THE VERY BEST OF JETHRO TULL

I´m not very fond of compliations in general, and prog ones in particular. Rarely I see a collection of songs that really portrays a good, consistent, picture of an artist or band output. I got this one through a friend who gave me as a gift. And I was quite surprised to find out that it is probably the best single disc compilation of jethro Tull, among so many on the market nowadays. There are some good reasons for that.

Fistly, the songs were chosen by Ian Anderson himself (who also wrote the brief, but witty, liner notes). Secondly they all were remastered from the original tapes under Anderson´s supervison. And the result is one of the best sounding JT CDs I ever heard. Everything here sounds fresh and new. The down side is the edition of there tracks to fit the single CD format (Minstrel In the Gallery, Too Old To rock ´n´Roll; Too Young To Die and Heavy Horses). But since those were done by the master himself, I guess it could be a lot worse and he wouldn´t have butchered his own work.

Of course there are always some songs one wish it would be included and others that should be left out (not many!). The twenty tracks are of high quality, old and new ones. So, for the newcomer The Very Best Of Jethro Tull is an excellent buy for its price: you get a good oveveiw of Jethro Tull´s history without having to get every single album from their vast discography to have an idea of what they are all about. However, there are no unissued material for the old fans and completionists.

Rating: 3 stars. For a compilation of such big name, with so many material to choose from, this one is very good. Recommended for newbies.