Jethro Tull: Classic or Dud?

iz crop rotation iz bifta alzo

yuzzah ahhl dddddddmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmd

Sweet Dream video from "Slipstream": CLASSIC!

I'd say more like every TEN years...just like the Doors!

Between that and Jackie Enx of Rhino Bucket, it shows that Jayne County was merely the start of something good.

you know, my dad and my philly relatives pronounce "ann" and "ian" almost identically.

I love "A New Day Yesterday" and "To Cry You a Song".

(though "Living In The Past" is a nice tune)

I love pretty much everything up to "War Child", plus "Songs from the Wood" and "Heavy Horses"*. I don't think "Stormwatch" is bad. The lyrics on most of "Minstrel in the Gallery" (except for the title song) start to make me cringe. "Broadsword and the Beast" has an unpleasant, bloated-puffy synthesizer sound as well as pretty uninteresting songs. "Crest of a Knave" is hard to imagine as the same band - I can't stand Martin Barre's guitar sound at that time, and the lyrics are brutal. "Rock Island" and "Catfish Rising", as probably everyone will tell you, are just embarassing. I haven't heard anything since, though a friend has told me that "J-Tull.com" (sp?) is not too bad.

*I do think that "Thick as a Brick" is a bit structurally clunky, but when I consider that it was kind of a big piss-take of a concept album, it makes sense that it's that way - it's a pretty funny idea for an album. "A Passion Play" is my favourite: the saxophone and synthesizer parts sound great and the melodies are really deft. I don't know why people got mad about "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles". "War Child" continues with similar arrangements and impressive playing (Barriemore Barlow is a superb drummer), though I'd have preferred "Bungle in the Jungle" as a non-LP single.

But it's not offensive like ELP (whose best moments were Greg Lake's Paul McCartney/Neil Young knockoff songs w/ cheap synth solos just to remind you who's IN CHARGE HERE). And the later dumb pop hits he had, around the mid-'70s, are quite enjoyable. Normally I don't bring up Lester Bangs but his piece "Jethro Tull in Vietnam" does sum it all up nicely.

1) Stand Up. One of the great, great psychedelic albums, stuffed with killer riffs and enough otherworldly moods to simulate or enhance being baked. If this album were a one-off by an obscure British folk band (a la Mellow Candle) it would fetch hundreds of $$$$ in collector's circles.
2) Aqualung. There isn't a bad song on it. The flute solo in "My God" is some scary shit. In my experience people who badmouth this are trying to prove another point, like they're cool, or even good music can get overplayed, or something.
3) Thick as a Brick. Some parts drag, but there's no other album like it (I guess besides Passion Play), and most of it's engaging, not an easy thing to pull off over the course of 40+ minutes.

Songs from the Wood, War Child, Benefit, and Minstrel in the Gallery aren't bad, either, and there are timeless singles like "Living in the Past" to get off on.

There's also a ton of shitty albums--Too Old to Rock & Roll. . ., A, Stormwatch, etc. but who cares, really.

and no, Bangs is not infallible. But his central insight into Tull--no rebop--is a good 'un. And I want rebop myself.

xpost

"Wond'ring Aloud"
"Slipstream" (I think)
"Thick as A Brick" (the intro, but many other parts, too)
"Skating Away On the Thin Ice of a New Day"
"One White Duck/Nothing At All"
"Baker St. Muse"
"Salamander" (again, I think -- it's been awhile)
"Dun Ringill"

My personal tastes tell me they also have a few very good hard rock moments, including "Minstrel In the Gallery", "Pibroch" and much of Aqualung. That and Songs From the Wood has a very cool electro-folk production

Thick as a Brick really is ridiculously good. Sweet tunes, fierce playing, beautifully arranged. The strings near the end are next level.

"Locomotive Breath" still rocks greatly.

1) ...If this album were a one-off by an obscure British folk band (a la Mellow Candle) it would fetch hundreds of $$$$ in collector's circles.

Yes yes yes. In the run up to becoming full-on prog, they created some moody and unfussy stuff. Stand Up layers all sorts of acoustic instruments with blues riffing in a way that is intuitive and natural, rather than the hyper-organized feel they soon took on. Really solid songs that would hold up outside of the textures and arrangements.

Their true masterpiece was "A Passion Play". Jethro Tull at their most progressive was also Jethro Tull at their best.

But they did some interesting folk influenced stuff later too.

To me, Minstrel In The Gallery through Stormwatch = classic. The expansive prog notions recompressed into concise songs without losing the progginess.

The stuff from the first heyday's great, but I don't get the urge to put it on very often.

The string of high-concept records (Thick, Passion, Too Old) I have no time for.

i own 'aqualung'. i like it and think it's pretty creative and inspired, but i don't listen to it often

I went to see them live a few days ago. I only really went along to the gig after a mate said he wanted to go.

I hadn't much listened to them for 30 years, and though I wasn't a big fan I had mates who were very keen indeed and back in the day I did have a soft spot for the quirkier, pop-eyed silliness.

Before the gig I was kinda worried about all that zany 70s catweazle'n'codpiece stuff, since I figured it wouldn't have aged well...

I needn't have worried as there wasn't much of it, indeed there wasn't nearly enough of it. Stripped of the theatrics, left pretty much the music unadorned, though that did reveal some elements which I hadn't noticed before (or didn't know anything about to notice) such as the Mingus influences (though I guess the Roland Kirk stuff was always obvious).

Mainly though they sounded polite 80s rock. Barre's guitar sounded especially cleaned up, Dire Straits and (80s) Supertramp.

So not great then, mostly not even good, but now and then there were flashes about what made them interesting and did confirm there were interesting bits in the War child and earlier albums.

Their guitarist kicks ass and besides that they are fucking Jethro Tull. So many songs to love by them.

Oh god, I had an urge to hear "Skating Away" so I downloaded the Anniversary collection and I'm kind of enjoying it.

Kill me.

They are classic beyond classic.

people who HATE this band hate fun

I think the Broadsword and the Beast was unusually large because they happened to have a ton of unreleased material from that era... I don't think it's a trend (as beyond Bursting Out, any further deluxe book sets being released at all seems to be doubtful)

I guess that's reassuring, I do love these deluxe books but I don't want to spend that much regularly. The Anthony Phillips and Renaissance deluxe editions are also annoyingly expensive.

I do wish they'd continue the booksets through at least Crest of a Knave which delights me in all its Dire Straits-ey goodness (and in the heyday of CDs they managed to keep it down to a tight 48 minutes)

digging living in the past heftily

Has this been posted before?

There's a podcast called 'Talk Tull To Me' that goes through every song in chronological/album order, I listened to a bit of one last night and the two guys (natch) sound like fairly normal human beings chatting about JT, instead of two bored narcissists blabbing on about a load of in-jokes and irrelevant shit.

The episode I heard a bit of, 'Look Into The Sun', sounded decent, I will give it a proper listen although I remain a little sceptical, what can you say for 30+ mins about 'Cheap Day Return' for instance?

― Maresn3st, Monday, May 4, 2020 11:02 AM (three years ago

As I continue my now month-long #TullBender, I have dug into this podcast whilst I walk my dog and schlep my kids around and, well, it's delightful. Two (or maybe just one?) theater/RenFair dudes farfing around about every song doesn't sound like an intriguing proposition at first. But they are self-aware, have great chemistry and have an infectious passion for and insight into this music. The "Baker Street Muse" episode was particularly good, I thought. All told, very fun and highly recommended for those who wonder what it might be like to scale Tull Mountain. Belated thanks, Maresn3st!

All the way from from This Was to Broadsword, with only a few missteps, it's ridiculous really.

I got all the way to Stormwatch, which sounded nice and rich but really suggested that that iteration of the band was running out of energy. The only subsequent songs I've heard (off of several compilations) that really captured me were "Fylingdale Flyer" and "Jack-a-Lynn". I like Eddie Jobson enough that I may listen to A sooner or later. I am curious what songs poster TheNuNuNu will recommend though.

NTI (or anyone else), would you care to expound a bit on Slipstream?

I think it's not just about hypocrisy but about the futility of any material goods to provide meaning or mercy at the point of death. Then you paddle out of the mess of life into...what?
Which connects to what I was thinking about the climax of A Passion Play on the way to work yesterday - the main character reborn not into an ethereal existence but back onto the streets of the city, just everyday life with the freedom to live, not "reflect about living". Something touched me about the warmth of Anderson's concept, that the joy of life is represented as being reborn on a busy street without ceremony or fuss.

Thanks for the help with Slipstream!

Gonna do this "The Great Wastes Beyond Broadsword" compilation thing in (I think) three chapters.

Part 1 - 1983-1991
Part 2 - 1995-2003
Part 3 - since 2012

MaresNest asked about a "later period album list of worthwhile tunes." There's plenty of those, provided you're in the right mood for the sound/feel of their parent albums, so I narrowed the criteria for inclusion down to "songs that should make someone who's on board with the This Was --> Broadsword Tull say 'oh yeah, this is neat.'"

Here's Part 1.

1. Trains (from Walk Into Light, 1983)
From the first Ian Anderson "solo album" (really a close collaboration with Peter-John Vettese, who had a big hand in Broadsword too). The synth arrangements are nothing special, but structurally this one is a lot of fun. Good melodies and lyrics too.

2. End Game (from Walk Into Light, 1983)
The chorus is merely alright, but I love the eerie verses, the keyboard lines, the off-time percussion.

3. Toad in the Hole (from Walk Into Light, 1983)
This one is just terrific. If you like Songs from the Wood/Heavy Horses/Stormwatch, you'll like this.

4. European Legacy (from Under Wraps, 1984)
The brutal '80s mix obscures how weird and ambitious the writing on Under Wraps is: the proggiest thing between A Passion Play and Homo Erraticus. For years now, Ian's been talking about redoing the album's drum tracks with live drums. If they do a big overhaul in the mix while they're at it, rehabilitation will be in order.

5. Part of the Machine (1988)
I'm skipping Crest of a Knave because, even though I like it, I wouldn't impose its imitation-Dire Straitsyness on any fan of '70s Tull. Crest is for deep sea divers only. Rock Island fares better, if you can stomach the sound, but both albums take a serious beating from their decade. This song was written between the two and surfaced on some compilation or other. It's good as is, but just think -- if this had a Heavy Horses arrangement?

6. Strange Avenues (from Rock Island, 1989)
Starts with a great ominous instrumental intro. And then it turns into that rare thing, a GOOD sequel song.

7. Truck Stop Runner (1991)
Catfish Rising outtake, light and bright and fun, like Strip Cartoon or The Third Hurrah or something -- it's got that '70s air about it.

8. Like a Tall Thin Girl (from Catfish Rising, 1991)
I have to kind of shamefacedly explain why I like Under Wraps, Crest of a Knave, or Rock Island, but I make no apologies for Catfish Rising. The band is revitalized. Ian Anderson is acting pervy as hell. He's not working around his voice damage by speak-singing like Knopfler anymore, he embraces the growl. And -- what matters most -- the songwriting is terrific. But go for the ten-track LP tracklist. The extra stuff on the CD isn't bad, but dilutes the LP's kick, and anyway all the best stuff is on the LP.

9. Thinking Round Corners (from Catfish Rising, 1991)
See? Isn't this just excellent?

10. This Is Not Love (from Catfish Rising, 1991)
I read these lyrics before I heard the song. They're what got me exploring post-Broadsword Tull at all: "Wait, Ian was still writing this well in '91?!" I didn't expect a hard rock arrangement -- I thought it'd sound like Back Door Angels -- but taken on its own terms, the arrangement works. Kicks ass, even.

awesome

I'd add Silver River Turning in to that solid list

(think it's Catfish Rising-era)

I have a boring long(ish) drive ahead of me on Monday so I shall make a Spotify playlist, thanks so much!

I'm not too bad into Tull but they have some songs I really love - "Mother Goose", "The Whistler", "Inside"...what else have they got like that? I don't really know the albums beyond Thick as a Brick that well.

I'm a big fan of the Crest/Rock/Catfish era, probably because those were the "new" Tull albums coming out when I got into them back in the day, but the Thirsty Dire Straits years are indeed difficult to recommend to others. Anderson was so damn horny for some reason and most of the time it's just sort of gross. Like Budapest or Undressed to Kill, ugh. Come on, man. Said She Was a Dancer is pretty funny though. And Heavy Water is a good jam where he mostly keeps it in check. And Rocks on the Road from Catfish Rising.

XP - Hey frogbs, this isn't a direct answer to your question, but maybe just go straight for A Passion Play and bang the whole thing with your prog listener wizard's hat on and see how that goes.

Anderson was so damn horny for some reason

I dunno, it's pretty unambiguous that "Kissing Willie" is about a man dismayed at his lover's dalliance with his best friend.

Frogbs - another vote for A Passion Play, it's stunning, get the latest mix if you can and the bonus disc. I have to wonder if the poor reception of this album particularly changed anything

This is probably sacrilegious when it comes to an art-rock band (if that's what they were...), but I'd start with M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull, one of the few albums I loved in high school that I'd still happily listen to today.

Frog: you could try Up to Me and Cheap Day Return in the Mother Goose direction, Jack-in-the-Green and One Brown Mouse over The Whistler's way. (And A Passion Play is my favorite Tull, definitely worth a listen.)

M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull

That is an impeccable tracklist, in an interesting order. Whose idea was it to include Rainbow Blues?!

I don’t think I’ve ever known what M.U. stands for. It’s not something obvious, I hope?

and the rain wasn't made of water!

M.U. = "musician's union"

they have some songs I really love - "Mother Goose", "The Whistler", "Inside"...what else have they got like that?

Singing All Day
Wond'ring Aloud/Again
Life's a Long Song
Alive and Well and Living In
Fat Man
Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square
Dr. Bogenbroom
Teacher
Up to Me
Cheap Day Return
Up the 'Pool
Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day
Salamander
Moths
Fire at Midnight
Broadford Bazaar
Home

...as you go later, their albums will usually have 2-3 more acoustic and poppier numbers, but they kinda get increasingly baroque

"Acres Wild" and "Left, Right" are two of my favorites

I consider 'Velvet Green' to be the epitome Jethro Tull song. But I'm very much impressed by their entire discography. I'd agree that especially anything from their first 16-album(!!!) run up until and including Crest of a Knave can especially be highly recommended - perhaps rather the first 14-album run as album 15 (Under Wraps) seems weaker in comparison (although apparently that's a favourite of Martin Barre). But there's plenty to love afterwards, it's just that the albums may overall get a bit less memorable or outstanding in their entirety but I don't think any one of them is bad. Perhaps the most recent two (Zealot Gene / RökFlöte) do the least to me but they're fine enough - I guess they did suffer from Barre's omission.

There's a lot of beauty on Ian Anderson's solo albums too, I especially like the instrumental Divinities and also The Secret Language of Birds and Rupi's Dance, both of which sound like natural follow-ups to the preceding Tull albums Roots To Branches/Dot Com.

I sampled Walk Into Light and the synthesizer background is a lot more tasteful than what I've heard of Under Wraps, it actually seems like a valid turn for Anderson to take in 1983 both commercially and creatively. That matters to me because, though I like a lot of his/their music, I also find the Tull range to be somewhat limited - the downside, perhaps, of its distinctiveness.

The words to "This is Not Love" are quite imaginative and imagistic but the riffs and melody never really catch for me, so it's atmospheric without the music putting feelings into the story. I do find these lists interesting and look forward to the next two instalments.

As I continue my now month-long #TullBender, I have dug into this podcast whilst I walk my dog and schlep my kids around and, well, it's delightful. Two (or maybe just one?) theater/RenFair dudes farfing around about every song doesn't sound like an intriguing proposition at first. But they are self-aware, have great chemistry and have an infectious passion for and insight into this music. The "Baker Street Muse" episode was particularly good, I thought. All told, very fun and highly recommended for those who wonder what it might be like to scale Tull Mountain. Belated thanks, Maresn3st!

― Naive Teen Idol, Monday, March 4, 2024 3:32 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

As my #TullBender stretches into yet another week, I'm just about finishing up the 8th and final Talk Tull To Me episode on TAAB -- which has been great. It's def. a time commitment, but they do an excellent job digging into the "story," which has always been kind of a puzzle to me. The podcast goes pretty deep into the characters and archetypes Anderson populates it with, and ultimately they kind of conclude what I said above about it, but it's been a fun journey nonetheless.

I started digging through TheNuNuNu's list above -- I didn't know a lot of it and am more partial to Rock Island than Catfish Rising which I used to own. I'm still not 100% sure of the songwriting on the latter--he sure was pervy around that time--but there's a lot of sprightly mandolin on that record for sure.

To get back to the original post about Tull being a great singles band, I nominate the Stormwatch bonus track 'Kelpie' as their 'way ahead of its time' potential smash hit, had it been released/remade in the late-'90s by a hopeful popstar. The propulsion of the bass and drums, the instrumental counter-melody in the verses, the subtle use of guitar squeals at the ends of verse sections, the moments of silence, the wild bridge, plus the rhythmic cadence of the vocal melody - it's not quite Max Martin or Bloodshy/Avant & Britney's 'Toxic', but it's not not that! There's some serious 'music as math' going on here. I could totally have seen the late Denniz Pop (or Jellybean Benitez) loving this track, and remaking/reinterpolating it into some huge dancefloor banger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyR7pdLDz_g

Problem is, it's in triple time! So the only dancing it will inspire are jigs.

It's not one of their greatest songs but "A Small Cigar" is such a funny idea with really funny lyrics, it was only released as bonus material
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBIA06c4L3s

I mean it does sound good but much of the amusement comes from the lyrics

they have some songs I really love - "Mother Goose", "The Whistler", "Inside"...what else have they got like that?

Singing All Day
Wond'ring Aloud/Again
Life's a Long Song
Alive and Well and Living In
Fat Man
Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square
Dr. Bogenbroom
Teacher
Up to Me
Cheap Day Return
Up the 'Pool
Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day
Salamander
Moths
Fire at Midnight
Broadford Bazaar
Home

...as you go later, their albums will usually have 2-3 more acoustic and poppier numbers, but they kinda get increasingly baroque

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Saturday, March 9, 2024 7:49 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

thanks, as I go through these I have come to the conclusion that I actually do like Jethro Tull

I'd say that the odds are better that a given Tull song will be worthy if it's a ballad or "pop" song than a riff-rocker, maybe partly because the rockers last longer and have to make space for various often-monotonous instrumental solos.

Still, some eternal riffs in the Tull catalogue: Locomotive Breath, No Lullaby, Sweet Dream. Cross-eyed Mary, Hunting Girl, Something's On The Move, etc.

Frogbs - have you done Passion Play yet?

In the documentary I watched last year Dee Palmer said that Eddie Jobson was the dictionary definition of a wizard (she even said which dictionary, oxford maybe?) and I looked it up and didn't really catch her meaning, I suspected it was an insult but maybe not.

was about to, I thought I had it but it turns out it was Minstrel in the Galary lol

Valentijn otm velvet green is the ne plus ultra
For frogbs, this would be my Tull PO5 right now:
Velvet green
No lullaby
Witches promise
TaaB (the usual excerpt from part 1)
Mother goose

And top 5 albums:
Songs from the wood
Living in the past (the first LP of the 2LP set or the first CD of the 2CD set)
Aqualung
Heavy horses (ideally the box so you get the live show)
A (ideally the box so you get the especially killer live show)

Ohhhh, I didn't think this would get a reissue, I'm not sure that I've listened to it more than once.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/jethro-tull-bursting-out-the-inflated-edition/

I love how Thick as a Brick is claimed to be a parody of prog concept albums, which they thought would be apparent once people listened to the lyrics. as though people were gonna listen to it and go "yes I understand everything this guy is saying"

amazing album though surely one of the best prog LPs ever made parody or no

Also, “Inside” from Benefit is an absolute jam. Glen Cornick’s bass on this is just incredible.

― Naive Teen Idol, Monday, April 23, 2018 9:48 PM (five years ago)

This song sounds so much like Can.

finally found a copy of Passion Play. it's ridiculous but they definitely seem aware of that. pretty funny to follow up Thick as a Brick this way.

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like that and the War Child boxes got reissued. Despite being between #Tullbenders, I grabbed ‘em.

they seem to have repressed a number of the book sets, I just got Stand Up from Amazon.uk... which completes my collection! until the Christmas Album box comes out in a couple months, lol

Did they repress SftW?

not sure but based on prices and availability on Discogs, yes

They did, last year. Assume they haven’t sold out if you’re still seeing it still reasonably priced.

I've been slowly picking up vinyl copies, haphazardly working my way through the catalogue. Thankfully they can generally be gotten fairly cheaply, and at a record fair at the weekend I found a lovely 2nd press of Stand Up (although not that cheap, admittedly)

I think this is still my favourite (along with Benefit) listening again, I wish they had stayed in that same place for another record or two before migrating to slightly proggier/heavier shores.

'Reasons For Waiting' is so beautiful, the acoustic songs from this period are my Tull catnip.

Agreed, the atmosphere in Stand Up is incomparable.

Does it have the pop-up band inside the gatefold?

It does! Gotta admire the commitment to packaging, between the newspaper for TAAB and the libretto in A Passion Play

In the wake of this revive, I'm listening, while working this morning, to that Ian Anderson solo effort Walk Into Light -- it really really merits revival, this is a very good record. It's hard for me to imagine many hardcore Tull guys going for this; it's new wave, or rather 80s pop incorporating the edicts of new wave -- you could also call it synth pop. He plays his flute, but only in the service of the songs -- he's not soloing as in the 70s. It compares most in the catalogue to Stormwatch-era Tull but it's tighter as pop, these are pop songs -- when Jon Anderson makes solo records in this window they're still prog even if they're snappier than Yes, Anderson is I think wondering if Peter Gabriel doesn't have the right idea -- I.A. plays most of the instruments here, he's clearly in an auteur moment. Very interesting and good record; the arrangements take Anderson's vocals & lyrics out of the center but not out of the frame, it's a relief to have the space he's working in be bigger than him. Also if you do nothing else listen to "trains" all the way through, the last five seconds of it gave me the best laugh I'll have all day, though I say that with love.