Thick as a Brick

Thick as a Brick is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released on 3 March 1972. The album contains one continuous piece of music, split over two sides of an LP record, and is intended as a parody of the concept album genre. The original packaging, designed as a 12-page newspaper, claims the album to be a musical adaptation of an epic poem by fictional eight-year-old genius Gerald Bostock, though the lyrics were actually written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson.

The album was recorded in late 1971, featuring music composed by Anderson and arranged with the contribution of all band members. The album was the band's first to include drummer Barrie "Barriemore" Barlow, replacing the band's previous drummer Clive Bunker. The live show promoting the album included the playing of the full suite, with various comic interludes. Thick as a Brick is considered by critics to be the first Jethro Tull release to entirely consist of progressive rock music. It received mixed reviews upon its release, but was a commercial success and topped various charts in 1972. Today it is regarded as a classic of progressive rock, and has received several accolades. Anderson produced a follow-up to the album in 2012, focusing on the adult life of the fictional Gerald Bostock, and being released as Anderson's solo album instead of as Jethro Tull's album.

Background

Jethro Tull's frontman and songwriter Ian Anderson was infuriated when critics called the band's previous album, Aqualung (1971), a "concept album". He rejected this, thinking it was simply a collection of songs, so in response decided to "come up with something that really is the mother of all concept albums".Template:Sfn Taking the surreal British humour of Monty Python as an influence, he began to write a piece that would combine complex music with a sense of humour, with the idea it would poke light-hearted fun at the band, the audience, and the music critics.Template:Sfn He also intended to satirise the progressive rock genre that was popular at the time.Template:Sfn His wife Jennie was also an inspiration, to whom he credited having devised the character and lyrics of "Aqualung". She had written a letter to Anderson while he was away touring the album, ten lines from which Anderson used as inspiration for the new material.<ref name=C0472>Template:Cite web</ref>

Anderson has also said that "the album was a spoof to the albums of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, much like what the movie Airplane! had been to AirportTemplate:-"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and later remarked that it was a "bit of a satire about the whole concept of grand rock-based concept albums".Template:Sfn Although Anderson wrote all the music and lyrics, he co-credited the writing to a fictional schoolboy named Gerald Bostock. The humour was subtle enough that some fans believed that Bostock was real.Template:Sfn Reviewing the 40th anniversary reissue, Noel Murray suggested that many listeners of the original album "missed the joke".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Recording

The group ran through two weeks of rehearsals using the Rolling Stones' basement studio in Bermondsey.Template:Sfn They had not intended to record a single continuous piece;Template:Sfn the band came up with individual song segments, then decided to write short pieces of music to link them together.Template:Sfn

Recording started in December 1971 at Morgan Studios, London.Template:Sfn Unlike previous albums, where Anderson had generally written songs in advance, only the initial section of the album had been worked out when the band went into the studio. The remainder of the suite was written during the recording sessions.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> To compensate for a lack of material, Anderson began work early each morning to prepare music for the rest of the band to learn during that day's session.Template:Sfn The lyrics were written first, with the music constructed to fit around them.Template:Sfn Anderson recalls the album took about two weeks to record and another two or three for overdubs and mixing.Template:Sfn The final work spanned the entire length of an LP record, split over two sides.Template:Sfn

The group remembered the recording being a happy process, with a strong feeling of camaraderie and fun, with numerous practical jokes. They were fans of Monty Python, and this style of humour influenced the lyrics and overall concept.<ref name=mix>Template:Cite journal</ref> Guitarist Martin Barre recalls the whole band coming up with various ideas for the music.Template:Sfn Some parts were recorded in a single take with every member having an input, including significant contributions from keyboardist John Evan.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Music

Template:Quotebox Thick as a Brick was viewed by some critics as Jethro Tull's first progressive rock album.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The album has a variety of musical themes, time signature changes and tempo shifts – all of which were features of the progressive rock scene.Template:Sfn Although the finished album runs as one continuous piece, it is made up of a medley of individual songs that run into each other, none of which individually lasts more than 3–5 minutes.Template:Sfn Parts of the suite blend classical and folk music into the typical rock music framework.Template:Sfn

The album prominently features flute, acoustic and electric guitars and Hammond organ, which had been used previously,<ref name=mix/> but the instrumentation includes harpsichord, glockenspiel, timpani, violin, lute, trumpet, saxophone, and a string section—all uncommon in the band's earlier blues-inspired rock.Template:Sfn Anderson later said that the lyrics were partly derived from his own childhood experiences, though the overall theme was Bostock's attempt to make sense of life from his point of view.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Artwork

The original LP cover was designed as a spoof of a Template:Convert 12-page small-town English newspaper, entitled The St. Cleve Chronicle and Linwell Advertiser, with articles, competitions and advertisements lampooning the typical parochial and amateurish journalism of the local English press.<ref name=Songfacts>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Unreliable source The band's record company, Chrysalis Records, complained that the sleeve would be too expensive to produce, but Anderson countered that if a real newspaper could be produced, a parody of one was also practicable.Template:Sfn

The mock newspaper, dated 7 January 1972, also includes the entire lyrics to "Thick as a Brick" (printed on page 7), which is presented as a poem written by Bostock,Template:Sfn whose disqualification from a poetry contest is the focus of the front-page story. This article claims that although Bostock initially won the contest, the judges' decision was repealed after protests and threats concerning the offensive nature of the poem, along with the boy's suspected psychological instability.Template:Sfn The front cover includes a piece where Bostock is accused without foundation of being the father of his 14-year-old friend Julia's child.<ref name=official>Template:Cite web</ref> The inside of the paper features a mock review by "Julian Stone-Mason BA", a pseudonym of Anderson.Template:Sfn

The contents of the newspaper were written mostly by Anderson, bassist Jeffrey Hammond and keyboardist John Evan.Template:Sfn While some of the pieces were obviously silly, such as "Magistrate Fines himself", there was a lengthy story entitled "Do Not See Me Rabbit" about a pilot in the Battle of Britain being shot down by a Messerschmitt Bf 109.Template:Sfn The overall layout was designed by Chrysalis' Roy Eldridge, who had previously worked as a journalist.Template:Sfn Most of the characters in the newspaper were members of the band, their management, road crew, or colleagues; for instance, recording engineer Robin Black played a local roller-skating champion.Template:Sfn Anderson recalls that the cover took longer to produce than the music.Template:Sfn

The satirical newspaper was heavily abridged for conventional CD booklets, but the 25th Anniversary Special Edition CD cover is closer to the original, and the 40th anniversary boxed version contains most of the content from the original newspaper.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Live performances

File:Jethro Tull 070373 003.jpg

Jethro Tull on the Thick as a Brick tour, early 1973

Following the album's release, the band set out on tour, playing the entire piece with some extra musical additions that extended performances to over an hour.Template:Sfn At the start of the show, men wearing capes appeared onstage and began sweeping the floor, counting the audience and studying the venue; after a few minutes, some of them revealed themselves to be members of the band and began to play.Template:Sfn During some shows, the entire band stopped mid-performance when a telephone rang on stage, which Anderson would answer, before carrying on performing. News and weather reports were read halfway through the show, and a man in a scuba diver outfit came onstage. The tour's humour caused problems in Japan, where audiences responded to the changes with bewilderment.Template:Sfn Barre recalls these first live performances being "a terrible experience" as there was a lot of complex music with a variety of time signature changes to remember.Template:Sfn

Anderson performed the entire album live on tour in 2012, the first complete performances since the original tour.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In August 2014, Anderson released the CD/DVD/Blu-ray Thick as a Brick – Live in Iceland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The concert was recorded in Reykjavík, Iceland, on 22 June 2012, and featured complete Thick as a Brick and Thick as a Brick 2 performances by the Ian Anderson Touring Band. Some of the humour and stage antics were maintained—especially the telephone ringing in the middle of a song, which was replaced by a cell phone and a Skype call.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Critical reception

Template:Music ratings Thick as a Brick was originally scheduled for release on 25 February 1972. Following production problems relating to the 1972 miners' strike, it was held back a week to 3 March.<ref name=nme/> The album reached the top 5 in the UK charts, and number one in Australia, Canada and the United States,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> where it was certified Gold.<ref name="RIAA" >Template:Cite web</ref>

Contemporary reviews were mixed. Chris Welch of Melody Maker praised the musicianship of the band and Anderson's flute playing, writing also that "the joke at the expense of a local newspaper wears thin rather rapidly, but should not detract from the obvious amount of thought and work that has gone into the production of Thick"; he described the music as a creative effort where "the ideas flow in super abundance" but that "needs time to absorb" and "heard out of context of their highly visual stage act ... does not have such immediate appeal".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Tony Tyler in his review for New Musical Express generally appreciated the construction of the suites and the arrangements, but he had doubts about the album's possible success. He called Thick as a Brick "Jethro Tull's own stand-or-fall epic after the lines of Tommy" and "an assault on the mediocrity and harshness of lower-middle-class existence in '70s Britain".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Ben Gerson in Rolling Stone magazine called Thick as a Brick "one of rock's most sophisticated and ground-breaking products". Going further, the reviewer stated: "Martin Barre's guitar and John Evan's keyboards especially shine, and Ian's singing is no longer abrasive. Whether or not Thick As A Brick is an isolated experiment, it is nice to know that someone in rock has ambitions beyond the four- or five-minute conventional track, and has the intelligence to carry out his intentions, in all their intricacy, with considerable grace."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Rolling Stone's Alan Niester gave it 2 out of 5 stars in The Rolling Stone Record Guide, judging it had "relatively undifferentiated movements".<ref name="guide" >Template:Cite book</ref> Village Voice critic Robert Christgau disliked the album, calling it "the usual shit" from the band: "rock (getting heavier), folk (getting feyer), classical (getting schlockier), flute (getting better because it has no choice)".<ref name="CG"/>

Retrospective reviews have been positive. AllMusic wrote that "Jethro Tull's first LP-length epic is a masterpiece in the annals of progressive rock, and one of the few works of its kind that still holds up decades later."<ref name="allmusic1"/> Jordan Blum of PopMatters thinks that the album "paved the way for modern progressive rock" and "today, it represents not only a pinnacle achievement for Jethro Tull, but also a concrete example of just how adventurous and free artists used to be." Record CollectorTemplate:'s reviewer writes that "today, free from the irrelevant context of misdiagnosis and derision that dogged it on its original release, the album sounds like nothing less than an Olympian feat of composition and musicianship."<ref name="record" /> According to Modern Drummer reviewer Adam Budofsky, "that it remains so elevated in progressive rock fans' hearts and minds forty years later is a testament to its quality."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Paul Stump's History of Progressive Rock commented of the album, "The 'concept', a somewhat self-conscious and mannered lionization of individual genius ... against caricatured bourgeois Philistinism, scarcely sees the light of day through the thickets of Anderson's imagery, but this doesn't detract from what, in hindsight, is quite a respectable, if periodically water-treading, stab at advanced extensional technique."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 2014, Prog magazine listed Thick as a Brick at number 5 in the list "The 100 Greatest Prog Albums of All Time", voted for by its readers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Rolling Stone listed the album at number 7 in their "Top 50 Prog Albums of All Time".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Rush's Geddy Lee has said Thick as a Brick is one of his favourite albums,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as has Iron Maiden's Steve Harris.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Reissues

The album has been reissued on CD several times: the first CD release (1985),<ref name=autogenerated1>Template:Cite web</ref> the MFSL-release (1989),<ref name=autogenerated1 /> the 25th Anniversary Edition (1997), and the 40th Anniversary Edition (2012).

The 40th Anniversary Edition was released in November 2012, and includes a CD, a DVD, and a book. The CD contains a new mix of the album. The DVD contains a 5.1 surround sound mix (in DTS and Dolby Digital), the new stereo mix in high resolution, and the original stereo mix in high resolution. The first pressing of the DVD/CD box contained a faulty DVD with significant audio errors. A corrected replacement edition was issued later, with only a horizontal line beneath the "album duration" note on the disc label to identify it. The album was also re-released on vinyl at the same time.<ref name="thickasabrickdeluxe.com">Template:Cite web</ref> This edition lists part one at 22:45 and part two at 21:07.

For the 50th anniversary, a new vinyl pressing of the Wilson remix, mastered at half speed, was released with the original newspaper cover.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The CD/DVD bookset was also reissued, still titled 40th Anniversary Edition, but with the mastering on all versions of the remix as originally intended by Wilson. It can be differentiated from the original pressing by the copyright dates on the back and by being released on Parlophone instead of EMI.

Track listing

Section names from the downloadable version of the 40th anniversary edition.<ref name="thickasabrickdeluxe.com"/>

Personnel

Taken from the sleeve notes.<ref>Template:Cite AV media notes</ref>

Jethro Tull

• Ian Anderson – vocals, acoustic guitar, flute, violin, trumpet, saxophone, accordion, producer
• Martin Barre – electric guitar, lute, flute
• John Evan – piano, organ, harpsichord
• Jeffrey Hammond (as "Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond") – bass guitar, spoken word
• Barriemore Barlow – drums, percussion, timpani

Additional personnel

• Dee Palmer – orchestral arrangementsTemplate:Sfn
• Terry Ellis – executive producer
• Robin Black – engineer

Charts

Weekly charts

Template:Album chartTemplate:Album chartTemplate:Album chartTemplate:Album chartTemplate:Album chartTemplate:Album chart

Chart (1972)	Peak position
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)<ref name=aus>Template:Cite book</ref>	1
Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)<ref name=FINI>Template:Cite book</ref>	4
Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)<ref>Template:Cite web Set "Tipo" on "Album". Then, in the "Artista" field, search "Jethro Tull".</ref>	2

Template:Album chartTemplate:Album chart

Chart (2012)	Peak position

Template:Album chartTemplate:Album chartTemplate:Album chart

Chart (2022)	Peak position

Year-end charts

Chart (1972)	Position
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	26

Covers and follow-ups

In 2012, Ian Anderson announced plans for a follow-up album, Thick as a Brick 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?. According to the Jethro Tull website, the sequel is "a full length Progressive Rock 'concept' album worthy of its predecessor. Boy to man and beyond, it looks at what might have befallen the child poet Gerald Bostock in later life. Or, perhaps, any of us."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

The follow-up album was released on 2 April 2012. It describes five different scenarios of Gerald Bostock's life, where he potentially becomes a greedy investment banker, a homeless homosexual man, a soldier in the Afghan War, a sanctimonious evangelist preacher, and a most ordinary man who runs a corner store and is married and childless. Thick as a Brick 2 lists 17 separate songs merged into 13 distinct tracks (some labelled as medleys), although also all flowing together much like a single song. To follow the style of the mock newspaper on the original Thick as a Brick, a mock online newspaper was set up.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

While TAAB 2 was a follow-up about Gerald Bostock, the 2014 Ian Anderson solo album Homo Erraticus was presented as a follow-up work by Gerald Bostock. In the backstory Anderson created for the album, the now middle-aged Bostock came across an unpublished manuscript by one Ernest T. Parritt (1873–1928), entitled "Homo Britanicus Erraticus". Parritt was convinced he lived past lives as historical characters, and wrote detailed accounts of these lives in his work; he also wrote of fantasy imaginings of lives yet to come. Bostock then created lyrics based on Parritt's writings, while Anderson set them to music.<ref name="homoE" >Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As with the original Thick as a Brick, authorship of each song on this album is explicitly credited to both Anderson and Bostock.<ref name="homoE" />

Composer Richard Harvey has covered Thick as a Brick in the special compilation The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Prog Rock Classics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

References

Sources

• Template:Cite AV media notes
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book

External links

• Jethro Tull, Progressive Rock and Thematic Approach, essay by Dave Morris
• Scans of the pages of the LP cover mock newspaper
• Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick (1972): Complete lyrics