Thick as a Brick: Overrated on Progarchives

mini rant here

Edited by dougmcauliffe - July 11 2019 at 21:14

I agree, with you, Mike.  Also, being there, in it's time, arguably there had been other LP length pieces, joined together in other ways...but in it's scope of poetry, imagery, musicianship, the concept in and of itself and slightly taking itself in a humourous pose.....and then,  in it's live performance as well, it well deserves it's place in progressive music history and, I would argue, it's position in these archives.

Not only is Thicka as a Brick not overrated, Moving Pictured most definitely overrated. Side two is fantastic!   The Camera Eye is one of Rush's greatest songs ever that ties its both its epic length and metaphors together with great dexterity and brilliance, both musically and lyrically. WItch Hunt, while musically rather simple by Rush standards, may be their most effective mood creator ever, along with being the single greatest lyrical exposition of the the nexus of fear and religion ever recorded. I was originally not a big fan of Vital Signs, but it's really grown on me over the years.

I like the album a lot even though I'm not a huge Jethro Tull fan-- but think it is overrated. There is a monotony to it but I still listen to it.

Edited by someone_else - July 12 2019 at 03:05

I have found it interesting how at the Rate Your Music chart, using progressive rock as a filter, Thick as a Brick is at number 14 and three Can albums are in the top 10. As someone posted in Prog Archive's forum, RYM tends to appeal to hipsters. At PA, not only do no Can albums appear in the top 250 "all categories" albums chart, but neither does any Krautrock (the PA chart seems rather too "vanilla" to me to be of much personal interest). I personally like how Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom makes the top 20 at Rate Your Music (that could be my number one album), and Soft Machine's Third, Faust's IV and two Neu! albums make RYM's top 30. My tastes are not very conventional by Prog standards. I'm not big on much symphonic prog (I hardly ever listen to Genesis or Yes), my favourite Pink Floyd albums tend to be pre-Dark Side of the Moon, and regarding Rush, while I liked the band as a teenager, I haven't really been into it since (a Rush-head friend got me into it then put me off it). My favourite album in PA's top 20 is Pawn Hearts, and seeing Wobbler in the top 20 looks weird to me (a 2017 album up against all those classics sticks out like sore thumb to me, and I haven't heard it in full so I can't judge the music for myself).

While I do believe that one can objectively say that individuals have made claims which demonstrate that individuals have overrated and underrated things, and I don't think it's all subjective when it comes to music (for instance, one can rate performance -- if, for instance, you ask a 3 year old beginner pianist to play Ligeti's "Devil's Staircase", they could not pull it off as well as a professional, trained concert pianist with bigger hands and a much bigger hand stretch), I tend to find the whole underrated/ overrated thing a bit silly when it comes to music and art. It really tends to just come down to "others don't like something the same as I do" and quite rarely is a really good argument being presented to demonstrate that others got it wrong and you got it right. If one tries to objectively make such a claim, then I'd say that the burden of proof falls on that person.

As was said earlier, every person would have their own lists, and other than curiosity, I tend not to put much stock on top lists. To each his or her own tastes. Besides, it's not really a straight-forward, simple algorithm that generates the list.

"I will never understand why this album is so highly rated, its ranked at number 3. That means that its supposed to be better than Wish you were Here, Court of the Crimson King, Foxtrot, Animals, Red, Pawn Hearts, and several other legendary prog albums...."

Never say never, as the saying goes. I don't take that to mean that it's supposed to be better, that's your inference, I merely take it to mean that it's ranked higher due to a combination of factors (which includes the algorithm used to determine rank -- change the algorithm and the rankings will be altered). There's little in it for those at the top, and little tweaks would change the order.

My personal list would be very different from the top 250 albums at PA. I don't think people are wrong to enjoy Thick as Brick more than I do anymore than I think it's wrong for some people not to enjoy the RIO, Canterbury, Zeuhl, Acid Folk, Krautrock, Progressive Electronic and Indo-Prog/ Raga Rock "sub-genres" as much as I do. If I believed that my tastes represented some kind of greater objective reality, then I would think that Close to the Edge is highly overrated. That album has never personally struck me as "great". I see that user "unfriendly" gave Thick as a Brick, Close to the Edge, and Foxtrot a one star rating, and user "nevermore" gave Foxtrot, Wish You Were Here, Close to the Edge, Thick as a Brick and Selling England by the Pound one star ratings, which strikes me as "off". Shame there are no reviews by said users to go along with them.

Perhaps I'd give Thick as Brick maybe a 3 or 3.5 right now based on memory. It's not an album that I was ever wowed by, but it's been decades since I last listened to it in full (I used to find it a slog, though I loved parts of it) and so I wouldn't consider rating it for the site without listening to it in full again. My favourite Jethro Tull may be Stand Up, which would get 4 stars from me, but still wouldn't crack my personal top 250 albums (and I still like Jethro Tull, but just rarely gets listened to at all as I'm more into other music).

Edited by Logan - July 12 2019 at 06:53

I guess it all depends on personally taste. For me, Thick as a Brick is rated very high, even more than Close to the Edge, but again, it's only my opinion.

Never been a huge fan of Tull, so you'd be asking the wrong person. I do like TAAB, and I don't like the term overated, but it's not a favourite of mine.