Things are getting as crazy as a Keith Moon drum roll. This is the year of the 'super deluxe edition'. You've all heard of the 'deluxe edition' right? You get the original and inevitably remastered version of the album together with a second CD of bonus material, be they outtakes, demos, unreleased tracks or live recordings. All good stuff. But what can we do to better that experience? I know! Put the word 'super' in front of 'deluxe edition', throw in a few more CDs and raise the price to £75. Now we're talking! Ingenious. It used to be that the box set was a career spanning event - Now it's on a per album basis!

To be fair my shock horror is more leveled at some of the other SDEs out there right now like U2's 'Achtung Baby' - what insane person wants to own two CDs of remixes containing 6 versions of 'Mysterious Ways'? This is evidently something to own rather than play to death.

The same cannot be said of The Who's 'Quadrophenia' - a true classic that nowadays has the mods and rockers nodding respectfully at one another over rather than scrapping on the beaches. Starting with Pete Townshend's field recordings of the sea 'I Am The Sea' - like the intro to any great rock concert - it builds anticipation and makes you wait for the good stuff only giving small glimpses - vocal phrases - of what's to come. 'The Real Me' is also the 'real' starter - and now a real Who favourite. If you listen to just this track alone you get the full scope of just what made The Who such a different and original band. The vocals are almost to the rear of the track with the foreground dominated by the choppy guitar of Pete Townshend, the wandering bass of John Entwistle and the unfettered exuberance of Keith Moon. Never has there been such a band of musicians.

And only in The Who could this ensemble have worked.

And having such an indelible stamp has, at least for me, made any comparisons to other bands redundant. And that's still true today but listening to some of these tracks I've been surprised by the odd song or two. 'Helpless Dancer' exhibits the cruel bite of both John Lennon and of a much later Roger Waters. '5:15' shares a vibe with Alice Cooper's 'Muscle of Love' - an album that Alice was recording in the same year as 'Quadrophenia'. Whilst 'Bell Boy' has a very 'Elected' like guitar riff. Maybe a studio collaboration between Alice and Townshend is long overdue and not such a bad idea.  'Bell Boy', precisely because of its eccentricity, is another stand out track unforgettably voiced by Keith Moon. But this album is a story - the story of Jimmy - and is meant to be enjoyed and played out in sequence and its totality.

'Love Reign O'er Me' is the album's climactical scene and is quite transcendent. It's one of The Who's more emotive and wounded songs along with 'See Me, Feel Me'. And who but Daltry can belt out and convey such depths. Well...maybe Eddie Vedder too who put his all into the song after being approached by Adam Sandler for the 'Reign Over Me' film which appropriated Townshend's tune as its anchor.

The rest of the package lives up to the deluxe edition name too. There's a wonderful extra CD booklet by the photographer Ethan A. Russell that shows key moments in the story of Jimmy. Stylistically the black and white photos fall somewhere between documentary photography and neo-realist cinema. They successfully capture the essence and feel of the story way before the film 'Quadrophenia' was made.

Pete Townshend's 8-track demo recordings are something of a misnomer, as they sound so damn good. No doubt due to Pete Townshend's skill as an engineer and producer. And it wasn't as if these were recorded in his bedroom as he had a seven and half foot Bösendorfer grand to work with. Tape hiss is non-existent as Pete took pains at the time to deal with that potential problem. The only George Lucas-ism employed here was the addition of drums - but even these were recorded in the same manner as the original recordings, on 8-track analogue tape.

The liner notes to the demos tell how the at first disparate songs slowly grew into a story. And it's here that a few missing chapters are found. 'Anymore' is a dramatically sad piano piece that Pete considered vitally important to Jimmy's story but, due to the time restrictions of vinyl, wasn't included on the album. 'Is It Me' is another piano piece that switches between vulnerability, frustration and anger.  So there's plenty here to satisfy both The Who fanatic and The Who casual listener.

But what of the super deluxe version? What do you get?

Quite simply: More! More discs, more demos, more liner notes, studio notes, printed handwritten lyrics, photos, a reproduction poster, 5.1 surround mixes pressed on a DVD, a 7" vinyl replica of '5:15', plus a lavish coffee table style book and essay by Pete Townshend - AND what more do you want? What more could you want?

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