M.U. - THE BEST OF JETHRO TULL

The first and still the best summation of TULL's precious musical gifts. Not to suggest that the band didn't continue to release great music, but the subsequent Repeat drew from a depleted well and future compilations (save for "Original Masters") seemed to serve some hidden agenda by selecting personal favorites or catalog samplers over the universally established "hits". In fact, M.U. (the abbreviation is said to stand for Musician's Union) ranks as one of the most effective, delightful compilations I own. My love for the music of TULL notwithstanding, this collection goes straight for the band's most popular music and displays it in a radiant array as these jewels deserve. There are several things that good compilations should do: put an artist's best musical foot forward, provide some sense of history, choose evenly from the existing catalog, and throw a bone to the fans who already own the previous works. "M.U." does this while departing from chronological order, a potential danger except that here the scattered placement of tracks is an equitable gesture toward TULL's genius. It's likely that some thought went into track placement. Opening with "Teacher", closing with "Nothing Is Easy", interspersing old and new material in between,

"M.U." underscored a point that TULL fans already knew: it's all good. For neophytes, however, it was a point worth making. Start at the beginning, begin at the end, dive cautiously for the middle, there is no wrong move. All greatest hits should aspire to be a celebration of the artist's work, which this is. As for the bone I mentioned earlier, the unreleased "Rainbow Blues" might be the best thing on here. In 2003, the same songs (in the same order) were released as Essential JETHRO TULL, inheriting "M.U."'s mantle it would seem.