Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick (1972)
If there was any doubt about Tull early on, it was Aqualung that propelled the group to superstardom. There were songs receiving constant FM radio airplay, like the title track, “Cross-Eyed Mary” and “Locomotive Breath”. Many people saw the album as a concept album, especially since several songs were highly critical of organized religion, but Ian Anderson didn’t think it was a concept album.
Shortly after Aqualung came out, drummer Clive Bunker left, replaced by Barriemore Barlow. This new lineup first recorded a 5 song EP called Life is a Long Song. These fives songs ended up on the Living in the Past double semi-compilation album, as the final five cuts. The first full album with the new lineup of Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, John Evans, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, and Barriemore Barlow was Thick as a Brick. Like I said, Anderson didn’t feel Aqualung was a concept album (but we know we can’t believe what he said in regards to that album), but he said he purposely made Thick as a Brick a concept album. The original LP came with newspaper-like packaging, and there’s such a big reason to continue holding onto the LP, because the packaging was lost to make for the size restrictions of the CD (although the Japanese CD does replicate the full newspaper, it still isn’t the same being shrunk to CD size since it would be harder to read). Here, the “newspaper” is totally fictional. The paper states that an 8 year old named Gerald Bostock wrote the poem to Thick as a Brick. We all know that’s fiction, it was none other than Ian Anderson, we can all tell the lyrics were undeniably his style. There’s also a listing of BBC TV programs, which is also totally fictional, because it consists nothing of the sort of programs I know were aired on the BBC in 1972, no listings of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Doctor Who, Tomorrow’s World, etc. Not even the BBC News. And listings of programs like Disney: The Wonderful World of Colour*, the astrisk standing for “Not in colour”. I ended up laughing at parts of this “newspaper”, because you’ll find it hard to believe a lot of this happens, even in a small, out of the way, completely fictional English village like St. Cleve.
On the musical front, Tull did something they never did before, and I don’t think any rock act had done before: a whole album that’s essentially one song. The first two and a half or so minutes are rather acoustic, giving it a rather strong folk feel, with Ian Anderson’s trademark vocals and flute. It’s here that got some radio airplay. I get reminded of “Mother Goose” off Aqualung, because that was one of the album’s more acoustic, folk-oriented pieces (it always happened to be a favorite of mine off that album). People who bought Thick as a Brick was in for a surprise. Because after that, the band really gets rocking, with electric instruments, but still the same there are plenty of folk-influenced and acoustic passages throughout. The album goes through many different changes, as if they were a collection of songs segued throughout. Sometimes between changes, they’d go an extended guitar, organ, and flute solo, sometimes you’ll see the main acoustic guitar theme rear its head again to make you realize what you’re listening to.
Despite the risk the band take, the album was a huge success! In the United States it actually went to number on on the album charts! Hard to believe something like that happening today if some music act records a song that’s one full-length album! The rock critics, on the other hand were rather mixed towards this album.
More recently, since the rise of the Internet, this album regularly gets on the top list of almost every prog rock website out there as the “Top 10 progressive rock albums”, “Best progressive rock album ever made”, “Essential progressive rock albums”, etc. and regularly on the polls as a favorite in the prog rock community, and I can’t blame them. This is truly Tull at the top of their game, and it’s a no-brainer: get this album!
– Ian Anderson: vocals, flute, guitars, sax
– Martin Barre: guitars
– Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond: bass
– John Evans: Organ, piano
– Barriemore Barlow: drums, percussion
– David Palmer: Orchestrations