Is "A Passion Play" as bad as everyone says?

Great album, my favorite Tull, and among my favorite prog albums period.

I'm glad to see so many here give it high praise.  Not so in the classic-rock-fan world, where I do some moonlighting.

Great album, specially live

i find APP awesome. Always liked it. Though TAAB is my favourite prog album.

The wonderful thing about A Passion Play? Pompous NY critics and alleged "deans of rock" like Robert Christgau savaged the album, and guess what? It went to #1 in the U.S. without the aid of a single, significant airplay, or critical acclaim. The APP album is a bit of audacity from a band that always thumbed their noses at critics -- and bless them for it! Currently, in these days of musical sterility and commercial trash (when an album like  APP would not even be released by a major label) there should be far more thumbing-of-noses.

I've had a very complicated, drawn-out relationship with APP. It was the first Tull record I heard (courtesy of an uncle of mine who actually took me to my first Tull concert), and I really don't think it was the most amazing place to start.  I was young and stupid and very easily intimidated; as a result I didn't formally get into Tull until several years later.  And even after all this time, APP has remained one of those albums that I very rarely, if ever, listen to.

This is set to change, however.  I picked up a vinyl copy about a month ago, tossed in on the turntable, and had a go.  It's an incredible album, albeit one whose pace I occasionally find frustrating (inserting cutesy animal fables is perhaps not as advisable as Ian Anderson seems to believe).  However, I do feel that it's burdened beneath a patina of self-consciousness. Whereas TaaB was a send-up of a then-popular genre, APP takes itself deadly seriously in places, which can seem insufferable (to me, anyway). 

I will say that I'm a complete addict of the Nightcap recordings (multitudinous references to urination and defecation aside), and that I listen to these with far more regularity.  But APP is like nothing else.  Ambiguous praise, perhaps, but it definitely deserves a 4+ rating on ye olde archives.

If there's a place APP should get some love, it's here on a prog we site. It's not as popular as TAAB, and it doesn't flow nicely as many other Tull's albums do. However some musical moments are absolutely stunning, incredibly complex, there are carefully crafted recurring themes, saxophone mayhems, calculated cacophony, time measures that are next-to-impossible to count, bizarre synth sounds. I like it a lot.

After all, what other album could contain the delightful lyric...

I like "Thick As A Brick" much more, but "APP" is a great album too.

I love this album though not easy listening at first spins only the ones who don't realy know JT think it's bad and i guess most of them didn't even listen to it from start to finish

It's just the best prog album ever.