Thick As A Brick overrated?

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 Sacred 22 wrote:

 ken4musiq wrote:

This was Anderson's need to provev that he could write a through composed concept album. And he did it better than anyone else.

The funny thing, the band says in the interview on the re-master that thier was no plan or idea, it just came together. They said that the cover art took longer than the actual music. It seems to me that they kind of put this thing together on the fly, another words it's jammed out. Sorry, maybe I just don't get it. Ya, lots of notes and timing changes, but then so does a good jazz jam with good musicans.

I think we are both right.  The band wanted to prove that they could do this 'through composed' album, for lack of a better term. The satire is the concept and holds that album together. 
Anderson really kept a tight control over the band from what I have read.  He said about Songs from the Wood that the album worked well because he had freed the reigns of the musicians and let them do what they want for a change.  That being said, listening to Anderson's work in the 1980s, one can readily see what these musicians brought to the table.
Why would somebody criticize Thick as a Brick?  It is ingeniously witty in its satire, wonderfully lyrical musically and the ensemble is really playing at some of progs best. If you are going to talk about jazz or any other music we can criticize most prog saying, the music is not fully integrated and organic like classical composition says it should be; the playing often lacks what the great jazz masters brought to the table. It is often pretentious and overblown.  Hey, on all three accounts, that's what I like about the music. 