b o b

For years, I was under the impression that the little three-minute bit that opens this album was the entirety of "Thick as a Brick". So I couldn't figure out why so many prog fans raved about it. Then one day a local radio station played a condensed eight or nine minute version of the whole album. When that opening three minutes ended and the song really kicked into gear, I suddenly understood what everyone was going on about. The album is mostly a high-energy affair, with various lyrical and musical themes returning with variations throughout the disc. The production is crystal clear, so that each instrument stands out in the mix. I particularly like the abundance of organ and piano. The melodies are mostly staccato blasts of notes, but they still manage to be memorable (you'll probably find yourself humming bits of the album after listening to it). My exposure to Jethro Tull has been limited to this album, Aqualung, a hits collection and a couple other albums borrowed from friends. Thick as a Brick is easily the best of what I've heard, and one of my favorite prog albums in general. review by Bob Eichler — 6-27-03 —

c o n r a d

This album is one of the true progressive rock classics. Even the newspaper style album cover has has become part of rock folklore. While not strictly original (John Lennon had already released a similar cover for Some Time in New York City), the cover is one of those nice extras that used to appear back in the seventies. There are fourteen pages of a pretend newspaper as the cover for the vinyl LP, which includes a (naturally good) review of the album. Ian Anderson's sarcastic, earthy lyrics can be a turn off to some. I for one have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what the concept of this album is. If the lyrics follow any theme it is a cynical observation of small minded simplistic approaches to life's problems. The album consists of one track split over two record sides. Ian Anderson himself admitted that this was not his original intention, and most of the album started off life as part of more conventional length tracks. The quality of these songs is so good though, that had they remained as individual entities this album would probably have produced four or five all time classic songs for Jethro Tull. The style is predominantly accoustic, with flute playing a very strong role in the sound of the album, but Martin Barre's heavier guitar style also gets a bit of a workout. The songs have been lovingly fitted together. Although the result is not always seamless, the album rises, falls and climaxes in such a way that it the album is clearly constructed as a forty minute suite of music rather than a bunch of songs stuck mindlessly one after the other. Perhaps it's synergy, perhaps the songs by themselves are unusually strong but whatever the case, this is undoubtedly one of Jethro Tull's finest efforts and the first Tull album I would recommend anyone to buy. review by Conrad Leviston — 1-7-03 —

j o e

The designated most agreed-upon progressive magnum opus of Jethro Tull among fans is this one, their first album to reach #1 in the United States. The album's concept concerns Gerald Bostock, a child prodigy ostracized by his local community for writing a suspiciously cryptic epic poem "Thick as a Brick." Fear not, however, for Jethro Tull has arrived, deigning to set the lad's poem to music for all the world to hear and decide its merit. George Carlin once said that the key to humor lies in the distortion, and while other concept albums from this time chose to wear their surrealism on their sleeve, Thick gains so much in its effectiveness by playing out a thoroughly preposterous idea so understatedly. The real charm of the album lies not so much in deciphering the lyrics as in imagining what you would do if you caught your 8-year old scribbling such ponderous lines as "The do-er and the thinker, no allowance for the other - as the failing light illuminates the mercenary's creed." To carry the joke further, the lyrics are even co-credited to Gerald Bostock. Ian Anderson chuckles in an interview that there are some people who still wonder whatever became of little Gerald...well, maybe he's touring with that bearded guy with the flute named Jethro Tull. The album packaging of Thick as a Brick is, of course, legendary: an elaborately designed mock-newspaper (reproduced in full for the 25th anniversary CD) that gives life to the plight of little Gerald and his milieu, the village of St. Cleve. The front cover's black and white photo, with a non-smiling Gerald front and center, combined with the droll subheading "Judges Disqualify 'Little Milton' in Last Minute Rumpus," is in and of itself pure genius. Additionally, the detail of the newspaper, developed by the band, shows a remarkable eye for capturing and satirizing the minutiae of parochial journalism banality. So, we are treated to a recipe for 'high-energy golfer's rainbow cake,' a notice that St. Cleve's Dramatic Society for Women needs new members for staging "Mutiny on the Bounty," and a hilariously awful (aren't they all) reader-submitted poem "Ode to a Nose." Of course, a good concept is one thing, but ultimately it is the music and performances of Thick as a Brick that cement it as one of the classics, not only of prog rock, but of rock. It builds upon the raw materials successfully employed from the band's previous album Aqualung. The initial, main theme that opens the album is its most recognized, finding Anderson in full minstrel mode, acoustic guitar in hand, with beautiful folk melodies akin to "Slipstream" and "Wond'ring Aloud" from Aqualung. This main, initial song presents F major as the tonic key of the piece. Still, it is more than ironic that most people who hear the phrase 'Thick as a Brick' are likely to think "Oh, that bright and peppy Jethro Tull song!" The majority of the album, in actuality, is a journey through minor keys. While chosen to be highly compatible with the tonic, these lend the piece a considerable edge nonetheless. Anderson first guides the peppy theme gently into an F minor segment, which serves to transition the piece to its next most recognizable part: a contrasting, fully electric section in C minor ("See there! A son is born.."). This in turn gradually leads into a more reposed section in G minor ("The poet and the painter..."), and so forth. If you look at a musical Circle of Fifths diagram that includes minor keys, you can see a neat progression for Part One of the album: the initial piece 'casting out' three pie slices to the left (F minor) and then winding its way back to the tonic slowly but surely by way of the C minor and G minor sections. Anderson also comes up with creative variations on the main song for when the tonic returns, using exactly the same acoustic guitar passages but with different vocal melodies (e.g., the last five minutes of Part One with "You curl your toes around..." and "I see you shuffle...," and also the "In the clear white circles..." song on Part Two). All the band's members are in peak form. I am reminded in listening to this just what a great rock organist John Evan was, with his fierce Hammond not even four minutes into the album. Martin Barre similarly sinks his teeth into the electric guitar parts, and the drumming of Barriemore Barlow shows why he invariably gets his share of votes on all those "Favorite Drummers" lists. As a unit, this band is simply combustible whenever the racing C minor theme breaks out and tight-as-nails when it comes to the technically demanding second half of Part Two. But at the helm of it all is Ian Anderson, who with this one truly established himself as a peerless writer and musician. Necessary and fun. review by Joe McGlinchey — 2-13-05 —

m a t t

A legendary album in legendary packaging (the mock newspaper) Thick as a Brick is certainly one of the major pieces of mainstream 1970s progressive rock. As they did at various other points in their career, Tull displayed an abrupt change of style from their previous albums. Aqualung's lingering blues remnants were purged and the sound was slicked up with keyboards and a first-rate production. The album is also renowned for being nearly 44 minutes of continuous music, the lone track break being artificial in that it was only done to accommodate the LP format on which it was originally released. It is something other than a "long song" (as it is often erroneously referred to) or a sequence of individual songs that happen to be segued (like A Passion Play). Thick as a Brick is a theme-and-variations piece organized around a circle of fifths, as has already been mentioned. Although it has polish, flair and (for the first half, anyway) exhibits a great economy despite its breadth, it is not a particularly complex piece of music even when compared to subsequent Jethro Tull albums. Minstrel in the Gallery, Songs From the Wood and Heavy Horses are arguably the most "progressive" Jethro Tull albums in the literal sense of the word. But it does prominently feature organs — which lend a recognizably "symphonic" character — and the layers of sound are so perfectly arranged that the album gives the first impression of being more complicated than it actually is. I think the first half is especially fantastic. Jethro Tull are at their most engagingly accessible, spinning out one memorable melody or riff after another. That's impressive enough, but what puts it all over the top is how well each "movement" of the piece is built into the next, creating a nicely unified whole. To that end, I think Thick as a Brick has to rank high on a very short list of the best extended composed pieces in all of progressive rock. There is an authority and precision to the music that is a hallmark of a mature band at the peak of their abilities. Ian Anderson and keyboardist John Evans are the stars of the show instrumentally, but every player in the band is in top form and they perfectly execute whatever is needed from them. For example, precious little is heard from guitarist Martin Barre after the first quarter of the record other than chords that provide texture, but his absence is barely notable except in the abstract. In other words, he is missed because he is good but I don't think that there are any passages in the music that would have been better had they contained more electric guitar. If I had to criticize this music at all, it would be that the second half isn't quite as economical as the first. Themes get repeated and I detect a slight straining for fresh ideas in the middle of the second part, as some of the sections go on a bit longer than might be ideal. I don't find this to be much of a problem, though, since I like all of the musical themes, anyway. The energetic, well-arranged finale mostly redeems these flaws, though, and it should be noted for the record that even most famous symphonies are shorter than 45 minutes and sometimes significantly so. Sustaining a unified work for such a duration is quite difficult and if the second part of Thick as a Brick isn't perfect, it still bests nearly all similar attempts that I've heard by other bands. Interestingly, Ian Anderson went against the grain of 1972 and chose to drape his most musically ambitious project to date with satire and daft humor (the latter being more a part of the live show than the album), rather than go the more common, more self-consciously "deep" route of mythology or spirituality. Although I find this to be refreshing, a perusal of the lyric sheet would indicate that while Thick as a Brick can be satiric, it is too earnest to be considered a satire; it really isn't all that different in theme or tone from Aqualung, and little Gerald Bostock is really just an Ian Anderson persona. The lyrics are basically Ian Anderson railing against the establishment, this time calling on the youth ("all you young men who are building castles") to think for themselves and not blindly repeat the mistakes of their elders. The theme may be time-worn but I, for one, think it's well-written and often clever and the allegorical nature of the lyrics relieves the narrative from the kind of didactic heavy-handedness that sometimes hurt Aqualung. I suppose the invention of Gerald Bostock and the poetry contest puts a distance between Ian Anderson and the messages of the album that some could claim as Anderson wanting to have his cake and eat it too, but this doesn't bother me. I don't think that many progressive rock albums have lyrics that reward much attention to them, but a good deal of Jethro Tull's '70s material makes for nice exceptions. Today, Thick as a Brick is seen as one of the pillars of 1970s English progressive and I think that its classic status is well-earned. review by Matt P. — 4-20-05 —