"A" by Jethro Tull: A more natural follow up to Heavy Horses?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Chemically altered, Sep 12, 2019.

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  1. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    And that's just it. Few songs on Stormwatch or A follow the so called prog/folk fomula of SFTW or HH. Does Orion from SW make you feel like you're in a forrest or farm? Does 4WD from A? For my money A is the better album. Perhaps it had more enthusiasm to the songs instead of the dreary tired vibe of SW with Glascock sick and dying and Anderson sick of everyone.
     
  2. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    I don't know man, for me that feels a little like saying In Through the Outdoor might have been better done as reggae. Sometimes it's okay to simply not like an album. Under Wraps is what it is, and it's what Anderson wanted at the time. Re imagining it as one of their early folk albums seems odd to me. As it is, it has one acoustic song on it, and it's a fine tune.


    I think you're on to something there. In retrospect it was a terrible idea.
     
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  3. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    The last time I looked, reimagining music didn't cause anyone harm, so what exactly is your objection? Plenty of music is done that way. Take a reimagined album like Roll Back from Horslips. Some of the songs were better for it and some were not. And no one died as a result.
     
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  4. Dr. Bogenbroom

    Dr. Bogenbroom I'm not a Dr. but I play one on SteveHoffman.TV

    Location:
    Anchor Point
    Whoa
    No Crest of a Knave for you? Sans the opening song, I consider that a Great Tull album. Their last for me. Budapest is Tull at their finest, and Mountain Men and Farm on the Freeway are among the best.
     
  5. PES

    PES Forum Resident

    I may not have read this thread too closely, so apologies if this duplicates any earlier comments. A was not supposed to be be a Jethro Tull album. It was going to be Ian Anderson's first solo album. Commercial considerations dictated that it be released as a Tull album. That helps explain what seems to be a radical change in the direction of the band. One way to think about the musical progression is to consider Broadsword and the Beast as being the natural follow-up to Stormwatch, with A being the precursor to Walk Into Light (the first proper Ian Anderson solo album). Walk into Light, in turn set up the 1984 Tull album, Under Wraps. Down the timeline a bit, you have the Crest of a Knave / Rock Island / Catfish Rising sequence, all three of a piece with the first round of post-vocal issue Tull. Ian Anderson's 1995 solo album, Twelve Divinities, provided a diversion from that situation, being all instrumental. Twelve Divinities did provide the musical template for the next Tull album, Roots to Branches, that being a repeat of what happened a decade earlier.
     
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  6. Brian Lux

    Brian Lux One in the Crowd

    Location:
    Placerville, CA
    I like "A" a lot. It's such a strange jump from the woodsy Songs From the Wood and Heavy Horses, yet I always found it fascinating that Anderson and company took that bold leap into something quite different. And I agree, "A" never really got it's due.
     
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  7. folkfreak

    folkfreak The cold blooded penguin

    Location:
    Germany
    No I can't. I am happy that it's just the way it is as I love it exactly because it is like it is.
     
  8. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
     
  9. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    No, just a clumsy way of speaking. I meant albums l consider to just be good. Krest Of A
    No, just a clumsy way of speaking. I was referring to albums that l consider to be merely good. Crest Of A Knave I consider to be in the class of greats. Sorry for the confusion. Always happens when I post replies while listening to the Strawbs. ;)
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2020
  10. Got it! Your opinion regarding ‘A’ hasn’t changed since your March post. Thanks for the update.
     
  11. MrCJF

    MrCJF Best served with coffee and cake.

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    It's trivial, but music is important to us here.

    I get annoyed when artists update a classic album (or one of my favourites) then withdraw the original from sale.

    e.g. Hounds of Love, Aeriel, So, Fisherman's Blues, Waterboys, A Pagan Place. Those are ones Known.

    I accept that the loss or deterioration of multi tracks will be an issue, but a great album should be left alone.
     
  12. abzach

    abzach Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    I think Stormwatch is a more natural follow up.
     
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  13. carlwm

    carlwm Forum Resident

    Location:
    wales
    The Canadian band Glass Tiger, whose Eighties albums are not a million miles stylistically from Under Wraps, released a compilation called 31, a few years ago which featured songs from their back catalogue with new folk/celtic arrangements. It works splendidly.
     
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  14. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    I actually understand some of this sentiment. For better or worse, music has turned into a "collectable" market, and that necessitates creating, well, things that are collectable. ie. Unique, different, etc. I mean, colored Vinyl isn't adding anything to the music, is it? Changing album cover art is the same thing. Adding gatefolds, and so on. I think we need to face the fact that the music itself has gotten caught up in this.

    I take each as I find it. Some work - such as the Steve Wilson remixes of Tull - and some truly spoil the party, such as Kate Bush's destruction of Hounds of Love. I'm not opposed to changes, I'm open to new ways of hearing things. But that doesn't mean it'll always work for me.

    When it comes to the likes of Under Wraps, my issue is that I've never hated it. Of course it's a different sound, and that sound has aged that well, but I've always loved the songs and cover. It would be fun to hear a version with a drummer, but I'm not excited about hearing anything else changed. In fact, probably the best way to handle it would be to leave the album alone, and give us a live set from the tour.
     
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  15. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    The amazing thing about music is that you don't have to hear what you don't like. Be it remixes, remasters or the re-imagined.
     
  16. tmwlng

    tmwlng Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denmark
    Always had a soft spot for 1980-84 Tull. Love the Eurocentric, spy novel-like atmosphere in some of the songs; Broadsword I suppose is more classic Tull. A has some of my favourite Tull songs in Fylingdale Flyer and And Further On. Hard as it can be merging flutes and synths I think Tull survived this period pretty nice. Fans who mainly jump the Aqualung/Brick train I suppose felt a bit alienated, but I really enjoyed the UK/Europe during the cold war type feel IA went for here, even continued well into Crest of a Knave. Budapest is one of their very best IMO.

    Working John, Working Joe is a pretty well constructed song as well, all in all the A album for me is pretty good all the way through, only the odd vocoder selection on certain vocals I could do without. There is room for both synthetic and "earthy" instruments to survive here, various keyboards hand in hand with violin and flute etc..... Very much looking forward to the box set. Currently stuck with an old OOP 1st gen CD though I owned the 2004 remaster for a while. But cannot recall how it sounded compared to the old one, but it is very stuffy yet very crankable.

    An underrated thing during this period: IA's vocals, very mature and fluid. His vocals peaked during the late 70's I believe, even if they were on the downturn (Crest of a Knave forward it all got very different as you all know)
     
  17. SJB

    SJB Beloved Parasitic Nuisance

    In fairness, it wasn't exactly supposed to sound like Tull (as others have pointed out). Ian resisted calling it a Tull album, but relented (to his lasting regret).

    Ian's most recent solo albums, Thick as a Brick 2 and Homo Erraticus, also go for a Tull feel. This will always be a matter of taste, but I enjoy the albums and consider them among his best solo work.

    Anyone exploring Ian's solo catalog should be aware that Divinities is definitely the outlier - entirely instrumental, and in fact released on a classical label. A few of its compositions popped up in Tull setlists (particularly "In the Grip of Stronger Stuff"), but it isn't anything that most people would mistake for a Jethro Tull album.

    I don't think A was "awful," but I understand the sentiment. To be more precise, the decline started a few months earlier, with the departure of Evans, Barlow, and Palmer. Each of them has a specific, identifiable sound, and it strongly affected the chemistry of the group. Evans and Barlow were also old mates of Ian's, back to his very first band in 1963. Ian was always the dominant member of the group, particularly after Mick Abrahams was squeezed out, but when the lineup changed in 1980, the collaborative balance shifted forever in Ian's favor. Certainly the collaboration didn't cease entirely; Vettese and Barre received some writing credits, for instance. But Jethro Tull went from being a band led by Ian Anderson to the Ian Anderson Show featuring whoever else happened to be there at the time. Jobson was never a full member, and Ian maintains that others, such as Vettese and Allcock, joined on a limited basis as well. That doesn't make post-1980 Tull bad - that's a matter of taste - but it does make it perceptibly different from what came before.

    I'd add a third category, "worth owning," at the bottom. I don't regret any of my Tull purchases, but some of them do go longer than others between plays.
     
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  18. johnny q

    johnny q Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bergen County, NJ
    And of course cutting off at A, one misses the above average Broadsword And The Beast and all the outtakes.

    Agree that "Crest" is solid. I also include Rock Island as a solid, underrated album.
     
  19. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    Again I'll say that Crest of a Knave is in the class of greats. I don't believe that "worth owning" works for albums that people never listen to, except for those who are competionists like myself.
     
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  20. MrCJF

    MrCJF Best served with coffee and cake.

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    The other thing to note about A is that Eddie Jobson did not want to be seen as a member of Tull. As the A/Slipsteam notes made clear the tour to promote A was billed as "Jethro Tull with special guest Eddie Jobson".

    It's possible that Jobson came to the A project thinking he would be an equal creative partner with IA for a one off project rather than becoming a member of a backing band. So labelling the A project as Jethro Tull meant IA was sacrificing long term friends and collaborators for a brief musical partnership.
     
  21. Dr. Bogenbroom

    Dr. Bogenbroom I'm not a Dr. but I play one on SteveHoffman.TV

    Location:
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    Ah ha, i get your wording now.
    Whew! Read the other way, it was quite perplexing!
     
  22. The Dark Elf

    The Dark Elf Curmudgeonly Wordwraith

    Location:
    Michigan
    Storm Watch makes perfect sense to me as a follow-up to SFTW and HH, as each in the main have an environmentally specific theme:
    Songs from the Wood - Forest
    Heavy Horses -Field
    Storm Watch - Water
     
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  23. SJB

    SJB Beloved Parasitic Nuisance

    To me, the trilogy has a different flow:
    Songs from the Wood - Past (folklore, nature)
    Heavy Horses - Present (modernization, everyday life)
    Stormwatch - Future (apocalyptic foreboding)
     
  24. carlwm

    carlwm Forum Resident

    Location:
    wales
    I Think Tull from '80 - '87 is a brilliant run of albums. There's a small drop off to Rock Island which still has it's moments but then they lose me until the Christmas album which was an unexpected return to form.

    In fairness to Nineties Tull, it's been an age since I've listened to any of it so I might change my mind if I heard some of them again. However, my memory tells me there was too much heavy-handed blues rock.
     
  25. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    I see your point but does Stormwatch follow SFTW and HH melodically? I think not as it's not as blantently folky.
     
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