Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick

The full, one-song album (1972).

In an important interview with Prog, Ian Anderson explained the meaning of and the intentions behind this album, one of prog’s truly classic masterpieces, which had always been more or less misunderstood.

But characteristically, he still to some extent seems to misunderstand the nature and significance of the emerging new genre of progressive rock. Indeed, not least through the to a considerable extent irrelevant comparisons with Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra, he underplays what it was all about, what it was developing into in the early 70s. This is unwarranted also with regard to his own and Tull’s brief, more purely prog period, of which this album is the pinnacle. He short-sells himself, the band, and the remarkable achievement that this period represents.

At the same time his misconception must clearly have to do with the fact that even at this time, Jethro Tull did not quite represent the fully distinctive, independent and deliberately and consciously developed prog of the kind that Genesis, for instance, had by then already attained. Only this album – considered as an objective result, irrespective of Anderson’s own understanding and intentions – reaches the same level. I.e., only on this album is it possible to hear clearly what this genre could be further developed into.