Jethro Tull: Classic or Dud?

http://www.tullpress.com/images/tull803.jpg

"And then I turned around, exited Vault 82, and decided to try my luck alone in the post-apocalyptic wasteland"

Always good to be reminded that the "long hair with receding hairline" look used to be a thing.

"They were the best NASCAR pit crew I ever had, and that's why I took them to Mars with me, to win the Red Planet 350"

Hahaha!

"It took all year for us find one another, so there was only one glorious weekend, before they busted up the union and we went our separate ways, that we were the Brotherhood of Lunar Miners Local 580 Zero-G Perpendicular-Track Roller Derby Team"

I've got mixed feelings about Minstrel In The Gallery, but it's mostly good.

The title track is mostly great but I'm not so fond of the rockier second half. Aside from a few moments "Cold Wind to Valhalla" and "Black Satin Dancer" don't really do much for me sadly.

But "Requiem" and "Baker St. Muse" are wonderful ("I can't get out!" is one of my favorite bits of non-musical jokery in an album). The rest is good.

Bonus highlights: the early version of "Requiem" is well worth hearing and the BBC version of "Minstrel in the Gallery" has a great vocal echo effect at the start and the BBC "Aqualung" really thrilled me with the opening and closing sections.

Until the Stormwatch deluxe comes out I think I'll start in chronological order from the first album.

those three BBC versions at the end totally slay, i actually only have those on my player currently in lieu of the actual album.

I heard "Bungle in the Jungle" today and jeez, that song, which I liked a lot at 13, is terrible.

Just put on "Living in the Past," and whew, this one is still good.

The other "Bungle in the Jungle" tracks from the Chateau Sessions are brilliant.

War Child is weird, having my favorite Tull song and what may be my least favorite

"Bungle in the Jungle" was of seven audio questions at a trivia contest I was part of last week. Same thing: loved it when it was on the radio, "Living in the Past" a thousand times better today.

Ha, I didn't know until now that "Bungle" was their biggest hit in North America. Top 5 in Canada! I don't mind it tbh but yeah, it's no "Living in the Past". I really like the 5/4 groove (with a 6/8+2/4 feel) in that one.

"Skating Away" is killing me right now. I liked this as a kid but now I LIKE it like it.

It’s wonderful

The early version in the Chateau bonus material on A Passion Play is worth hearing as well, though not better than the war child version

Skating Away is one of their best songs!

Sorry, the good tracks I was referring to were called "Law of the Bungle (Part I)", "Tiger Toon" and "Law of the Bungle (Part II)". The last one is a brilliant instrumental with no animal stuff apart from Barre introducing himself as an owl with smooth feathers.

weird that we didn't do a POX Jethro Tull pack in the days of POX fever. Few bands better served by one imo - the stumbling point being both "thick as a brick" and "passion play" would throw off purists. I'm not a purist.

Thick As A Brick i.e. the song that starts "really don't mind if you sit this one out"
Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day
To Cry You A Song
Teacher
Locomotive Breath
Nothing to Say
Heavy Horses
Taxi Grab
Orion*
Fylingdale Flyer*

*I loved this band when I was a kid, as I've said, and got into these songs during that phase so I have affection for these songs they may or may not deserve

honestly though no, sub out something for "Requiem" off Minstrel in the Gallery

Though a Tull fan since age 9, the thing of this year for me has been: the album A is a great album. It’s closer to oingo boingo than 70s tull and unlike anything else in the discography but turns out it rules

Not a POX, but I did try a singles poll a few years ago:

Jethro Tull...They Were a Singles Band!

I like to put on Stand Up every once in a while.

One of my early mixes was just all their slow or super light-hearted tracks. Summerday Sands, Requiem, Wond’ring Aloud, One White Duck, For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me...

I feel like that would be a good way back in if I were to revisit the band anytime soon.

I remember clipping the tiny instrumental segments right before and after ‘The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles’ and putting at least one of them in my mix. Such a beautiful little passage.

My highlight of last year: A Passion Play. Any moment in life could be improved by shifting into one of the main transitions from that album.

I need to spend more time with it, and Aqualung, they are my most neglected, I tend to just go straight to Benefit, Stand Up and Songs From The Wood these days.

I've tried so many times to get into A Passion Play and every time I do I always come away from it thinking "wow, that was a bit of a slog" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjZ2LxmRJ8E

I used to listen to this group a bit when I was a baby teen but have largely blanked on it since. I'd probably still remember every bit of Aqualung and TAAB though.

Anyway, HMV have two of the Steven Wilson remix CDs for a tenner - which should I get first, the aforementioned two or A Passion Play and Stand Up, neither of which I'm familiar with AFAIR?

Stand up is a better album but passion play probably benefits more from wilsonization

I'll be quite thrilled if Stand Up is better, because if I haven't made it clear here, Passion Play is probably my favorite album I've heard in the last 3 or 4 years.

Started Too Old To Rock'n Roll. It's the least impressive Tull album I've heard so far (of the 7 I've heard) but "From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser" is an obvious standout, lovely.

I've enjoyed the deluxe book a lot. I had no idea Dave Gibbons drew the sleeve comic before he had done anything big, he's interviewed. An interview with two members of John Glascock's earlier band Carmen (one of them was Glascock's girlfriend), a Visconti produced flamenco band who were on the rise before disastrous mismanagement killed them. A story about Anderson and Rockette Morton going motorbiking together. And more photos that are making me believe that Tull has more fun photos than any other band.
Anderson's notes on the songs continue to be interesting. He talks about Britain's sleazy and exploitative tv gameshows. He had felt that spending money like crazy is disrespecting the fans who gave him that money. He feels very uncomfortable about the lyrics of "Pied Piper" now and seems to regret it. Discussing another song about dirty old men, he says that singing in character is a risk but sometimes it's the best way to do a song, just hoping people wont assume you're like that character.

Carmen in 1973, more rocky than expected
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ1-hyRJSHY

In "Bad Eyed And Loveless" he describes a woman as being like a warm fart at Christmas.

Really impressed with Carmen's debut, Fandangos In Space, wasn't expecting anything that great when I was curious about this band.

Too Old is not a great album. So many songs have their great moments but ultimately don't hit the mark, apart from "From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser" which is amazing. Barrie Barlow hated the title track and I sort of understand why.

Bonus track "Small Cigar" is such a brilliant little character sketch ("if you ask me they're all on their way to upper middle class oblivion"), love it for similar reasons to why I love Ween's "Your Party".

If you are wondering what the deal is with the Too Old deluxe version, you're not alone, I wasn't sure until I read the sleeve notes because the product description doesn't explain it well.
Master tapes for half the album were missing but there was an alternate version of the album recorded for a tv special (somewhere between Top Of The Pops performances and an album length music video) which was considered better than the original album (I agree) so they remastered that and included bonus remasters of half the original album that they could locate and included a flat transfer of the original album.
A dvd includes the tv special, which is okay at best (I think the band don't like it), only one track really makes a halfway decent music video.

Agree that it's overall a failure and the worst of their prime stretch

I think Anderson doesn't care that much for it either, he said the whole thing was just a bit too forced.

I think maybe they recorded maybe a tad too many albums in the 70s.

I thought War Child was your least favorite?

Oh no. War Child is the problem piece, with stunning highlights and outtakes that are better than half of what’s on the album, where I’ve neurotically fashioned my own tracklist etc etc. War Child is unsuccessful as an album but TOTRnR is just kinda bad.

I actually think the title track is great until they get to that abominable boogie section

I actually like "Prelude" better because it has most of my favorite elements of the title track. It's understandable why it became an anthem for fans, with lyrics like "unfashionable til the end".

"Jack A Lynn" (early version)

I've been on a massive Tull kick lately, listening to the 5.1 mixes I've pulled down online and this version of the song (which ended up as a Broadsword outtake) is just hypnotically beautiful. "Quatrain" is another great Heavy Horses bonus -- this incredible jig. I think I like this stuff more than the record proper.

https://www.goldminemag.com/news/rhino-to-release-a-special-anniversary-edition-of-jethro-tulls-stormwatch

...40th Anniversary edition of Stormwatch released October 18th 2019

Steven Wilson remix, 6 previously unreleased tracks, a 2-disc live show from 1980. I am v. excited, it's my favorite Tull album and despite that could probably benefit from a remix, the CD has always sounded kind of flat to me.

I went to one of the shows on that tour. Crossing my fingers it's included! (I remember yelling super loud during the "Locomotive Breath" intro.)

Looking forward to it.

I may pop for this as I’m regretting that I let so many of these go OOP – the Martin Webb liners are fantastic on the three I have.

They really need to reissue these.

'A' in about 6 months from now I guess, that's where I will be stepping off the bus with these reissues I reckon.

Has A been announced?

Not sure, I could find out, I can't imagine they're gonna stop now, would be weird if they skipped to Broadsword...