THICK AS A BRICK

Jethro Tull's 1972 spoof concept album 'Thick As A Brick' is a satirical but brilliantly complex continuous piece of music born out of Ian Anderson's desire to show critics what a concept album really is, following his dissatisfaction with the uneven categorizations of 'Aqualung' from the previous year. Lavish and humorous, but also dense and intelligent, 'TAAB' is often seen as the flamboyant and necessary progression of the band's sound, experimenting with different instruments, tempo shifts as well as complex time signatures within the framework of a long epic track, or else, the rock music equivalent of a classical symphony - the piece occupies the two sides of an LP and features a sequence of shorter pieces which are tied together within the "grand concept" inspired by the epic poem of a made-up schoolboy genius, and if this is not brilliant enough already, the album was packaged like an actual 12-page newspaper, taking a jab at the amateurish local press.

The incredibly smart artwork and the masterful composition that is 'Thick As A Brick' only remind us just how brilliant and significant Jethro Tull are and the sheer genius of the conceiving and the realization of this entire concept, alluring and intricate, the infinite parody of the "concept album" in itself and the genre of progressive rock, all while managing to embody the quintessential prog rock masterwork. But the sophistication of the music comes along with more complex and dynamic arrangements, making this a very dense recording with a lot to unpack as the various sections of the long piece transition seamlessly and introduce (or in some cases re-introduce) vigorous, lively melodies, and more pastoral and ominous soundscapes. The array of instruments used for the recording of 'Thick As A Brick' is also much wider, including the violin, trumpet, glockenspiel, saxophone, harpsichord, and lute, alongside the traditional rock instruments, while genre-wise the listener might get elements of classical crossover and glorious folky bits, pertinent to the band's late 60s sound - at this point, everything aligns with the tell-tale signs of the prog rock scene, and if you're not convinced yet, just listen carefully to the timeless and introspective lyrics of this majestic work. The run of classic 70s Tull albums is by all means beyond comprehension!

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