So I had Thick as a Brick (Album) on...

[Nick]

Quite loudly, and from the next room Amanda made the determination that the record sucked.

I know I can fail from time to time, but do I ever reach levels such as this?

[ACID_FOX]

Well, it's definatley not one of my favourite JT albums

[Sigz]

If she said that after hearing anything in the first quarter of the song than it is unforgivable and you should dump her immediately.

[Fluffy Lothario]

I had Tull's best of for about six months. I forced myself through it about four times, and nothing ever appealed to me.

[glaurung]

The amount of fail in this thread is disturbing.

[Sigz]

The amount of fail in this thread is disturbing.

[UnutterableSquid]

I think that Thick as a Brick is a rather enjoyable album.

I've listened to it quite a lot lately, and have blasted in my car on more than a few occasions.

Sure, the song is basically the musical equivalent of going insane, but that doesn't make it bad.

[aurorablind]

I love Thick as a brick. The record that got me into Jethro Tull. She faild.

[Gadough]

Sure, the song is basically the musical equivalent of going insane, but that doesn't make it bad.

A prog forum is the only place this sentence would ever be uttered. 

[sirbradford117]

That album is quite possibly THE FARTHEST THING EVER from "suck."

[mizzl]

That album is quite possibly THE FARTHEST THING EVER from "suck."

[hefdaddy42]

Quite loudly, and from the next room Amanda made the determination that the record sucked.

I know I can fail from time to time, but do I ever reach levels such as this?

It's been done, but only rarely.

[skydivingninja]

Thick as a Brick is pretty good, but Aqualung is the best them.

[Orbert]

Thick as a Brick is my favorite Tull album.  It has some awesome themes and melodies, excellent Tull musicianship and production as always, and is perfect for road trips when you can say "I just want to play this one song..."

[blackngold29]

Isn't that generally regarded as the best prog album ever? I've always wanted to buy it, but they never have it at FYE when I go because that place sucks.

[Orbert]

It's regarded by many as the best prog album ever, but that of course is widely debated in the prog community, because everything is widely debated in the prog community, even what constitutes the prog community itself.

I believe the story goes:

Tull had released Aqualung and, just for the hell of it, Ian Anderson gave "Titles" to Side One and Side Two.  People started looking for common themes between the songs (and of course they found them, even if none of them were intentional).  The most obvious is that the character Aqualung is mentioned in the song "Cross-Eyed Mary".  People started calling it a concept album, and Anderson was actually kinda miffed because it most definitely was not a concept album, and he should know since he wrote it.

So he said "Okay, you want a concept album?  This is a concept album."  And he started taking all the songs he'd been working on for the next album and seeing if he could string them together.  And then, what the hell, see if he could make it all fit together, with recurring musical and lyrical themes and variations, the works.  And because he still wasn't really serious about it, threw in some spoken word and an orchestral section, because those kinds of things show up in prog, you know.  That was Thick as a Brick.

And again, people ate it up.  He said "No, no, no, this wasn't supposed to even be serious!" and started writing A Passion Play, which was meant to be a concept album, an actual passion play.  The rest is (oft-disputed) history.

[pogoowner]

Thick as a Brick is fantastic.

[SoundscapeMN]

I ranked it my 5th favorite album of all-time a couple of years ago.

[Perpetual Change]

Under normal circumstances, I'd say sometimes you've just got to let them go. But I've seen Mandy at a DT show, and she's one of the (I think) 3 females ever to enter the WPAPU chat. So, I'd say give her a break on this one. Tull's not for everyone

[glaurung]

Thick as a Brick is pretty good, but Aqualung is the best them.

I can agree with this. But It's still a pretty good album.

[KevShmev]

Overall, it's pretty good, but it meanders too much at times.  I am sure some will say that that is what "prog" is supposed to, but not for me.  I gave it another go a while back and had a tough time getting through all of it, quite honestly.

[Dr. SeaWolf]

I freaking love Thick as a Brick... one of the first progressive rock albums I ever listened to.

[Global Laziness]

If she said that after hearing anything in the first quarter of the song than it is unforgivable and you should dump her immediately.

it is unforgivable and you should dump her immediately.

you should dump her immediately.

dump her immediately.

dump her

dump

[ACID_FOX]

...Heavy Horses is the best them.

[SoundscapeMN]

the album by Tull that I and would think more folks would debate about with this is  A PASSION PLAY.

[Seventh Son]

All Tull is amazing, what are you people talking about?

Anyway, the first half is amazing, but the second half is underwhelming, but I get what they were aiming for.

[TAC]

This thread needs LudwigVan!

[Orbert]

the album by Tull that I and would think more folks would debate about with this is  A PASSION PLAY.

But there's not nearly so much to debate about with A Passion Play.  It is a passion play, in the classic form, complete with the little diversion in the middle.  It's clearly a single work on a single theme, and thus fits pretty much everyone's definition of "concept album" so there's nothing to argue about there, and Ian has stated that it was meant to be this way.

People seem to want to debate Thick as a Brick on grounds like "it's really just a bunch of shorter tunes strung together" but that's the worst possible critique.  All longer works are composed of shorter parts put together.  If there are multiple themes, they were literally not all written simultaneously, so they were written at different times (duh), even if was only a few hours or a few days.  The real question, to me, is whether or not they were originally intended to go together.

Snow by Spock's Beard was lauded as quite a masterpiece, their Tommy or Lamb, then Neal spilled the beans that it really was a bunch of songs he'd been working on, and it was only well into the process that he decided to fit them together into a single story.  Given that, it works pretty well, but suddenly it was weird listening to this amazing, conhesive narrative, knowing that it wasn't even conceived of that way.

For some reason, I consider that very different from the composer sitting there with a huge piece of music in multiple movements going "Damn, I still need something to connect these two bits here..."  Major works take a while to write, and it's not just done in order.  For example, the writer might already have figured out how the ending is going to come back, but he still needs something to lead into it.

[KevShmev]

...Heavy Horses is the best them.

That is probably my favorite Tull song!

[Sigz]

Snow by Spock's Beard was lauded as quite a masterpiece, their Tommy or Lamb, then Neal spilled the beans that it really was a bunch of songs he'd been working on, and it was only well into the process that he decided to fit them together into a single story.  Given that, it works pretty well, but suddenly it was weird listening to this amazing, conhesive narrative, knowing that it wasn't even conceived of that way.

Wow I never knew that. Frankly it doesn't really change how I look at it, but that's interesting nonetheless.

[Orbert]

Yeah, and I'm not even sure why it seems significant to me; it just does.  If it's a story, for some reason I care whether or not it was "supposed" to be a story, or if it's really just a bunch of songs that, with the addition of a few other bits, were worked into a story.

[Sigz]

Musically speaking it's surprisingly cohesive for being written individually too; I never would have thought that it had been.

[SoundscapeMN]

well for me, when I got into Tull, I was won over and regarded A Passion Play their best. But then I got more into TAAB, and concluded the 2 records are darn close in quality. Both 5-stars, but TAAB I preferred just by a bit.

[The Letter M]

the album by Tull that I and would think more folks would debate about with this is  A PASSION PLAY.

Snow by Spock's Beard was lauded as quite a masterpiece, their Tommy or Lamb, then Neal spilled the beans that it really was a bunch of songs he'd been working on, and it was only well into the process that he decided to fit them together into a single story.  Given that, it works pretty well, but suddenly it was weird listening to this amazing, conhesive narrative, knowing that it wasn't even conceived of that way.

I would watch The Making Of Snow DVD if you want an in-depth analysis of how Neal put together Snow. As I recall, he began work on the new album with the band just days before 9/11, and I think they wrote some music together, jammed out some bits like they normally did, recorded what was good, and then had to go their separate ways (Neal had to drive home to TN the day after 9/11 because he couldn't get a flight). It's a really great look into one of the greatest concept albums of the decade, and I'm very glad that Neal chose to share with us, the fans, his insight in the making of that masterpiece.

However, I do believe he began conceptualizing at the beginning of the writing sessions. You hear/see him talking about what the upcoming record will be as he talks to his camera while driving through the western deserts. I think he had a vague idea, but the details were only worked out as the writing process came along, and it seems like he only did it as new songs popped up and the pieces were fit together.

I think any sort of concept album can be done both ways - either entirely preconceived or done piece-by-piece, they both have advantages and disadvantages.

-Marc.

[Nick]

Of what I've heard, Snow might be my *least* favorite Morse era Spock album.