Unsurprisingly, there was no new music to accompany their goodbye. Remarkably, throughout the entirety of their career, spanning over 60 years, they only released 12 studio albums, meaning there is very little of their work that can be deemed obscure or forgotten.
Admittedly, on top of their traditional albums, The Who also have a vast number of compilation releases in their arsenal. While, on the surface, these may seem, most of the time, to be an easy way to fulfil a contractual obligation, there is one that Daltrey doesn’t believe gets the love it deserves.
The album in question is Odds & Sods, which was released in 1974 and marked their eighth compilation in a decade. Therefore, even by this stage, they’d had more compilations than typical studio albums, making it difficult to whip fans into a frenzy of excitement.
Odds & Sods, which was compiled by John Entwistle, featured previously unheard material which they’d decided to leave off studio albums, as the title suggests. Entwistle later explained to Goldmine that it was their way of trying to “stop the bootlegs” and came from the band’s desire to release as much music as possible.
However, due to the album’s packaging, it seemed like a careless collection of throwaway songs despite Entwistle devoting himself to the project. The lack of interest in Odds & Sods is reflected in how it did commercially. In the charts, Odds & Sods only landed at ten in the UK charts and at 15th in the US, which was below their expectations.
During an interview with Vulture, Daltrey named it the “most overlooked” album in their repertoire, which suggests he views it as a studio record rather than another compilation. He explained: “This was an album of bits and pieces that were left over from Who’s Next, and a few things from the prior recordings sessions on earlier albums.”
“It was put out as a filler album while we were making Quadrophenia,” Daltrey added. “It’s a fabulous album. I really like it, but I don’t think Odds & Sods ever achieved any commercial success. Musically, it holds together great”.
The commercial failure of Odds & Sods primarily lies with The Who and their record label, who didn’t give the songs the treatment they deserved. At the time, the band were too busy with other Quadrophenia–related commitments to care too much about this pile of music, which Pete Townshend instructed Entwistle to turn into an album. Townshend, who was typically hands-on, wasn’t known for sharing responsibilities, and it could be interpreted that he didn’t care about the release.
While Daltrey is perhaps correct to assert the album was ignored, The Who first overlooked this set of songs. If they genuinely believed in the power of these tracks, they’d have featured on another album in the first place. Furthermore, as Entwistle said, the main reason for Odds & Sods was to topple the bootleggers rather than believing they should be released solely on artistic merit.
Nevertheless, Odds & Sods is a hidden gem in the back catalogue of The Who, and although it escaped the attention of the masses upon release, its existence is still worth celebrating. While it doesn’t contain any hits, the fact that The Who had a set of songs at this calibre gathering dust in the archives speaks volumes about the high level they were operating at during this time.
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