Saturday, June 12th, 1965

Record Mirror features an article titled "Their pop-art disc is like fly paper!".  This issue also contains an add for Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere. The song moves up two spaces to #24 in their Top 50

 

Transcript: (unverified)

 

Their pop-art disc is like fly paper!

says WHO manager KIT LAMBERT

It now seems that whenever a solo singer, pop group, orchestra and what have you decides to do something a bit different, that is taken as the signal for the “Holler than thou” to start having a go.

And they were in fine form when the Who had the affrontary to strike out against puerile pop and attempt a new form of pop music. Something which they called pop art.

by RICHARD GREEN

Out came the record “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” and in came the letters. Generally, they claim that the Who not only have little talent, but should wait until they have sold as many records as Val Doonican and “the King” before shouting their mouths off, and don’t know what pop art is anyway.

So we asked the Who’s co-manager, Kit Lambert, to answer back. He proved a willing person and one who should bear some weight with the “knockers” if only by virtue of the fact that he is older than the members of the Who.

One reader asked why, if the record is supposed to be pop art, there were orthodox vocal refrains at beginning and end.

Over to Kit: “Yes, this is a very worrying criticism. Recently, I have been accused of having a mission in life which is not at all what I blundered into the music business for. I wish that this reader’s ideas of what was popular were those of the general public because then I should be able to sit at home shuffling through the group’s awards.

“Anyway, I think the beginning of the disc is like fly paper — designed to trap the unwary and hold them there while the ‘damage’ is done. We’re in a guerilla role, so why complain about booby traps and fifth column tactics?”

The second point made was that more originality was needed in lyrics generally and the Who should have injected this into their record.

“I couldn’t agree more about the lack of originality in lyrics in general, with one very important exception this year — ‘Concrete And Clay’ — which I felt was a major break-through and perhaps owed some of its success to the occasionally surrealist quality of the lines. What a pity they didn’t follow it up,” Kit replied.

“But aren’t you being a little hard on ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’? Where are the sure-fire commercial references to love, happy or unhappy, the folk, the whimsy, homesick, crying, wonderful?”

Then on to the third point which was that while the reader admired the Who for talking about pop art, he could not say much for the integrity which had gone into the record.

Kit said: “Jet planes, emergency signals, city traffic. What more do you want without going to the sound effects library? It’s going to be very difficult to put pop art principles into lyrics.

“A great thing about pop art is that it won’t stand analysis. You can’t explain it, it just works. In painting, you put a frame round something common or garden — a target, a Coca Cola, a box of matches — that’s familiar to everybody and if you’ve chosen right, you’ve got something. Another thing about pop art is that statements it makes are very, very simple. One record, one idea.

“Another thing about pop art is that it is very limited. There’s room for a few more records like this, but not many.”

As far as I’m concerned, the Who have managed to get the attitude of kids into their record. Certainly their London fans have the “if I want to do something, I’m gonna do it” view. It’s possible that others feel the same way.

But as least kids can identify their feelings with the lyrics. And the sound is one that they like, which must be of some consequence.