Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick or A Passion Play?

I love Thick as a Brick, but feel it pales next to A Passion Play. I think many prefer TAAB because it starts out immediately accessible and carries on that way for the rest of the album side. I find the first few minutes of side 2 unbearable and most of side 2 a letdown, but think the highpoint of the album is the last few minutes after that great key change.

A Passion Play begins much more low-key and has a very subdued side 1 which probably prevented many listeners from getting involved, which is a shame because side 2 is arguably the most hook-filled of the four sides being discussed.

I think A Passion Play is remarkable and garners unlimited rewards on repeated listenings. It is more of a unified listening experience and flows more naturally than the somewhat piecemeal TTB. Also, it doesn't have those awkward moments (unlesss you count the intermission) and sometimes overbearing heavy metal guitar moments of TAAB. I also love the sax and extra keyboard parts, and the more weaving melodic sensibility.

So forum members, which do you prefer?

 

Voted Thick as a Brick...I just love it.

 

Impossible to choose. Whichever one I happen to be listening to at the time is the one I prefer. Both are incredible.

 

After all these years (I purchased both when they came out), I still waiver back and forth between the two. It's a tie!
Sometimes Thick As A Brick seems so cohesive, other times I go for the wild angular jams in Passion Play (I saw that tour and treasured it. That was the year Tull and Zep went toe-to-toe to see who could sell the most nights at the LA Forum; I think they were up around 4 or 5 each!)
It's worth noting that Aqualung had the germs of both in it (The social commentary and the divine).
There's a terrific award-winning "annotated Passion Play" website worth checking out sometime.

 

Passion Play. I find myself just listening to 'side one' of 'Thick as a Brick', side two is a bit weak in comparison. Passion Play took me years to 'absorb', however one day a light went off inside my head, and I finally 'got' just how brilliant it is. It's an ambitious, pretentious, and overblown masterpiece. In other words, it's progressive perfection. It represents Tull music at it's best. Too bad Ian doesn't see it that way now (thanks to the drumming the critics gave in back in the day), but really it is the best work the band ever did. Never to ever equaled again (although they came close a few times), IMO. 'Brick' will win this poll, 'Passion Play' wins my heart.

 

I saw JT perform both in concert. The TAAB Concert was Very enjoyable!

PP was not.

I had not listened to PP the required number of times to enjoy the concert.

I perfer concerts that require NO ****ing Homework !!!

 

But we're not talking about the better concert.

 

man seriously it is no contest, thick as a brick, not even going to say in my opinion because it is pretty much fact.

 

Passion Play was a HUGE letdown, following TAAB. Why he abandoned flute for clarinet was totally head-scratching. The Hare was just as head-scratching.

 

Wow, some of these responses are so strange for me to read. To me, A Passion Play is so clearly superior. Just a 90 minute sit-down with both albums and no distractions reveals that plainly. Well....at least to these ears.

 

+1

 

A Passion Play is something less than Thick As A Brick. If I were grading them on a five star scale, both would receive five stars, but if I were allowed the nuances of a ten star scale, Thick As A Brick would receive a ten whereas A Passion Play would receive a nine. Love 'em both and have since they were first released; especially enjoy the keyboards, and, on A Passion Play, the sax...

Dr. Weber

 

I would have thought TAAB because the first side is so strong from start to finish, but then it gets a bit overblown on Side 2. I suppose that was intentional, but I begin to get bored a bit during the drum solo bit - my guess is it's around the same point others complain about.

I voted for APP because as strange as it is, that's what I like about it. Even The Hare fascinates me - it's all just so "out there". And I've found this album impresses me more after reading about its meaning on www.ministry-of-information.co.uk.

 

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!

I agree 100%

I think Forest Dance1/Spectacles/Forest Dance2 is a wonderful interlude too.

1 "Lifebeats"
2 "Prelude"
3 "The Silver Cord"
4 "Re-Assuring Tune"
5 "Memory Bank"
6 "Best Friends"
7 "Critique Oblique"
8 "Forest Dance #1"
9 "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" (Anderson / Hammond / Evan)
10 "Forest Dance #2"
11 "The Foot of Our Stairs"
12 "Overseer Overture"
13 "Flight from Lucifer"
14 "10.08 to Paddington"
15 "Magus Perdē"
16 "Epilogue"

 

No contest...Thick As A Brick.

 

For me, it's A Passion Play by a hair. Or is that a hare?

If side two of TAAB was as strong as side one, it'd be no contest for me. But I've always found side two to be a huge letdown.

I think APP is far more consistent from start to finish, at least for me.

 

Thick As A Brick by a hare. yes-hare


"We will be geared to the average rather than the exceptional"

 

Fifteen years ago I had a girlfriend who lived along the Fulham Road. I was also really into the novels of Martin Amis, whose Other People shares the same basic theme as A Passion Play. I thought for years A Passion Play was the best Tull album, but the further I got away from those two contingent attractions the less the album fascinated. I can't imagine sparing the album much time had I not encountered Amis and Nicky.

So Thick As A Brick. I should give the other one a spin just for old times sake.

 

I voted aPP, for almost the exact same reasons as yesstiles's. Have preferred it from day one (which is June 2 '73, Montreal Forum, I believe a little before the LP North Am. release). And I am glad other members also feel like me that on side 2 of Brick they have run out of steam.

To Larry Geller, no clarinet on aPP but soprano sax. Perhap as an influence from Captain Beefheart, whom IA had got befriended with at that point.

 

I could never get into A Passion Play. I've always loved Thick as a Brick.

 

At the time there was a single with two edits from Passion Play. Both were interesting segments, One started with "Flee the icy Lucifer". MU the best of had one of those edits. Aside from the childrens story in the center, PP rivals Aqualung. Side 1 of Thick as a Brick, as noted, is brilliant.
I vote for Passion Play.

 

Oh yes and the theater program is as much fun as the Brick Newspaper.

 

Thick as a Brick!

 

Please say why. Otherwise voting would be enough.

 

Passion Play has turned into an re-discovered, almost long lost gem for me. I bought it when the CD version first came out and that bloody hare/spectacles thing turned me so off it so much that I immediately sold it and my memory of the album was tainted. I bought it again last week and it's wonderful! The hare/spectacles is still utterly annoying but the rest of the album is wonderful. I still prefer TAAB but then that's one of my all time favourite albums anyway.