Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick

Released - March 1972

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - Ian Anderson

Selected Personnel - Ian Anderson (Vocals/Guitar/Flute/Violin/Flute/Saxophone); Martin Barre (Guitar); John Evan (Piano/Keyboards/Organ); Jeffrey Hammond (Bass); Barriemore Barlow (Drums/Percussion); David Palmer (Orchestral Arrangements)

Standout Track - Thick As A Brick (Part I)

"Locomotive Breath" was the song that first made me fall in love with Jethro Tull. The second I heard it, I knew this would be a band that would become a major obsession for me. As soon as I had become au fait with Aqualung, I was reliably informed that the very next place I needed to go while investigating them was Thick As A Brick. If Aqualung had left me with even the slightest doubt as to my faith in this band, Thick As A Brick swept it away entirely. To this day, I have real trouble deciding which of the two is the band's best album. Aqualung is far more serious and heartfelt, and also more concise, but Thick As A Brick is such a deliriously brilliant showcase for Ian Anderson's breadth of imagination, his devilish and clownish sense of humour and is a far more ambitious and exciting piece of work as a whole. Suffice to say that anybody who has even a passing interest in the music of Jethro Tull needs to listen to at least those two albums in order to have a decent appreciation of just what they can do. Their 1972 classic is not just one of their two finest albums, it's also easily in the running for being one of the all-time great prog rock albums, despite being conceived as little more than an over-the-top piss-take of the genre as a whole.

In the wake of Aqualung, Anderson found himself suddenly being confronted with suggestions that Jethro Tull were a progressive rock band and that they had created a progressive concept album dealing with the twin themes of religion and social down-and-outs. Anderson felt confused by having this label thrown at him, having only ever set out to write a collection of disparate songs that might occasionally share similar themes, and even today continues to dispute the suggestion that Aqualung was a concept album. Nevertheless, Ian Anderson has always been a man with an impish sense of humour who rises to an unprecedented situation not with protestation or annoyance but with some sort of ingenious joke. Thick As A Brick is perhaps the greatest joke in the history of music - Anderson set about preparing an album that would be "the mother of all concept albums," taking the musical DNA of the work of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the like and turning it into something utterly ridiculous. So it was that he decided to make an album containing only one forty-five minute song split over the two sides of the original LP. Though it was inevitable that something like this would happen eventually given the increasingly elaborate developments in prog music at the time, it had never happened before and it feels significant that the first person to do it was somebody with his tongue firmly in his cheek. It was an idea that could so easily have ended up being terrible, if somebody less imaginative or talented had attempted it, but Anderson clearly had a great deal of affection for the prog music of his contemporaries and actually had an enormous talent for writing music with all the complex time signatures and instrumentations and lengthy instrumental segments of prog music. At no point listening to the album do you feel you're listening to a bunch of novices ill-equipped to be dabbling with the music they're making fun of. Rather, you're listening to a band who really are putting their heart and soul into making one of the most game-changingly brilliant prog albums of all time and who just happen to be doing it as an uproarious send-up.

It wasn't just in the music itself that Anderson allowed his imagination to let loose. Everything about this album would be ludicrous and clownish - the finished product came in the form of a full, entirely fictional newspaper featuring games and fake news stories that offered further opportunity for impish invention. The principal story showcased on the newspaper's front page concerned the central theme of the album itself, namely that the lyrics of the lengthy song were written for a poetry competition by an eight-year-old boy named Gerald Bostock and nicknamed "Little Milton," who was subsequently disqualified from said competition. It's an appropriately stupid conceit, and it's also easy to forget, given the ludicrous context, that Thick As A Brick does actually contain some of the finest lyrics Anderson ever penned ("Really don't mind if you sit this one out, my word's but a whisper, your deafness a shout. I may make you feel but I can't make you think, your sperm's in the gutter, your love's in the sink.") So what of the music itself? Once again, it's Anderson and guitarist Martin Barre who are really at the heart of everything, although keyboardist John Evan is given the odd moment to really make his presence felt via the odd organ solo. It's not really worth my trying to go through this ludicrous epic in great detail given the sheer breadth of imagination and musicality on offer, although its two best moments are its opening iconic acoustic guitar riff, punctuated by the occasional stab of electric guitar and piano from Barre and Evan respectively, as well as the similarly iconic trills of Anderson's flute. The return of the riff at the very end of the piece, this time accompanied by the stirring and dramatic strings of David Palmer, also makes for one of the most musically satisfying moments of the entire piece. There's also the military stomp of Evan's organ part that comes near the end of the first half which is a standout moment, but ultimately I could go on and on about the moments on this behemoth of a song that make the hair stand on end and really excite you. Ultimately, just listen to the whole thing all the way through and be swept along and staggered by its diversity and its dynamism and its ridiculous vaulting ambition.

In the wake of the success of Aqualung, Thick As A Brick continued to spur Tull along in their sudden surge to massive mainstream success. The more traditionalist rock fans who had enjoyed their work up until now enjoyed its sense of humour and its ambition, while true prog fans who perhaps had yet to really find something they truly loved about Tull were suddenly convinced they had the credentials to join the ranks of their other heroes like Yes and Genesis. They had managed to make the kind of album that would totally alienate their core audience while simultaneously making fun of the audience that would enjoy it, and somehow managed to come out having successfully pleased everyone. Nowhere else in the history of rock music is there a story of a practical joke that's been so masterfully executed or that's had such a positive effect. Of course, the success of Ian Anderson's grand joke would be something of a double-edged sword - it meant that in coming years Jethro Tull would be perceived as having accepted their status as a prog band, which would reap rewards for some time until the rise of punk in the late 70s led to the demise of prog. Tull returned to their folk roots to survive, but would never again be as popular as they were in 1972 having come to be seen as a pompous dinosaur prog band. But when that cost comes on the heels of an achievement as towering as Thick As A Brick, it's difficult for them to complain. The brilliance of this album also had a negative effect on their work for the next two years - the followup was a misguided attempt to repeat the same joke with another epic one-song album entitled A Passion Play that has some great moments but lacks the humour and innovative spirit of Thick As A Brick, and it wouldn't be until 1975's Minstrel In The Gallery that they again made something truly essential. But over their subsequent decades-long career, despite many other brilliant albums still to come, Thick As A Brick remained one of the high points of their legacy, to the extent that Anderson even released a sequel last year entitled Thick As A Brick 2: Whatever Happened To Gerald Bostock? It's actually a brilliant album and far better than it could have been, but it does struggle to live up to the heritage of this early masterpiece.

Track Listing:

Written by Ian Anderson.

1. Thick As A Brick (Part I)

2. Thick As A Brick (Part II)