I have recently listen to this album by Jethro Tull, about 50 years since I last heard it. I wasn`t even out of secondary school when this album was released in March 1972. I was a Tull fan, but not a prog fan. I was an ELP fan, but mostly because of the rockin`. When Tull wanted to make a prog album, I guess there already were references like Yes and Genesis. An album `bout "life and death" was something even Pete Townsend of The Who had been working with as his abandoned "Life House" project.

Anyway, I wasn`t ready for it. I just had that Tull album for a short time, but I remember some really obscure sounding tune in the middle of side 2 of the vinyl.The rest of the album was neither dark nor heavy. There were a lot of acoustic guitar and flute, but compared to their previous Aqualung, I thought this was "light-weight".Today I`m a lot more receptive and able to appreciate it on it`s own terms, but still no prog fan.

What really raises my curiosity is that oddity on side 2. I needed to listen more closely than back then and ask myself, -what is this? It sure is a complex piece of music. It`s just as they have found a few striking chords which make them able to elaborate the song in a classic way. I have to say it`s dark, one of the darkest songs I`ve ever heard. I hear some tragic and claustrophobic lamenting. It makes me feel a bit miserable. Well, it`s probably meant as a stand-out song, a bit like "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd.

I literally just listened to this, and A Passion Play over the last two mornings on my drive into work.

As a big early Jethro Tull fan, to me Thick represents the end of that great run. You had This Was, which was great blues rock, different than what they become. You had Benefit, which was good, though I've always thought uneven. Anchored by some few choice songs. You had Stand Up, a truly great underrated album IMO. Bouree is known, A New Day Yesterday was always a part of their set, but We Used To Know, Reason For Waiting, Look Into The Sun, Fat Man. A really great album thats not talked about enough. Then it all culminates with Aqualung, which is unequivocally fantastic. They'd nailed the formula and it just sounds so effortlessly perfect, every song, even the nonhits. They'd elevated.

So expectations were high for Thick As A Brick. To me, after listening many many times in my life, it's ultimately bloated nonsense. There are good ideas, that are just lengthened and expanded to fill time to the point that it kinda ruins the quality of them. It starts out strong with Thick As A Brick but it goes down swiftly from there. Poet and the Painter and Childhood Heroes show there are good ideas present, but everything feels like its just there to fill out the side. I'd say it feels all made up on the spot, but obviously careful planning and construction was done. But it just felt like everything they'd perfected with Aqualung was then amplified and brought to a meandering place with Thick. I don't say its worthless, I still have it as the end of that "that" era of the band, but if I were being honest about it there isn't a ton I'd recommend, not in the way I would their albums before.

A Passion Play is worse, though even they wouldn't argue otherwise. It just feels like for two albums Jethro Tull, of all bands at that time, felt they could do WHATEVER they wanted to fill out two album sides and it kinda undid them for me. After that, I never really got back on board. It feels like A Passion Play was just more of the same as Thick, but worse. It just goes everywhere, never compellingly, and there's even that ridiculous story in the middle. That and Thick are two albums where I wonder if the "album format side limits" helped or hurt them. Clearly they had to get to 20 minutes each side, but would there have been a more concise message without limits. Hopefully it wouldn't have gone in the other direction and gotten more aimless.

But yeah, to me Thick is a cool experiment with mixed to negative results to me. I keep it on my iPod cause I've already cut up the songs into separate tracks (@#$%& them, its not all one long song) and I can't find that anywhere else (I think the newest remaster had it), so its more for posterity than anything else. But yeah, it always feels like it should be better, but they bought full on into a concept that I'm not even sure they understood. Praise where praise is due, they went full force and the liner notes and whole story behind it is impressive commitment, but its never made the album better for me. The biggest fault I have with it is it followed Aqualung, so I can't even accuse them of not knowing what "good" material is. IMO they just got lazy with editing or started to believe their own hype.

As Ian Anderson told many times, brick was a reaction on people calling Aqualung a concept-album. Which it wasn't.

So in response they made Brick, a total ridiculous story but with imho some great music.

Totally suprised by the succes of Brick they made a "serious" concept album, passion play.
But that one was not great nor a success as brick.

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rolling1us
As Ian Anderson told many times, brick was a reaction on people calling Aqualung a concept-album. Which it wasn't.

So in response they made Brick, a total ridiculous story but with imho some great music.

Totally suprised by the succes of Brick they made a "serious" concept album, passion play.
But that one was not great nor a success as brick.

Yeah, that´s true. To just call it a ridiculous story and nothing more sheds some light to me. A lot of people have tried to explain it, but it´s full of bits hard to make any sense of. I think that´s because it wasn´t meant seriously in the first place. Yet I believe the music has stood the test of time, although I didn´t like it back then.

I used to not be able to reach for the radio dial quick enough to put something else on when I heard Jethro Tull come on.

But I happened to catch them as an opening act to ELP and was blown away how good they were live and it completely changed my mind on them.

I think it`s a fantastic good album. I have played it a lot since I bought it when it was new in 1972 and have several copies. 40 years later TAAB 2 came out, and now I use to play them as a pair.

Per Arne

I actually like most of the stuff on this album but agree it goes on for way too long.

At some points it seems like they are just trying to fill in the space for the 2nd side.

Living in the Past is a great album. I haven't listened to it for some time.

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georgemcdonnell314
I actually like most of the stuff on this album but agree it goes on for way too long.

At some points it seems like they are just trying to fill in the space for the 2nd side.

Living in the Past is a great album. I haven't listened to it for some time.

I don't have many Jethro Tull albums to speak of. Historically, I have been hot and cold towards them, seeing them as an acquired taste so to speak. However, when I do listen to them, I always seem to come back to Living in the Past. A lot of great stuff on that one!

A book is made on the album written by laura Shenton:

[www.amazon.co.uk]?

She writes: A rather fine English folk melody emerges. Anderson´s voice becomes more severe, a classical guitar is introduced, and the music takes an Iberian turn. A harpsicord plays as the guitar repeats the riff from George Harrison´s Wah Wah.

-Intriguing, eh?

I think for many "Rock" fans coming to Tull, it's easier to relate if you've had a little exposure to old world British folk music.

If not, it can all sound just a bit weird , and some folks don't get past that.

There are very hard contrasts which make a sweet/ sour listening experience. There are abrupt stops and new beginnings which are in fact frustrating to listen to. I get the feeling of just some aural illustrations to a theatre play that make little sense on it´s own.

Considering that "oddity" on side 2, I can hear it´s packed with a lot of instruments. That´s what contributes to make it so outlandish sounding. Hadn´t it been for that heavy handed electric guitar which underlines each step of the foot in this depressing march, this could have been a really sweet song.

Update MY view:

The 1998 remaster is brilliant, and the album is full of subtle details. I have found it useful to follow the division of 8 parts suggested by reviews elsewhere on the net.

Side 1 opens with “REALLY DON´T MIND/ SEE THERE A SON IS BORN”. This ends with an instrumental break consisting of electric guitar and organ.

Then we get “THE POET AND THE PAINTER”. This one starts with a mesmerizing flute solo. In the middle of the song we get an instrumental break for 2 minutes with an electric guitar solo. I dare say that this “guitar solo” is some kind of fusion/ jazz rock/ prog music with a lot of instruments involved. It´s not everybody´s darling, different as it is from all the real songs.

Third song is “WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE OLD MAN´S GONE/ FROM THE UPPER CLASS”. The lyrics of the first part is really difficult to understand. We get an instrumental break with an organ solo for about 2 minutes, followed by the second part; a jig with fiddle that ends with a beautiful flute solo.

Then there is “YOU CURL YOUR TOES IN FUN/ CHILDHOOD HEROES”. Both parts are among the best songs of the album with fun word play, although the meaning is anybody´s guess.

Side 1 ends with an instrumental organ solo with some oriental theme that shall be repeated on side 2, plus some wind noise. At the beginning of side 2 the noise continues presumably as some banging on the piano chords, plus the oriental theme from the end of side 1. In addition we can hear the theme from “YOU CURL YOUR TOES IN FUN" played by the flute.

Then we get some kind of reprise from one of the songs on side 1, but this time as “SEE THERE A MAN IS BORN/” followed by “/ CLEAR WHITE CIRCLES”. However, after the reprise part we get some drum and organ solo plus some spoken interlude. Then comes the second part about some everyday scene where blue-eyed soldiers are queuing up and chatting at the office canteen, sung by Ian with acoustic guitar only. Like the rest of the album, it obviously means something in some vague way.

Then we are in for some slowing down of tempo. Only an acoustic guitar can be heard. The plaintive “LEGENDS AND BELIEVE IN THE DAY” begins. I don´t know what to make of it. Ian uses his throat muscles to create a vibrato effect on his flute. Very many instruments can be heard, like organ, harpsichord, electric and acoustic guitar. It´s a really sad song, rythmically very slow, like a march. It has some beauty, but Ian´s singing is very sad and tiresome.

The half sung/ half spoken “THE TALES OF YOUR LIFE” follows, after an electric guitar instrumental that some would call “heavy”. This whole bit is very tiresome.

Then comes a reprise of “CHILDHOOD HEROES” which ends with those words from the beginning of the album; “- And your wise men don´t know how it feels, to be thick as a brick.” It seems "the wise men" represent the good ones and those "thick as a brick" represent the bad ones. Side 1 is the bright side and side 2 is the dark side. Side 1 is great, side 2 not so great.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2024-07-29 15:32 by noughties.