Description
Jethro Tull – Thick As A Brick / EMI Music Audio CD 1997 / 4954002
UPC 724349540026
Product Details:
Editorial Reviews:
Digitally Remastered. Bonus Tracks Include: Thick As A Brick (Live At Madison Square Gardens) & 1978 Interview.
Thick as a Brick is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released in March 1972. The album contains a continuous piece of music, split over two sides of an LP record, and is a parody of the concept album genre. The original packaging, designed like a newspaper, claims the album to be a musical adaptation of an epic poem by fictional eight-year-old genius Gerald Bostock, though the lyrics were actually written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson.
The album was recorded in late 1971, featuring music composed by Anderson and arranged with the contribution of all band members. The album was the first to include drummer Barriemore Barlow, replacing the band's previous drummer Clive Bunker. The live show promoting the album included the playing of the full suite, with various comic interludes. Thick as a Brick is considered by critics to be the first Jethro Tull release to entirely consist of progressive rock music. It received mixed reviews upon its release, but was a commercial success and topped various charts in 1972. Today it is regarded as a classic of progressive rock, and has received several accolades. Anderson produced a follow-up to the album in 2012, focusing on the adult life of the fictional Gerald Bostock.
Tracklist:
| 1 | Thick As A Brick | 22:45 |
| 2 | Thick As A Brick | 21:05 |
| 3 | Thick As A Brick (Live At Madison Square Garden 1978) | 11:48 |
| 4 |
Interview With Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Martin Barre And Jeffrey Hammond |
16:28 |
More Details:
- Arranged By, Performer – Jethro Tull
- Bass Guitar, Voice [Spoke Some Words] – Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond
- Drums, Timpani, Percussion – Barriemore Barlow
- Electric Guitar, Lute – Martin Barre
- Executive-Producer – Terry Ellis
- Flute, Acoustic Guitar, Vocals [Singing], Violin, Saxophone [Sax], Trumpet – Ian Anderson
- Organ, Piano, Harpsichord – John Evan
- Written-By – Gerald Bostock, Ian Anderson
About the Band:
Jethro Tull are a British rock band formed in Blackpool, Lancashire, in 1967. Initially playing blues rock and jazz fusion, the band later developed their sound to incorporate elements of hard rock and folk to forge a progressive rock signature. The band is led by vocalist/flautist/guitarist Ian Anderson, and has featured a revolving door of lineups through the years including significant members such as guitarists Mick Abrahams and Martin Barre, keyboardists John Evan and Dee Palmer, drummers Clive Bunker, Barriemore Barlow, and Doane Perry, and bassists Glenn Cornick, Jeffrey Hammond, John Glascock, and Dave Pegg.
The group first achieved commercial success in 1969, with the folk-tinged electric blues album Stand Up, which reached No. 1 in the UK, and they toured regularly in the UK and the US. Their musical style shifted in the direction of progressive rock with the albums Aqualung (1971), Thick as a Brick (1972) and A Passion Play (1973), and shifted again to hard rock mixed with folk rock with Songs from the Wood (1977) and Heavy Horses (1978). After an excursion into electronic rock in the early-to-mid 1980s, the band won its sole Grammy Award with the 1987 album Crest of a Knave. Jethro Tull have sold an estimated 60 million albums worldwide, with 11 gold and five platinum albums among them. They have been described by Rolling Stone as "one of the most commercially successful and eccentric progressive rock bands".
The last works as a group to contain new material were released in 2003, though the band continued to tour until 2011. Anderson said Jethro Tull were finished in 2014; however, in September 2017 he announced plans for a tour to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the band's first album This Was. The compilation 50 for 50 was released in 2018.
The reformed group—now billed as "Ian Anderson and the Jethro Tull band"—still performs live, and has announced tour dates into 2020. The current band line-up includes musicians who have been members of Anderson's solo band since 2012.
