Also which forum is dedecated for these kind of questions?

Thanks, Joris

Hey, Jorris, you're in the right forum. Head over to YouTube and check out the albums Thick As a Brick, Minstrel in the Gallery and Songs from the Wood. One (hopefully all) of those will do the trick. SFTW is my favorite album, and I also love the two that immediately follow it: Heavy Horses and Stormwatch. 

Depending on your musical tastes, since the 1968 release This Was predates prog, it is interesting to hear the band go from Cream-like blues rock through a transformative compositional change on the excellent Stand Up, which sets the stage for the folksy hard rock of Benefit and Aqualung, straight into prog on TAAB and APP.

No other band had such an historic metamorphosis from the late 60s to the early 70s like Tull. Not even Floyd really "changed" overly much through that time. The Tull evolution is what really sets it apart from other bands of the period. 

I agree

In fact two of my favorite JT album are Stand Up (1969, from their early days) and Roots to Branches (1995, from their later days) 

;)

 

Except the Stand Up album is from 1969 (Thick as a Brick came out in 1972). It is a pretty remarkable album for 1969, as much but in a different aspect as King Crimson's ItCotCK. Some absolute gems on Stand Up, such as Nothing Is Easy, Bouree, Fat Man, Reasons for Waiting and Look into the Sun.

^Funny story............for me it was all about the blues in that my friend Bill turned me onto This Was because he loves any blues based things. When Stand Up came out I was sold on Tull and then Benefit which is still my personal favorite......though I like the later albums like Aqualung, TAAB, and SFTW....I have always thought of Tull as more of a folky blues rock band than a prog band.

I would suggest, going back to the start and come from there. Reason why is that there were so many changes and different attitudes all over that did not exactly make JT a great band, but a good band. 

The only concern, is that the advent of the Internet has added some old things that had never been released before and they tend to give you an impression that is very nice, but not exactly clear. FOR ME, JT was much better in concert than they were on disk ... except for TAAB and PP, both of which were never a great design/success on the stage. Great music, but showing it to an audience that had been weened on "lyrics" for a while, took its toll on a piece that was confusing (TAAB) and then a piece that was totally theatrical, that Ian would not have the patience to put on the stage!

After that, for me, it was all just a bunch of rock'n'roll and a bunch of songs, the meaning of which was overdone, and out of time and consequence!

You sound rather hypocritical, given your usual rants. Evidently, it wasn't enough that an extremely popular band at the time had the cojones to release two consecutive albums without a single (singles being anathema to one of your high philosophical stature and musical acumen), and yet still managed to go to #1 with both albums in the States. And as far as your comment regarding "a bunch of rock'n'roll and a bunch of songs, the meaning of which was overdone, and out of time and consequence," I loved Tull's lyrics and the fact they were so different than every other run-of-the-mill band. 

By the way, when Thick as a Brick was released I didn't find it confusing at all -- both Aqualung and Thick as a Brick resonated with me at the time as a Catholic kid finally figuring out there was no god and that parent for the most part were full of sh*t. Had you not been so constipated with your arty-farty opinions, perhaps you would have got it as well.

 

With Pedro, you don't have to understand the words. He peddles the same basic concepts over and over like the mantra of some shaggy, hygienically-challenged guru who missed the highway ramp at Woodstock and ended up in Schenectady for the past 50 years.

Since when is "understanding" anything a concern for any fan in PA? Specially my comments! Since no one here even has the appreciation/desire to even ask what I mean!

For the record, I would suggest your wording a bit skewed to the wrong side of the tracks that leads to a dumpster of sorts. I'm not a Woodstock fan and you would not have found me there. I find, though, as most people also did, that some performances were excellent, however, the film maker made some look even better than they really were. That is on my review of the film and in a couple of discussions here (the sequence on stage lighting) and there.

Unlike a lot of folks, I have not, for 60 years "looked" for music, and I have never really traveled much to find it. Some how, a lot of music also found me ... like me finding CARAVAN on a night when MAN and HAWKWIND were about to blow our ears from here to heck and back! The same thing as finding CAN or AMON DUUL 2. The albums were right there, and the covers spoke ... do you have the ears?

That, my friend, has absolutely nothing to do with a wrong turn. It really has to do with having heard so much classical music, soundtracks, and loved how music was used in movies, and then ... here came the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Maria Betania, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Hector-Lobos ... and then for you to think that I simply took a wrong turn and ended up in a bar hearing a drunk sing someone else's song, and me having no idea of where I was ... is a bit strange, considering that I was very much anti-drugs (specially the quantities and the FAD at the time) and only later did I try some things, but ... ohhh wow DE ... I already had the music appreciation ... I did not need the drugs to love it!

JT's lyrics were clever, smart and sometimes a little too pointed for my tastes, but they were not the kind of things that I had come to like and enjoy in literature for many years ... Ian had nothing on Shelley, Byron, Shakespeare, Elliot, Baudelaire, and so many others ... absolutely NOTHING. He was just spewing some of this or that on a few songs, and his expression and theatrics is what made his lyrics sound better.

As Ian got older, his expression got better, but that's not to say that they were not good before. I think that JT was much better in concert up to, TAAB and PP, or there abouts, I think, but honestly after that I gave up on JT ... it was becoming just another fat, rich, huge band with not a whole lot to say and a bit too much ready for the FM radio hit list because the length of the song was perfect!

His concerts in the early days, for me, were better than the albums. There was a bootleg that had a 20 minute version of "My God" that I can not locate and showed what JT was like in concert, that they were not in any album. It was "progressive" in the best sense of it all, and totally off the wall, and made a JP Rampal look and sound like a silly buffoon that thought he was playing classical music ... and really had no talent at all compared to Ian. And a lot of this is buried and hidden and gone behind "lyrics" and "songs" later that in my book took away a lot about JT ... it didn't make them "bad" ... just not my cup of tea!

Warchild 8.5/10-decent soundtrack album plus strong album worth of bonus tracks plus 30 minutes of unrepeated classical stuff

You didn't have to actually prove my point, because no one has an interest in superfluous snobbery. Here, let me edit this unending diatribe to self-congratulatory musical masturbation so the rest of the folks can actually comment on the essence of the thread, which is an appreciation of Tull and which album is a good place to start.

*SNIP*

There. Isn't that so much better? You may thank me later.

moshkito wrote: JT's lyrics were clever, smart and sometimes a little too pointed for my tastes, but they were not the kind of things that I had come to like and enjoy in literature for many years ...

Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing to the conversation. I suggest you start an "I hate Ian Anderson" thread and you can post your mystically obtuse hysterics there. And where you can be ignored. Personally, I think Ian is one of the most adept and witty poets in the rock genre. Not that there is a lot to choose from.

moshkito wrote: Ian had nothing on Shelley, Byron, Shakespeare, Elliot, Baudelaire, and so many others ... absolutely NOTHING. He was just spewing some of this or that on a few songs, and his expression and theatrics is what made his lyrics sound better.

While that may be true, not one of the poets you named recited their work standing on one leg. Or while playing guitar, flute, saxophone, bass, piano, harmonica...oh yes, or claghorn. And not one of those poets could play a blues tune for sh*t.

And by the way, the correct spelling is not Elliot, it is E-l-i-o-t. T.S. Eliot. If you are going to attempt to pretend to be urbane and sophisticated, you can't misspell a famous poet's name.

Start at the start of any new band, then go forward so you can hear all the changes (good or bad).

IMO, Aqualung is their crowning achievement, from start to finish that album is brilliant.