Jethro Tull have spent greater than half a century standing outdoors of generic conventions. Are they prog? Are they people? Are they – as the Grammys as soon as determined, on the expense of Metallica, no much less – heavy steel?
The reply, proved over a long time and so many albums, is that they’re slightly little bit of every thing whereas, paradoxically, sounding like nobody else. They’re probably the most idiosyncratic and English of bands – one that’s led, naturally, by a Scotsman.
The id of Tull is sure up in that of Ian Anderson, singer and participant of acoustic guitar, mandolin, tin whistle, piano and violin in addition to probably the most distinctive flute in rock. Anderson has pushed the band into the deepest of folks roots, and messed round with electronica when it was giddy and new and barely out of the packet. He has written about prostitutes and tramps, ecclesiastical extra and pagan beasties. He’s been as involved by the decline in agriculture as he has in being an ageing rock’n’curler.
Anderson is a compelling oddity; a person who has adopted a collection of semi-ironic, self-deprecating personas which have come to outline the band he fronts. He’s the tramp on the duvet of Aqualung, the house cadet on the entrance of A, the cardboard cut-out on Profit, the hearth storyteller of Songs From The Wooden.
His best foil in an in any other case ever-changing line-up was Martin Barre. Anderson offered Tull’s quirks, Barre anchored the band and offered all of these massive riffs. It’s one of many nice jokes of destiny that Tony Iommi was virtually Tull’s guitarist. Thankfully for each, Tony determined he was reduce from totally different fabric.
Jethro Tull’s first album, This Was, got here out in 1968. Like many bands of their period, their most well-known and productive part was their first; they launched an album a 12 months till 1978, and virtually all of their finest are from these years. Subsequently, Anderson has divided his time between salmon farming in Scotland, his nation pile in Buckinghamshire and the occasional album.
In a burst of late-career exercise, the primary album of all-new authentic music launched underneath the (now Barre-less) Jethro Tull banner in additional than 20 years arrived with The Zealot Gene in 2022, swiftly adopted by two extra. As a rule, these information are a deal with.
Rock stars spend a lot of their time reverting to sort, however Anderson has by no means actually had a kind, and that’s a part of the explanation why he, and Tull, endure and prosper. Clearly, the franchise is not performed but.
24) The Jethro Tull Christmas Album (2003)
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It’s not that it’s unhealthy, extra that Christmas music has its two-week window earlier than it’s blasted into oblivion for one more twelve months by the Boxing Day gross sales. Ian Anderson is uniquely positioned amongst rock musicians to do that effectively – he has the lightness of contact and a really feel for the right combination of sincerity and humour – and his authentic songs are pretty. And each minute listening to it’s a minimum of 60 seconds spared from Merry Xmas Everyone.
23) Beneath Wraps (1984)
Anderson is simply too expert an artist to provide music devoid of benefit, however Beneath Wraps with its distant electronica and themes of paranoia within the Chilly Warfare, would maybe have labored higher as a follow-up to his solo document, Stroll Into Gentle.
Nothing dates a document like a title that alludes to the web’s then-newness. How the novelty has worn off. Tull returned to straight-ahead adult-oriented rock after the World music whispers of Roots To Branches, and whereas it’s competently, lovingly performed, it’s onerous to shake the sensation that they’ve performed it higher earlier than.
21) This Was (1968)
Controversial, perhaps, to position the band’s first document so low on a listing like this, however This Was merely hints on the band Tull would change into. It’s a document bossed by the guitarist Mick Abrahams, a revered R&B and onerous blues participant who would go on to type Blodwyn Pig, and as such presents a view of the highway not taken. A 3-week dalliance with Tony Iommi adopted, earlier than the comforting arrival of the long run and Martin Barre.
20) Rock Island (1989)
As ever with Anderson there are some pretty songs on a document he wrote in a part of the Isle of Skye. The title observe is a examine of isolation, Unusual Avenues, based on Anderson’s liner notes, a sequel to “the Aqualung setting”. Kissing Willie was much less refined although, and got here with a Storm Thorgerson video primarily based on Benny Hill that Anderson went together with “regretfully”.
19) A (1980)
A type of chaos, and a few heartbreak, surrounded A, an album initially deliberate as an Anderson solo launch. The dying of bassist John Glascock and the next melancholy and departure of Barriemore Barlow modified Tull radically. On the duvet of A, they’re clad in white jumpsuits, freed from their previous, and the music is equally stripped again, Eddie Jobson’s violins and synths bringing the artwork rock really feel of his earlier bands Roxy Music and King Crimson.
18) Catfish Rising (1991)
Cut up between some up to date bluesy rockers (Sleeping With The Canine) and the sharp trendy AOR stylings they’d begun on Crest Of A Knave (Sparrow On the Schoolyard Wall), Catfish Rising continued the late-era Tull development for easy and mature rock music, as comfortable as an outdated jacket.
17) Stormwatch (1979)
The third document in a free trilogy begun by Songs From The Wooden and Heavy Horses, Anderson turned his consideration from the distant previous (Songs…) and the quickly receding one (Heavy Horses) to a threatening near-future: North Sea Oil and Darkish Ages took on the environmental and financial penalties of the trendy age. Generally bleak, Stormwatch lacks the flat-out basic tunes of its companions.
16) Roots To Branches (1995)
Roots To Branches is to a level anomalous, mixing customary motifs of Barre’s fluent, head-tossing riffs and Anderson’s percussive flute-playing with some Japanese influences drawn from a visit the singer made to India. He felt that the songs echoed a few of Tull’s earliest work on Stand Up… Perhaps so, but it surely was unprecedented within the band’s late period, and made Roots to Branches – after Crest Of A Knave – probably the most stressed and creative document of their remaining years. Properly, till…
15. The Zealot Gene (2022)
Given its biblical supply, The Zealot Gene means effectively put a nostril or two out of joint, however its poetic, erudite and comparatively respectful method ought to assist keep away from any spectacular blowback. However he who has ears, let him hear: this literate and extremely listenable work is an actual grower. Ripe with contemporary inspiration and resonant of previous glories, it belongs excessive within the Tull canon.
14. RökFlöte (2023)
Let’s rule out fatuous ‘it’s inferior to Aqualung’-style proclamations. As a substitute, one appears to be like to check the writing and efficiency with the latter-period repertoire. Coherent and assured all through, with a set of songs resounding with persona, that means and drama, it feels and appears like a band that’s transferring ahead.
13) A Ardour Play (1973)
Pilloried on its launch, A Ardour Play has gained a extra sympathetic viewers as years have handed, and deservedly so. It was maybe a sufferer of its time – one other apparently impenetrable idea document in an period stuffed filled with them – and it additionally got here a 12 months after Thick As A Brick, a document that had despatched up the whole notion of idea albums in dazzling type. An inversion of the Ardour Performs, it follows Ronnie Pilgrim (perhaps a nod too to Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim) on his purgatorial journey in quaint however convoluted type.
12) Minstrel In The Gallery (1975)
There are elements of Minstrel…, particularly within the close to 20-minute Baker Avenue Muse and Chilly Wind In Valhalla, which are the equal of the songs on Aqualung or Thick As A Brick, Anderson’s stunning acoustic taking part in (particularly on Requiem) an ideal match for Barre’s ferocious electrical, however there may be some wibble too, the band within the grip of a launch schedule that noticed them difficulty an album a 12 months – astonishingly – from 1968 till 1980.
11. Curious Ruminant (2025)
Like so a lot of his friends, Anderson is considering mortality, right here on the acoustically backed spoken-word poem Interim Sleep, probably the most poignant he’s been in years. Curious Ruminant is not going to sate anyone’s need for a tub-thumping Tull album, however Anderson appears to be past that now. As a substitute his thoughts is overflowing with lyrical tangents and nonetheless able to allotting hooks, and he’s coming into the ultimate phases in tremendous fettle.
10) Stand Up (1969)
Anderson’s emergent tune writing was delving into his upbringing (Again To The Household) and making use of his sharp eye for the absurdities of on a regular basis life (Fats Man, Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Sq.) on Stand Up, a document that additionally had his pretty transforming of Bach’s Bouree. The pop-up cowl confirmed his need to push the shape in each means he might.
9) Crest Of A Knave (1987)
The electro period that had taken in Beneath Wraps was over, and as a substitute got here Crest’s business rock groove. Throat bother appeared to restrict Anderson’s vary, however his finest vocals are all about character and he was again on fertile floor right here, eyeing up a woman ‘with legs that went on perpetually’ within the excellent Budapest and consuming in a bar with one other in She Stated She Was A Dancer. Crest… was the document that beat Metallica to a Grammy. So is it higher than And Justice For All? In fact it’s.
8) Warfare Little one (1974)
Warfare Little one began out as one other grand notion – this time a movie undertaking starring Leonard Rossiter – and when that fell aside, Tull pared the deliberate double album again to a far tighter, more durable single document distinguished by Bungle In The Jungle and maybe Anderson’s best stand-alone acoustic tune, the beautiful Skating Away On The Skinny Ice Of The New Day.
7) Profit (1970)
Profit was the sound of a band discovering its future. Anderson and Barre nailed their electric-acoustic interaction on songs like Son, and Anderson was rapidly rising as a composer of some originality. The good trick was incorporating Barre’s reward for memorable riffs and hooks into his delicate melodies – as soon as they’d performed so the Tull sound was established.
6) Too Previous To Rock N Roll… Too Younger To Die (1976)
Usually offbeat and humorous, Too Previous To Rock n Roll describes the lifetime of Anderson’s alter ego, Ray Lomas, a washed-up former rock star. Lomas wins some cash on a quiz present however finds life has modified a lot he can’t get pleasure from it. Resolving to kill himself on his motorcycle, he as a substitute leads to a coma and when he re-emerges, finds that he and every thing he likes is again in vogue once more. Anderson’s level is the pointlessness of chasing developments.
5) Heavy Horses (1978)
Maybe Tull’s most light and reflective album, Anderson was wanting again at an England wherein long-held traditions of the countryside had been being paved over. The title observe is one among his most earnest, however bursts into life with a stirring electrical fiddle riff, whereas Acres Wild, One Brown Mouse and Moths are stuffed with wistful melody.
4) The Broadsword And The Beast (1982)
An atmospheric, witty, sometimes lusty document with a robust sense of temper to drive it alongside, Broadsword divided followers with its synthesisers, however stands as one their best and most cohesive works. There have been successfully two title tracks: the filmic, stately Broadsword, and Beastie, a fizzing evocation of childhood fears. Broadsword is the type of document that requires submission to its whimsy, but it surely’s a complete heap of enjoyable.
3) Songs From The Wooden (1977)
Bucolic and delightful, Songs From The Wooden is a people album made by a rock band. The subject material bestows an virtually otherworldly high quality: Jack In The Inexperienced evokes the Inexperienced Man of English fantasy. Anderson proves a convincing information alongside these leafy trails, but it surely wouldn’t work with out the tunes, and there are some elegant acoustic melodies. Take pleasure in too the rollicking Searching Lady, wherein Anderson, again in soiled outdated squire mode, encounters a lusty lass of the fields.
2) Thick As A Brick (1972)
Anderson’s waspish wit was at work all through Thick As A Brick a satire of idea albums introduced as – what else – an idea album of ludicrous convolution. The story considerations the titular fictional poem, ‘written’ by schoolboy, Gerald ‘Little Milton’ Bostock, who wins a contest together with his verse after which has the prize revoked after utilizing a ‘fruity’ phrase on TV. Actually, it was a sideways have a look at an English childhood. Movingly, and somewhat brilliantly, Anderson returned to Gerald’s story in his 2012 solo document Thick As A Brick 2, providing 5 different futures for a boy marvel damaged by life.
1) Aqualung (1971)
It begins with a tramp sitting on a park bench ‘watching because the frilly panties run’ and ends with a meditation on the character of God – Tull in a nutshell, actually. Aqualung is excessive on ambition and sardonic rage. The primary half introduces Aqualung the tramp, ‘eying little women with unhealthy intent’ and Cross-Eyed Mary, the good-time lady who ‘will do it for a tune’. Each are archetypes that Anderson would return to many times.
The second half offers immediately with Anderson’s perceived disconnection between God and the church, an unlikely topic that he handles together with his common deft intelligence. A excessive water mark in a basic period for nice rock information.
