20 YEARS OF JETHRO TULL BOX

Twenty-two years ago, and with a lot more hair, I rushed down, to the HMV in Broadmead, Bristol to buy this on the day it came out. It might be difficult to comprehend in this day of mp3 downloads, CDs with extra tracks and websites full of extra goodies, how exciting this release was at the time: I had been a Tull fan for about 5 years, had almost every lp and here was this box set stuffed with songs I never knew existed, never mind heard before, and with a great booklet of the history of the band, laced with the humour that has always been a strong thread in Tull. It set the standard for box-sets.

As others have said, although largely a collection of unreleased songs or b-sides from long-deleted singles, the music is by no means sub-standard. The mash-up of folk, classical and rock wonderfully demonstrated by King Henry's Magridal and Kelpie.

In the eighties it was a must-buy. Now with all the b-sides and unreleased material now on the CD of the album for which they were originally recorded, or in the case of the Chateau D'isaster tapes, its own CD, all that this box set has to offer is the booklet and the live recordings, which are perfectly okay, but only comprise about a quarter of the tracks. So really its only one for the completists now.

So my modest three-stars reflects the availability of most of the material elsewhere rather than the quality of the songs, which is many cases are superb.