20 YEARS OF JETHRO TULL (USA RELEASE)

Flawed gems and essential Tull.

Nice little compilation. Certainly not the best offering in Tull's discography, no, but a very pleasant listen nonetheless. And very informative, too. I like how the entire compilation is divided in four sections - that's plentiful of valuable infos for a Tull-newbie, but Tull-veterans could be surprised, as well.

The thing is, not all the sections are equally good; The Essential Tull is, well, essential and overplayed, even the live versions provided won't change the spasm because you've heard these again and again and again. That's a certainly good choice for a newcomer - but one is wondering at which part of the market were compilation editors aiming.

Since I started with essentials, let me continue with the all the sections without any particular order: The Other Sides Of Tull contains some well-known, but again not so overplayed Tull tracks along with incredible "Mayhem, Maybe" and live version of "Dun Ringill". I am also very glad because two beautiful miniatures are here: "Nursie" and "Grace" - but the mistake is here again: "Grace" is gorgeous and it's last track on the CD. It was last on Minstrel too, and personally I think it's a huge mistake...such a short song with such a caliber should have been placed first in both cases.

Flawed Gems (Dusted Down) is sort of a hit and miss, but gems are gems indeed: glorious "Jack-A-Lynn", spacey folk tune comparable with PINK FLOYD's finest moments and nice little "Lick Your Fingers Clean". "Crossword" and "Overhang" are a bit sub-par songs, in my opinion, slightly boring and breaking the continuity of the CD.

The CD opens with Radio Archives And Rare Tracks" which are not rare at all, but there's a nice version of "Stormy Monday Blues" with radio announcement. A good thing to open a record.

So, in general, this is a nice compilation but a selection is a bit clumsy. One more remark could be addressed - a significant number of tracks are original represented on "Living In A Past" compilation, which is still unbeatable. One more point, this "20 years Of Jethro Tull" compilation is just one of the handful of version of the same thing; this one probably pales in comparison with other version - especially those much more detailed and diverse. I guess this is a scaled down version of an ultimate "20 years" box-set, and it's labelled as "USA release" - but that's only release that I ever saw in Croatia back when it was fresh.

In a conclusion, this one is worth your money if you are not familiar with entire band's discography, and if you are keen on alternate takes and live versions.

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