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Why is Tull's "A Passion Play" rated so low?
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moshkito View Drop Down
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Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

I definitely understand the vibe that APP throws off. It certainly is different from anything else in prog rock and the album, at least to me, does have it's great moments. I just don't know if Ian wanted to be experimental or just lost his muse. I suppose that's the next great APP debate.

This is hard to evaluate, for us, I think.

The reason why would be that since you are wanting to express something or other with the music, you decide that this is better than what would ... (otherwise in commercial music!!!) ... be done with lyrics. Ian understands this very well, and it shows in his work. But I kinda think that what he wanted to say, could not be done with lyrics, since the words backed by cardboard/simplified beats, would not help the work stand up for being different and valuable as a composition.

That is is rated "low", doesn't bother me ... if you are the artist, and you worry about everyone's ratings, then you are in the wrong business ... and you won't last long playing music, or saying anything ... and this is the part that many folks here don't like ... that at the time, most artists said ... I want to do this, and the audience was not an issue ... but it became an issue, when things got more commercialized ... like the radio stations owned by corporate interests and no longer playing music that is not to their "liking" or listed within a top ten context.

Sometimes, for me, I prefer the things that are "low" in ratings ... you know why? The vast majority of them are different and something that takes an extra ear to get used to and not everyone is attuned to the "third ear" as it were ... which is the biggest issue here in discussing anything, and something that no one can change me on ... I am with the art ... not the ratings or anyone else's opinions ... but then I came from a place where the arts were valuable and important in keeping people aware and strong against a politically corrupt and over controlling state. In America, this is kind of a joke, since there is not only variety (differences in each part of the country) but also any kind of control is a serious issue ... what works in NY does not work in LA and so on. And, of course, vice versa.
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Originally posted by Grumpyprogfan Grumpyprogfan wrote:

^^The Hare nonsense ruins this album. And for christ sake people, repeated listens does not help. I've listened for 45 years and my initial rating of 3 stars still stands. That may be generous. Will I "get it" after another 45 years of trying to convince myself it's a masterpiece?

 
I've decided to give it another spin and have it played at my funeral. I doubt that I'll like it any better but the music will certainly fit the occasion.
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^^The Hare nonsense ruins this album. And for christ sake people, repeated listens does not help. I've listened for 45 years and my initial rating of 3 stars still stands. That may be generous. Will I "get it" after another 45 years of trying to convince myself it's a masterpiece?

If you like it great. Lets move on and discuss current great prog albums. Lots to choose from.

Edited by Grumpyprogfan - November 08 2019 at 05:06
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Originally posted by Stereolab Stereolab wrote:

A brilliant album that clicked with me immediately. My #2 Tull, just a step under Brick, and almost a masterpiece. I never understood the criticism of this album being inaccessible... drop the needle pretty much anywhere on the record and the melodies should grab you immediately. What's the deal?
The deal is that these "melodies", particularly the dirge that's side one of the old vinyl, didn't grab me and I love TAAB. And the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles just added salt to the aural wound.
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A brilliant album that clicked with me immediately. My #2 Tull, just a step under Brick, and almost a masterpiece. I never understood the criticism of this album being inaccessible... drop the needle pretty much anywhere on the record and the melodies should grab you immediately. What's the deal?

Edited by Stereolab - November 08 2019 at 00:17
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Originally posted by siLLy puPPy siLLy puPPy wrote:

It's ok. Not everyone needs to love it. I do and don't care if others share my enthusiasm or not :)
Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Clown
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^ i think you may have a point. I love it because it is operatic. Not everyone digs that style. I predict it will always be a fanbase wedge. It's ok. Not everyone needs to love it. I do and don't care if others share my enthusiasm or not :)

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^ Off course Italians like it. Its the closest thing in prog rock to an opera! Tongue

Edited by SteveG - November 04 2019 at 12:55
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The best Italian music site, Ondarock, has compiled a list of the 50 best progressive records and A Passion Play is not present. The site's Jethro Tull reviewer, however, considers A Passion Play the best Jethro Tull album:

1) APP  8,5
2) Aqualung 8
3) TAAB 8
4) Minstrell 8
5) Stand Up 7,5


Here the translation of the reviwe on APP:

In 1973, after a long and troubled gestation, another album containing another suite, interspersed with a short cabaret interval: A Passion Play. The differences with the previous one are more obvious than the similarities. Passion Play is much darker, more tiring and less fluid, it lacks the effervescence of the previous work, while preferring a descriptive dimension, to musical panels taking over; but the structuring of the piece is admirable, a masterpiece interlocking, the arrangements are rich in nuances, Anderson reduces his flautistic flichetor fliour to make room for other wind instruments such as sax. A Passion Play is the progressive record of Jethro Tull, much more than Thick As A Brick, because of the pathos that pervades it and the deep musicality that underlies it, a musicality studied, hyperstructured and full of nuances, but characteristic of Anderson's writing, never brainy, with open and extroverted melodies but never trivial. For critics, especially the English one, it is a boring and pretentious record, statements partly also true, for many fans it is the summation of the sound craftsmanship of the Tulls and their leader, for those who write their greatest masterpiece.

After that jewel, the group will come out of the progressive styles, at least intended in a restrictive sense, to no longer re-enter it. The gestation of A Passion Play is tiring and exhausting as the next tour is, Anderson is tired and always in a quarrel with the press and the results are seen the following year, when the modest War Child comes out, where you recover the song form with very little interesting results."


Edited by jamesbaldwin - November 03 2019 at 16:46
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The most important Italian music site, Ondarock, a few years ago compiled a ranking of the 50 best progressive albums (I created a thread with that ranking here on PA a few months ago) and APP is not present. 

But on the jethro Tull page, the reviewer who wrote it considers APP the best jT album:

1) A Passion Play  8,5
2) Aqualung 8
3) Thick as a Brick 8
4) Minstrell in the Gallery 8
5) Stand Up  7,5


This is the translation of the review on APP:

"In 1973, after a long and troubled gestation, another album containing another suite, interspersed with a short cabaret interval: A Passion Play. The differences with the previous one are more obvious than the similarities. Passion Play is much darker, more tiring and less fluid, it lacks the effervescence of the previous work, while preferring a descriptive dimension, to musical panels taking over; but the structuring of the piece is admirable, a masterpiece interlocking, the arrangements are rich in nuances, Anderson reduces his flautistic flichetor fliour to make room for other wind instruments such as sax. A Passion Play is the progressive record of Jethro Tull, much more than Thick As A Brick, because of the pathos that pervades it and the deep musicality that underlies it, a musicality studied, hyperstructured and full of nuances, but characteristic of Anderson's writing, never brainy, with open and extroverted melodies but never trivial. For critics, especially the English one, it is a boring and pretentious record, statements partly also true, for many fans it is the summation of the sound craftsmanship of the Tulls and their leader, for those who write their greatest masterpiece.

After that jewel, the group will come out of the progressive styles, at least intended in a restrictive sense, to no longer re-enter it. The gestation of A Passion Play is tiring and exhausting as the next tour is, Anderson is tired and always in a quarrel with the press and the results are seen the following year, when the modest War Child comes out, where you recover the song form with very little interesting results."
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Interesting, that the same issue as with APP I had with TFTO. I listened it few times in attempt to love it with next and next spin. But it didn't happen, so I gave up. Maybe I'll try again both APP and TFTO after this topic. 

Edited by awaken_yesfan - November 03 2019 at 14:43
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What melodies are memorable is probably very personal... For me in this respect APP has a lot to offer, almost on a par with TAAB, and light years above TFTO.
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I don't know why it's rated so low, but I can say for myself, why it isn't my favorite Tull album.

It's unmemorable and just... boring. On the contrary, Thick As A Brick, was complex, but melodic.  But I cannot remember any memorable melody from A Passion Play. The same feeling I have about Yes' Tales of Topographic Oceans.   That's an examples, why some music critics labeled prog as "pretentious"
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I definitely understand the vibe that APP throws off. It certainly is different from anything else in prog rock and the album, at least to me, does have it's great moments. I just don't know if Ian wanted to be experimental or just lost his muse. I suppose that's the next great APP debate.
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I now understand. You mean that Ian wanted to create a new kind of Classical Music wit APP, a kind of contemporary music.
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Originally posted by softandwet softandwet wrote:

 
...
No, I dislike(d) it and I say it, as I dislike Yes' Relayer. Sometimes we have to admit it and it's not because I don't like it that I will give it a 3/5 or a 2, I would even recommend it to a friend who would be interested by JT. Now as an update, I've actually listened to APP twice yesterday and now I like it! It will probably take time for it to be on the same level as TAAB but I see the potential it has.
...

Glad to hear it ... there is a lot of "classical" music that is not my cup of tea as well, but I'm not going to review it or rate it, because my feeling is that I do not get it, or understand it enough ... or don't hear similar things enough!

Originally posted by softandwet softandwet wrote:

 
...
 Then I don't give a heck about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, they mean nothing to me and I have never listened to them. 
...

The Beatles, in time, you might take a look at the time span ... music in the early 60's was dominated by radio in Europe and America, until things like "Pirate Radio" appeared and in the early 60's America's radio changed ... the FM band came alive, and was for the most part FREE, STEREO, and NOT CORPORATE OWNED ... and the things that you heard made all the early "progressive" and "prog" bands famous ... and by 1980, all of these stations had been bought by corporations that turned it into the mass product of today ... and the "classics" are their version of top ten songs from the early FM days ... you see, many of those songs were LONG and they were NEVER played on regular radio ... so when the Beatles "The Long and Winding Road" sold millions on a single, it helped break the impasse for playing and enjoying long cuts! (There were others earlier also!)

The Beatles helped bring about a lot of music changes, but it could be said that a lot of these events were coming around, BECAUSE the media made it easier for folks to find and hear ... 10 years before that in 3/4's of America, everyone would think it was horrible music (vastly superior to most top ten, even today!), and just bad stuff. Fast forward ... voila ... how things change!

Originally posted by softandwet softandwet wrote:

 
...
I'm kind of a proghead since 2 years and before that I was into (post) punk ; and if you say that musical art ceased to exist with APP, then you're wrong. Try to open yourself to other music that appeared in the late 70's until the mid 90's and I think you will find interesting things.

2 things ... welcome to the proghead level of meditation!

The 2nd thing ... you mis-interpreted the comment about the musical art ... the comment about the cover of APP ... is that "classical music" is almost dead, or has died ... the ballerina is dead and she is in a very large concert hall ... it's like Ian was saying that the NEW CLASSICAL MUSIC OF TODAY is not the old stuff of the past ... and in this sense the value of "passion play" becomes clearer than otherwise. Passion Plays are historical and go back many years, and it's like the cover is saying ... it's a dying story and element in the arts/music if you will.

And it is ... most folks here probably can't name a bunch of classical conductors these days, and in those days you could easily name many ... Leinsdorf, Karajan, Bhom, Boulez, Bolt, Davies, Haitink, Klemperer, Levine, Mehta, Ormandi, Ozawa, Solti, Stokowski, Toscanini ... and all of these still "rule" and "control" a gross majority of the classical music out there that is sold today!

Today? ... wtf is classical music?
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Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by softandwet softandwet wrote:

 
...
I definitely know what a passion play is and I understand it's meaning, but it just doesn't match musically (at least for the moment) with me. Please stop being haughty and try to understand the meaning of TAAB then, because I think it somehow concerns you : "and your wise men don't know how it feels ; to be thick as a brick".


Right ... like the other side of the coin is not "thick as a brick" as well!

Get ... ce-real!

It has nothing to do with being haughty or stupid ... however, there is a serious issue with people these days not liking things that preach to what they know, and sometimes the work seems to go in a different direction that you or I do not understand ... but THAT IS NOT A REASON TO DISLIKE IT ... because it makes you feel like ... how the heck does this mean that? ... and on top of it, the cover of the album is even more ... apart from the theme of the music and its words ... I kinda call it the end of classical music/work ... which has been very true since the late 60's ... and nowadays, few folks can name a bunch of classical music "greats", like those days ... heck I got to see Nureyev and Fonteyn, and later Misha ... and later yet, Bob Fosse ... and you are probably going ... who gives a sheepdip! Those folks made any rock star, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones not as good, or as impressive ... they were "the art" ... and the best most of us can do here for the Beatles and Stones? ... we remember the songs ... nothing else!

Musically, APP is more on the progressive and experimental side of things, which I think Ian wanted to take for his work ... but the FM radio, by that time in LA and NY was already a top ten BS/CRAP bunch of songs (well, some good ones actually!) and many folks trashed the album, and instead played a song or two from AQUALUNG ... which, I, personally, do not find cool at all ... but then, when you got folks that don't respect the arts, they just love their songs, that's what you get ... and we got a whole generation that only saw that, on top of the mememememememoooohhhh generation! And now ... those folks go puffing again!



No, I dislike(d) it and I say it, as I dislike Yes' Relayer. Sometimes we have to admit it and it's not because I don't like it that I will give it a 3/5 or a 2, I would even recommend it to a friend who would be interested by JT. Now as an update, I've actually listened to APP twice yesterday and now I like it! It will probably take time for it to be on the same level as TAAB but I see the potential it has. Then I don't give a heck about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, they mean nothing to me and I have never listened to them. I'm kind of a proghead since 2 years and before that I was into (post) punk ; and if you say that musical art ceased to exist with APP, then you're wrong. Try to open yourself to other music that appeared in the late 70's until the mid 90's and I think you will find interesting things.

Edited by softandwet - October 30 2019 at 04:11
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Originally posted by softandwet softandwet wrote:

 
...
I definitely know what a passion play is and I understand it's meaning, but it just doesn't match musically (at least for the moment) with me. Please stop being haughty and try to understand the meaning of TAAB then, because I think it somehow concerns you : "and your wise men don't know how it feels ; to be thick as a brick".

Right ... like the other side of the coin is not "thick as a brick" as well!

Get ... ce-real!

It has nothing to do with being haughty or stupid ... however, there is a serious issue with people these days not liking things that preach to what they know, and sometimes the work seems to go in a different direction that you or I do not understand ... but THAT IS NOT A REASON TO DISLIKE IT ... because it makes you feel like ... how the heck does this mean that? ... and on top of it, the cover of the album is even more ... apart from the theme of the music and its words ... I kinda call it the end of classical music/work ... which has been very true since the late 60's ... and nowadays, few folks can name a bunch of classical music "greats", like those days ... heck I got to see Nureyev and Fonteyn, and later Misha ... and later yet, Bob Fosse ... and you are probably going ... who gives a sheepdip! Those folks made any rock star, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones not as good, or as impressive ... they were "the art" ... and the best most of us can do here for the Beatles and Stones? ... we remember the songs ... nothing else!

Musically, APP is more on the progressive and experimental side of things, which I think Ian wanted to take for his work ... but the FM radio, by that time in LA and NY was already a top ten BS/CRAP bunch of songs (well, some good ones actually!) and many folks trashed the album, and instead played a song or two from AQUALUNG ... which, I, personally, do not find cool at all ... but then, when you got folks that don't respect the arts, they just love their songs, that's what you get ... and we got a whole generation that only saw that, on top of the mememememememoooohhhh generation! And now ... those folks go puffing again!


Edited by moshkito - October 28 2019 at 15:25
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Originally posted by Slartibartfast Slartibartfast wrote:

Ratings are overrated and I could give a sh*t if an album that really appeals to me doesn't to others,
That's because you're not a prog reviewer. Oh, wait. You are a prog reviewer! Confused What?
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So true, but fair enough to question ratings, as they are a part of the site. 
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