Tag: Jethro Tull

Not the Pazz and Jop 1972 – #8

Jethro Tull – Thick As A Brick

Bands like Jethro Tull force me to confront my limitations as a music fan. I love a perfectly-constructed 3-to-5-minute pop song: within those dimensions can be fit the best that rock music has to offer – “Good Vibrations”, “Anarchy in the U.K.”, “Billie Jean”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “Hey Ya”. There are exceptions. I’ll stretch it to 7 or so minutes for “Layla” or “I Like Chopin”, go to 8 or 9 to accommodate “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” or “November Rain” or “Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard”. For the right song – “Marquee Moon” basically – 11 minutes is just fine. Anything beyond that is merely testing my patience.

So WTF am I supposed to do with a song that is 22 minutes long? There’s nothing in my background to prepare me for this. These aren’t really songs, they’re suites, with changes in tempo and theme and style, bound together by – well, what exactly? I expect these types of records reward repeated listens, and by the third time through I was starting to appreciate it more. Side one has a very playful and bouncy opening three minutes that left me thinking “maybe these guys aren’t so bad”, then Anderson is screeching in my ears and I’m ready to call it a day. There’s also a keyboard bit, with a little flute mixed in along the way, that starts around 12:30 that I quite like. 

Then I accidentally hit play on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and was reminded that three and a half minutes is more than enough time to make great art. Sometimes a longer piece of music doesn’t mean it’s more serious or important: maybe it’s just longer. Jethro Tull and their ilk are trying way too hard. Aretha Franklin only needed 2:27 to earn our “Respect”.

(Originally posted on Facebook, June 28, 2021)

Pazz and Jop 1971 – #20

Jethro Tull – Aqualung

We end our journey through 1971 with this, umm, classic. It’s hard to be objective about Jethro Tull: everything about them cries out pretension, from the name (taken from an agriculturist who died in 1741) to the prominence of flute in their music to the image I have never been able to clear from my memory banks of Ian Anderson in tights looking like a demented Pan. The whole thing is ripe for parody, and maybe that’s part of the problem: I’ve seen too many things over the years making fun of Tull-like bands to take the real thing very seriously.

But the real problem is that it simply isn’t very memorable. As I listened to this for a second time, I couldn’t think of anything to say about it. I don’t really dislike any of this, but that’s because I don’t have much of a reaction to it at all. Yeah, the flute is unique for a rock record, there are some lovely piano bits, the guitar definitely rocks, and I give a shit about almost none of it. I can imagine lots of effort being put into interpreting the profundities found on the lyric sheet, but I can’t be bothered to try. No one track stands out enough to call it my favourite, and there is nothing here worth hating. It just is. And so 1971 ends with a whimper. That 1972 will begin with a bang is an understatement.

(I thought about leaving out the Spotify link since I can’t recommend this record, but figured that if you wanted to punish yourself, it’s not my place to get in the way.)

(Originally posted on Facebook, May 8, 2021)