The Who's hair-tossing frontman was allegedly a reluctant solo artist, but decided to have a go in 1972, during one of the Who's bouts of inertia. This compilation evokes the perplexing range and wildly erratic quality of the ensuing three decades of Daltreyism.
He got lucky straight away by being introduced to then-unknown songwriter Leo Sayer by pop wide-boy Adam Faith. Sayer and Dave Courtney bashed out new songs for Daltrey's first solo album, of which One Man Band and Giving It All Away remain his finest moments.
For his second disc, whose title Ride a Rock Horse provoked a hilarious sleeve illustration of Daltrey as a breast-beating centaur, Rodge tumbled into Overproduction City and disappeared under a landslide of horns and backing vocalists.
Then came stuff like Bitter and Twisted, where he sounds like Dennis Waterman after a long lunch, an Artful Dodger version of Mack the Knife, the utterly preposterous Lovers Storm, and a baffling rendition of The Pig Must Die, from Mike Batt's musical The Hunting of the Snark.
Stick with Pete Townshend, mate.
