Jethro Tull - Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die! (1976)

Year: 23 April 1976 (CD 1987)
Label: Chrysalis Records (Germany), 252 663
Style: Progressive Rock, Gothic Rock, Folk Rock
Country: Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Time: 42:15
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 263 Mb

Ian Anderson should stick to music, because he most definitely is not a storyteller. This is the muddled story of one Ray Lomas, “the last of the old rockers,” whose long hair and tight jeans mark him as a person whom time has passed by. After a series of events remarkable only for their lack of humor and originality, we leave the “hero” as he is about to become a pop star in his own right.
So what? We can take comfort, though, in knowing that Anderson’s technical prowess as a composer remains undiminished. The album abounds in breathtaking musical passages. The title cut, for one, is a textbook example of the use of dynamics and nuance in a rock song: instruments subtly creep in during the verses, with the slightest of musical nods to let us know they’re there. The music builds with a tension that heightens a desperate theme, then erupts in the chorus. “Quizz Kid” features, in addition to numerous startling changes in texture, several brief but pungent solos by guitarist Martin Barre, whose playing is exemplary throughout.
(rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/too-old-to-rock-n-roll-too-young-to-die-204560/)

Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog. D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).

01. Quizz Kid (05:07)
02. Crazed Institution (04:47)
03. Salamander (02:51)
04. Taxi Grab (03:55)
05. From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser (04:08)
06. Bad-Eyed and Loveless (02:14)
07. Big Dipper (03:37)
08. Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die (05:41)
09. Pied Piper (04:32)
10. The Chequered Flag (Dead or Alive) (05:23)

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Jethro Tull - War Child (1974)

Year: 14 October 1974 (CD 1990)
Label: Chrysalis Records (US), F2 21067
Style: Progressive Rock, Gothic Rock, Folk Rock
Country: Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Time: 39:07
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 262 Mb

For an album splotched together from a failed recording project, a failed movie project, a concept involving anthropomorphism and one song from the Aqualung sessions, War Child turned out reasonably well. It would have turned out even better had they locked David Palmer in the basement during the recording process.
Palmer’s string arrangements on War Child are consistently overdone and too loud in many of the mixes. They appear in many tracks that would have been better off without them. More Martin, less David would have been nice. On the plus side, Ian Anderson’s vocals are quite energetic and the song mix displays Tull’s versatility exceptionally well. When they’re not buried by the string section, the band sounds Tull-tight.
The original War Child concept had to do with the story of a teenage girl in the afterlife meeting up with God, Lucifer and St. Peter. I’m glad they didn’t go there, as there is such a thing as spending too much time on religion. The more interesting theme-a perceptible thread that runs through “War Child” and “Queen and Country”-is the idea that all of us who live in modern society are war children who live off the fruits of conquest, whether that conquest involves shooting wars or capitalist competitiveness. While we enjoy ourselves in “the bright city mile” or while the ministers enjoy their “social whirls,” we forget that all of our fun is made possible to some extent by war and its cousins. Now that would have made for a very intriguing concept album, particularly since Al Qaeda later justified the 9/11 attacks on innocent civilians with the response, “They pay taxes, don’t they?” If we benefit from the spoils of war, are we still responsible for the war even if we don’t fire a shot?
As it is, the title track opener is an interesting and unusual piece of music. Ian was still in love with the soprano saxophone during this period, so that’s what we hear as the music fades in following the breakfast-and-battle sequence. The chord sequence is deceptive, particularly in the chorus, where a key shift takes us to A but the chorus resolves on Bb before taking us back to the incongruous E root of the verse. Ian Anderson was by this time pretty nimble with unusual chord sequences, but this one’s particularly sweet and almost Charlie Parkerish in the use of the flattened sixth. The rhythmic changes are pretty zippy, too, especially when they speed up the tempo for Ian’s sax solo. The lyrics work if you can imagine them as the start of a longer narrative; by themselves they feel like orphans. All in all, an intriguing opening if you tune out David Palmer’s string barrage.
(full version: altrockchick.com/2014/03/07/classic-music-review-war-child-by-jethro-tull/)

01. WarChild (04:34)
02. Queen and Country (03:01)
03. Ladies (03:19)
04. Back-Door Angels (05:29)
05. SeaLion (03:37)
06. Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day (03:58)
07. Bungle in the Jungle (03:37)
08. Only Solitaire (01:29)
09. The Third Hoorah (04:51)
10. Two Fingers (05:09)

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Jethro Tull - A Passion Play (1973)

Year: 13 July 1973 (CD 198?)
Label: Chrysalis Records (UK), CDP 32 1040 2
Style: Progressive Rock, Gothic Rock, Folk Rock
Country: Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Time: 45:05
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 263 Mb

Jethro Tull's second album-length composition, A Passion Play is very different from - and not quite as successful as - Thick as a Brick. Ian Anderson utilizes reams of biblical (and biblical-sounding) references, interwoven with modern language, as a sort of a rock equivalent to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. As with most progressive rock, the words seem important and profound, but their meaning is anyone's guess ("The ice-cream lady wet her drawers, to see you in the Passion Play..."), with Anderson as a dour but engaging singer/sage (who, at least at one point, seems to take on the role of a fallen angel). It helps to be aware of the framing story, about a newly deceased man called to review his life at the portals of heaven, who realizes that life on Earth is preferable to eternity in paradise. But the music puts it over successfully, a dazzling mix of old English folk and classical material, reshaped in electric rock terms. The band is at its peak form, sustaining the tension and anticipation of this album-length piece across 45 minutes, although the music runs out of inspiration about five minutes before it actually ends.
(allmusic.com/album/a-passion-play-mw0000036413)

Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog. D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).

01. A Passion Play, Part 1 (21:35)
02. A Passion Play, Part 2 (23:30)

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Joe Soap - Keep It Clean (1973)

Year: 1973 (CD 2009)
Label: Big Pink Music (South Korea), BiG PINK 46
Style: Rock, Rhythm and Blues
Country: UK
Time: 38:00
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 271 Mb

Having released their debut album in 1972 (PT 8071CD), with backing from Stone The Crows and others, in 1973 John Tennent and David Morrison went in another direction, embracing gritty blues-rock. Keep It Clean sank without trace upon its first release at the end of that year, but has since gained a strong cult reputation, not least because of the superb contributions from Jimmy McCulloch (by then of Wings), Mik Kaminski (of ELO), and others.
(forcedexposure.com/Labels/PROG.TEMPLE.UK.html)
Joe Soap were a band comprising of John Tennent and David Morrison. They had previously released one album prior to using this name, "Tennent / Morrison" (Polydor 1972).
Their second album, (and only one as Joe Soap) "Keep It Clean" (Polydor 1973) enhanced this core lineup with contributions from Jerry Conway (Jethro Tull), Jimmy McCulloch (Stone The Crows), Mike Kaminski (ELO) and Jeff Pearce. Itwas produced by Sandy Robertson.
(last.fm/music/Joe+Soap/+wiki)

01. Talkin' 'Bout You (04:12)
02. Warning Sign (02:58)
03. Lay It On Me (07:05)
04. Whatever The Song Is Now (03:09)
05. Get Outfrom Under (03:00)
06. Feels Strange (03:24)
07. On The Wind (03:27)
08. Time (03:46)
09. All Out Now (03:22)
10. Birdman (03:33)

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Jethro Tull - Crest Of A Knave (1987)

Year: 11 September 1987 (CD 2005)
Label: Chrysalis Records (Europe), 7243 4 73413 2 8
Style: Blues Rock, Folk Rock, Progressive Rock
Country: Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Time: 55:35
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 364 Mb

The album was recorded after a three-year hiatus caused by a throat infection of vocalist Ian Anderson, resulting in his changed singing style. Following the unsuccessful electronic rock album Under Wraps, Crest of a Knave had the band returning to a more hard rock sound. The album was their most successful since the 1970s and the band enjoyed a resurgence on radio broadcasts, appearances in MTV specials and the airing of music videos. It was also a critical success, winning the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental in what was widely viewed as an upset over the favorite, Metallica's ...And Justice for All.
The album relied more heavily on Martin Barre's electric guitar than the band had since the 1970s. The style of Crest has been compared to that of Dire Straits, in part because Anderson no longer had the vocal range he once possessed (the result of recent throat surgery).
Ian Anderson later stated about the musical style of the album: "'Steel Monkey' was based around a sequencer riff, and it didn't have any flute in it. So it was yet another atypical Jethro Tull song that was a radio hit. By comparison, both 'Farm On The Freeway' and 'Budapest' are very typical Tull songs. 'Budapest' is the kind of song I like to write because it embodies a lot of different nuances which I think are subtly joined together. It sort of moves from classical to slightly bluesy to folk, and it just slips between them and you don't see the stitching."
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crest_of_a_Knave)

01. Steel Monkey (03:37)
02. Farm On The Freeway (06:31)
03. Jump Start (04:55)
04. She Said She Was A Dancer (03:41)
05. Dogs In The Midwinter (04:29)
06. Budapest (10:05)
07. Mountain Men (06:21)
08. The Waking Edge (04:47)
09. Raising Steam (04:12)
10. Part Of The Machine (Bonus Track) (06:54)

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