Jethro Tull to release "Thick as a brick 2"

The Hemulen wrote: Teaser, including snippets from the album: Sounds... like... Tull. Classic Tull. Cynicism... depleting. Could... could this actually be a good album?

Ludjak wrote: Three tracks are older, he claims to have written the rest around February 2011 (I do remember an interview last year about "finishing the scoring of an entire album in Sibelius, but not starting recording until October"). There were some more snippets played during a radio interview a couple of days ago. I'm actually pleasantly surprised by Anderson's singing, though. What I mind the most about these snippets is the drumming. It's even more robotic than Doane Perry's. I do kind of admire the risk Ian Anderson is taking here, out of all things he could have done this is the least safe. With this "TaaB2" he could either regain or completely lose his credibility.

I agree about Anderson's egotism. I remember JT doing an acoustic concert and him stopping in the middle of a songs because some people were occassionally coughing. Uh - these are normal body responses that happens in all concerts and musicians just normally put up with so long as not contnually coughing.

SirJethro wrote: Anderson asks himself Questions about the album http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSuI-_Xj3Bg

@Hemulen: Thanks for the clip!

freyacat wrote: Fascinating.  Ian Anderson has voiced a certain amount of contempt for progressive rock for the last two decades, and the last time he recorded anything like progressive rock was 1982.   Still, the video contains some promising snatches of music.  It looks like I'm set to pay attention to Jethro Tull again.

Steven Wilson about the Album:

Another recent surprise is the news that you’ve mixed Ian Anderson’s Thick as a Brick 2, the sequel to the famous Jethro Tull album. Describe your interest in participating in that project.

It was a natural development after having mixed the original Thick as a Brick album into surround, as well as doing a new stereo mix. While we were working on that for EMI, Ian said to me “I’ve written Thick as a Brick 2.” I said “That’s interesting.” He told me about this very interesting concept of what would have happened to Gerald Bostock, the eight-year-old kid that supposedly wrote the lyrics, originally. He said it looks at what path his life would have taken. It sounded like a really interesting concept. But I’ll be perfectly honest, part of me also was very skeptical that he could pull it off. There’s always a danger in doing a sequel and it doesn’t just apply to music but to movies and books—it can never live up to the expectation if the original is an established classic, as Thick as a Brick is. I talked with Ian about it and said “If you’re going to do it, you have to do it with the original musical palette. You have to go back and use acoustic guitar, flutes, harpsichords, glockenspiels, and all the things that made the original special. You have to keep it a very organic record and almost go back to the spirit of 1972.” He seemed totally onboard with that and the record is good. I’m not going to say it’s as good as the original, but it’s a very strong piece of work and a credible attempt by one of the legends of ‘70s progressive music to recapture the zeitgeist and feeling of their greatest work.

We’re living in a time when a lot of bands are looking around and seeing that the climate has changed so much over the last 20 years. Many feel the right thing to do is perhaps go back and revisit what made their reputation. Yes famously did a return to that last year. For 20-30 years, classic progressive music was incredibly unpopular and unfashionable. I was talking to Steve Hackett about this. He feels for the first time that people actually appreciate the work he did in the ‘70s. He feels it’s only in the last three or four years that he’s begun to feel people value that work as his greatest achievement. For 30 years, he was told it was sh*t, that he was a dinosaur, and that the music was worthless and no-one was ever going to want to listen to that hippie stuff again. I cannot underestimate how these guys were brainwashed. Robert Fripp and Ian Anderson feel the same. They were brainwashed by the media into thinking everything they did in the ‘70s was worthless junk. It’s almost like abused child syndrome. It took a great amount of reassurance for them to begin to believe that people love that stuff and that it’s the work that their reputation will ultimately rest on.

I experienced that with Robert when we worked on the remix of King Crimson’s Lizard. He said “Why do you want to do this Steven? No-one likes the record. Everyone hates it, including me.” I said “I’m going to change people’s minds.” I’m so proud to say that happened. One of the greatest moments of my life is when that album was reissued and received astonishing reviews. David Fricke in Rolling Stone said “Lizard is revealed to be the greatest King Crimson album of all.” Mojo gave it five out of five stars. Robert was astonished. And I was vindicated because I really believed all those records that had been ignored and sidelined for years, mainly by the media, but also by fans, were really coming of age. In a sense, they were so far ahead of their time, and now is their time. They sound extraordinary. This is really key for me.

Going back to Thick as a Brick 2, now is the time for Ian to go back and do this project. He never would have considered this in a million years even five years ago, and that goes to show you how the mood and climate has changed towards this music. So, finally people like Ian, Robert and Steve feel “You know what? People do really love that work. They really appreciate it. That was my best work and my most creative period. I can still do that music and people still want to hear it.” There’s now an incredible sense of enthusiasm with regards to Thick as a Brick 2. People have told me they haven’t seen Ian this enthusiastic about a new record for a very, very long time.

source

http://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html

SirJethro wrote: Steven Wilson about the Album:<span style="font-style: italic">Another recent surprise is the news that you’ve mixed Ian Anderson’s Thick as a Brick 2, the sequel to the famous Jethro Tull album. Describe your interest in participating in that project.</span>It was a natural development after having mixed the original Thick as a Brick album into surround, as well as doing a new stereo mix. While we were working on that for EMI, Ian said to me “I’ve written Thick as a Brick 2.” I said “That’s interesting.” He told me about this very interesting concept of what would have happened to Gerald Bostock, the eight-year-old kid that supposedly wrote the lyrics, originally. He said it looks at what path his life would have taken. It sounded like a really interesting concept. But I’ll be perfectly honest, part of me also was very skeptical that he could pull it off. There’s always a danger in doing a sequel and it doesn’t just apply to music but to movies and books—it can never live up to the expectation if the original is an established classic, as Thick as a Brick is. <span style="font-weight: bold">I talked with Ian about it and said “If you’re going to do it, you have to do it with the original musical palette. You have to go back and use acoustic guitar, flutes, harpsichords, glockenspiels, and all the things that made the original special. You have to keep it a very organic record and almost go back to the spirit of 1972.” He seemed totally onboard with that and the record is good. </span>I’m not going to say it’s as good as the original, but it’s a very strong piece of work and a credible attempt by one of the legends of ‘70s progressive music to recapture the zeitgeist and feeling of their greatest work.We’re living in a time when a lot of bands are looking around and seeing that the climate has changed so much over the last 20 years. Many feel the right thing to do is perhaps go back and revisit what made their reputation. Yes famously did a return to that last year. For 20-30 years, classic progressive music was incredibly unpopular and unfashionable. I was talking to Steve Hackett about this. He feels for the first time that people actually appreciate the work he did in the ‘70s. He feels it’s only in the last three or four years that he’s begun to feel people value that work as his greatest achievement. For 30 years, he was told it was sh*t, that he was a dinosaur, and that the music was worthless and no-one was ever going to want to listen to that hippie stuff again. I cannot underestimate how these guys were brainwashed. Robert Fripp and Ian Anderson feel the same. They were brainwashed by the media into thinking everything they did in the ‘70s was worthless junk. It’s almost like abused child syndrome. It took a great amount of reassurance for them to begin to believe that people love that stuff and that it’s the work that their reputation will ultimately rest on.I experienced that with Robert when we worked on the remix of King Crimson’s Lizard. He said “Why do you want to do this Steven? No-one likes the record. Everyone hates it, including me.” I said “I’m going to change people’s minds.” I’m so proud to say that happened. One of the greatest moments of my life is when that album was reissued and received astonishing reviews. David Fricke in Rolling Stone said “Lizard is revealed to be the greatest King Crimson album of all.” Mojo gave it five out of five stars. Robert was astonished. And I was vindicated because I really believed all those records that had been ignored and sidelined for years, mainly by the media, but also by fans, were really coming of age. In a sense, they were so far ahead of their time, and now is their time. They sound extraordinary. This is really key for me.Going back to Thick as a Brick 2, now is the time for Ian to go back and do this project. He never would have considered this in a million years even five years ago, and that goes to show you how the mood and climate has changed towards this music. So, finally people like Ian, Robert and Steve feel “You know what? People do really love that work. They really appreciate it. That was my best work and my most creative period. I can still do that music and people still want to hear it.” <span style="font-weight: bold">There’s now an incredible sense of enthusiasm with regards to Thick as a Brick 2. People have told me they haven’t seen Ian this enthusiastic about a new record for a very, very long time</span>.sourcehttp://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html

Very cool statements from Mr Wilson. I hope he is right on everything... I have the feeling he is.

I'm actually quite excited for this, even though that may be a mistake. I really like Thick as a Brick, but I don't listen to it all too often, so if this does turn out to be very similar to the original, I'll probably just treat them both as a double album! It would be way harder to do that if you'd been listening to TAAB fairly regularly for 40 years though.

Can someone change the title to Ian Anderson to release TAAB 2 instead of Jethro Tull since it's not a Tull album ?