Stand Up By Jethro Tull

I have been away for a while....thanks Steve for putting up all these Tull album-related posts.

Stand Up is a defining moment for Tull. It's where Anderson took control after Mick Abrahams was given the proverbial boot and started a long line of IMHO seminal albums, which can be argued spanned for a decade or more.

I have stated this before but Stand Up has a real grungyness to it ...probably due to new boy Martin Barre's guitar. Not all tracks are grungy but A New Day Yesterday, Back To The Family, Nothing Is Easy, We Used To Know and (particularly) For A Thousand Mothers all have that grunge feel to them....largely thanks to Martin I believe.

Apparently it's Eddie Vedder's favourite album and influenced Pearl Jam ....so the story goes from the lips of IA himself (a video I have seen) relating a story that Eddie Vedder went to a Tull concert and met the band  back stage clutching a Stand Up album and stating the above. Sometimes I just cannot believe or even half believe the anecdotes that emanate from Mr Anderson. Good tale though!

Getting back to Stand Up off setting the heavier tracks are fantastic acoustic numbers such as Fat Man, Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square, Look Into The Sun and Reasons For Waiting. And we can't forget the classic instrumental Bouree.

BTW: it is great to see Martin Barre has recently been inducted into Prog Archives (in Crossover). Yay!




Edited by BarryGlibb - July 17 2015 at 20:23

BarryGlibb wrote: BTW: it is great to see Martin Barre has recently been inducted into Prog Archives (in Crossover). Yay!

Yes, Barry! Finally! There was a good reception in the topic when he was inducted. Now I'am waiting to people rate his albums!

Weird fact: I haven't ever heard Stand Up, despite being a huge Jethro Tull fan otherwise, as I'm under the impression they only really started getting that ambitious on Aqualung. Will get around to listening to this album (and Benefit more than the couple times I've spun it) in the near future.

I, on the other hand, prefer the band when they're a degree further from "normal rock music". Not a very helpful term, I know, but I hope you understand what I mean.

I guess it depends on which kind of listening background you come from.

If I had been more into traditional rock music and British folk music first, I might prefer their early records too. According to the biography of the band I read some years ago, the members have also always thought of themselves as having more in common ideologically with the Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band than with the progressive rock "movement". Since I now have an interest in that kind of music, if only on the casual level, I think I might now have some working knowledge of that side of JT's sound.

Toaster Mantis wrote: I guess it depends on which kind of listening background you come from. If I had been more into traditional rock music and British folk music first, I might prefer their early records too. According to the biography of the band I read some years ago, the members have also always thought of themselves as having more in common ideologically with the Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band than with the progressive rock "movement". Since I now have an interest in that kind of music, if only on the casual level, I think I might now have some working knowledge of that side of JT's sound.

We Used To Know makes this album essential. I love Stand Up lot and the path was open to even better albums, ie Benefit, Aqualung, TAAB and my personal favourite A Passion Play.