Released - March 1971
Genre - Progressive Rock
Producer - Ian Anderson & Terry Ellis
Selected Personnel - Ian Anderson (Vocals/Guitar/Flute); Martin Barre (Guitar); John Evan (Piano/Organ/Mellotron); Jeffrey Hammond (Bass); Clive Bunker (Drums/Percussion); David Palmer (Orchestral Arrangements)
Standout Track - Locomotive Breath
After achieving cult acclaim and vaguely positive critical notice with their first three albums (including 1970's Benefit, a decent but unremarkable album that hasn't made it onto my list on account of its lack of anything really special to make it stand out in the band's discography), Jethro Tull's next step was to be perhaps the most definitive of their career. Certainly, it resulted in what is perhaps their masterwork and is certainly their most popular and immortal album, but the release of Aqualung was also ultimately something of an albatross that would blight them for the rest of their career. While up until Aqualung Tull had flirted with progressive ideas - jazzy reworkings of classical music in "Bouree" from Stand Up, for instance - the band had largely carved out an identity as a blues and folk rock band. But their new album was heralded by many, contrary to the intentions of bandleader Ian Anderson, as a progressive concept album. While the ingredients are certainly there - the first half of the album features several character sketches of destitute figures on the fringes of society, such as the tramp Aqualung and the young prostitute Cross-Eyed Mary, while the second half features several songs ("My God," "Hymn 43" and "Wind-Up") that are attacks on the idea of organised religion versus informal spirituality - ultimately Aqualung is just a brilliant rock record with recurring lyrical themes as opposed to a full-blown concept album. Its reception as a prog album prompted Anderson to riposte with a tongue-in-cheek piss-take of the prog rock genre the following year with the masterful Thick As A Brick, and thereafter Tull would forever be labeled one of the major prog bands. While their music has always had hallmarks of prog, they have always been closer to blues rock, folk rock and hard rock than the true prog of, say, Yes or Pink Floyd and, as the seventies wore on and prog fell increasingly out of favour with the masses, it meant that the great music Tull were making found it increasingly difficult to reach the mainstream audience it once did.
So Aqualung is a major turning point for the band - it marks their storming into the mainstream and becoming a major arena act, but would also ultimately be a rod they built for their own backs in establishing a reputation for them that it would be difficult for them to shake off as the years went by. Mind you, any band who succeeded in making an album even one tenth as good as Aqualung would probably be very happy to accept the punishment of never really being able to top it. This is, pure and simply, one of the very finest rock records of all time, end of. The mood and style and dynamic is the same as Tull had come to finesse over the last few years, with the sound principally built around the folksy acoustic guitar, histrionic flute and gentle cooing of frontman Anderson and the hard, raw edge of Martin Barre's electric guitar. Newcomer John Evan (who overdubbed a few keyboard parts on Benefit but joins here as a full-time band member) even gets a few moments to shine and to pull focus away from the main lynchpin of Anderson and Barre, most notably on the extended piano introduction to the brilliant "Locomotive Breath." What has really been pushed into the stratosphere since their previous album is the songwriting itself. There's more or less nothing here that doesn't grab you by the scruff of the neck and demand your attention. Even the quiet acoustic pieces are totally arresting in their near-perfect execution. "Cheap Day Return," "Wond'ring Aloud" and "Slipstream" form a mini-suite of sorts, each one being a gentle, brief acoustic bridge between two longer setpiece songs, and each one is a brilliantly realised snippet of brilliant folk music in and of itself.
But the songs that those three little interludes weave between are among the best of Tull's career. First there's the instant classic of the title track, with its iconic dirty guitar riff later evolving into the finest solo Barre ever contributed to the band's output. It's followed immediately by the similarly riff-heavy "Cross-Eyed Mary," where Barre exchanges guitar licks with Anderson's breathless flute trills. "Mother Goose" is the first half's other classic, another piece of sunny acoustic folk in the vein of Stand Up's "Fat Man" or another of their earlier more folk-oriented songs. The album's second half ups the ante even more - "My God" is a true masterpiece, slowly expanding from Anderson's quiet intro into a monstrous beast via Barre's brutal guitar, and eventually winding up with by far the finest display of Anderson's virtuoso flute talent of the band's career. "Wind-Up" is another classic mining the same religious themes as "My God" and demonstrating again Barre's newfound talent for churning out spectacular arena-style hard rock riffs in its frenetic crescendo. But the album's finest moment comes with "Locomotive Breath," perhaps the greatest song of Tull's career. Again driven by Barre's iconic riffing, it also boasts another of Anderson's greatest flute solos and that aforementioned bluesy piano intro from Evan and is pure and simply one of the coolest-sounding rock songs ever recorded.
It's very rare indeed to find an album that contains absolutely no down-time, but Aqualung is one of that rare breed - there is not a single song that outstays its welcome, not a single moment where the listener hopes things will hurry along to the next great moment. Every moment is as captivating as the next, whether it's a quiet acoustic bridge or a heavy guitar riff. The album was rapturously received and guaranteed Tull a certain level of stardom for the next few years, even if it did begin to see the band pigeonholed in with a whole circle of artists they didn't necessarily see themselves in league with. Perhaps if Anderson could have foreseen just how much the rise of punk in the late 70s spelt the demise of most great prog bands, he might have shied away from the genre rather than whole-heartedly embraced it (albeit with his tongue firmly in his cheek), and perhaps Tull could then have been granted a more long-lasting immersion in the musical mainstream than they ultimately achieved. Still, that would have denied us dyed-in-the-wool prog fans of one of the genre's truly great albums in Thick As A Brick, and in many ways being a bizarre, unfashionable oddity is a status that suits the odd charisma of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull rather well. Perhaps if they'd spent whole decades at the forefront of fashion and trend they wouldn't be anywhere near as engaging or charming. Still, Aqualung is their moment in the sun and they deserve every second of it - it's one of those albums that I would insist on literally everybody listening to at least once.
Track Listing:
All songs written by Ian Anderson except where noted.
1. Aqualung (Ian Anderson & Jennie Anderson)
2. Cross-Eyed Mary
3. Cheap Day Return
4. Mother Goose
5. Wond'ring Aloud
6. Up To Me
7. My God
8. Hymn 43
9. Slipstream
10. Locomotive Breath
11. Wind-Up
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