Jethro Tull - Aqualung
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Free Music Notes for Aqualung
Free Music Review: a classic, rythmical, mature piece of art
Hit: 5 Stars
Luis Mejia (son) - This wasn't the first Jethro Tull album I heard; is really difficult to classify them depending on the album's era you heard, but when I first listened to it I considerated it nice, but not as a masterpiece as I'm telling here. Later, when I heard Thick As A Brick and the compilation Living In The Past, I started comprehending more and more their trayectory. Then I played it again, and how graceful it was to hear it! everything was cleared. This is such a masterpiece, so many aspects to say about it, so many comparisons.
Well, for starting the music composition is so incredible, in every song is expressed how they can change with grace from a blues-like face into more progressive rock and more experimentation, 'cause I think of it as progressive rock but there are so many styles in every song that it is difficult to classify, from the soft but firm sounds in Wondering Aloud, Mother Goose and the excellent Wind Up, to the fast, incredibly composed and more enjoyable sounds of Aqualung, Cross Eyed Mary, Up To Me, Locomotive Breath and Hymn 43.
The instrumentation is certainly the best one that the band ever had; mainly because they don't exagerate putting songs in a one instrument structure, they just added the sound perfectly, Ian Anderson's flute goes with the rythm of every song, Bare's guitar collaborates equally with all the other instruments, Clive Bunker may be one of the best batterists Jethro ever had, and Hammond organ is a key instrument in most of the tracks, mainly Aqualung, Cross Eyed Mary and Up To Me. Another excellent aspect is that Anderson's voice is at its perfect stage, you'll recognize it if you've heard later and earlier works.
When it comes to the album structure, I don't know why they had so much speculations about being a concept album about religion; as I know Anderson denied it and that's why they released Thick As A Brick, for stopping the anxiety about the concept album.
In conclussion this is certainly Jethro Tull's best album, I hope they release some day another one like this, apart from Thick As A Brick but I doubt it. The only not-so-good aspect is about the remastered version; not because of the sound sustractions is mainly because they shouldn't ruin such a great album adding such common bonus tracks.
Free Music Review: Tull's great rock album; their best; remastering problems: 4 1/2 stars
Hit: 5 Stars
There are two irriating and related tendencies in Amazon customer reviews of rock music: 1) revisionism of a musical artist's legacy; 2) and the indiscriminate granting of the status of artistic greatness. Why is this? Because customer reviews of rock music are dominated by a band's fanatics. The result is the inflated greatness and revised assessment of musicans and their recorded output.
In Amazon reviews, I have learned, for example, that Uli Jon Roth and Rory Gallagher are rock's greatest guitarists and that the usual suspects (e.g., SRV, Clapton, Hendrix, E. Van Halen, Jimmy Page) are all overrated due to mass ignorance of what truly constitutes greatness.
In this set of reviews, I have discovered that Aqualung maybe makes the top four Tull albums but is, nonetheless, a "masterpiece." If your part of those in the know, then you'd know this. If only you wrapped your ears around Songs from the Wood, then . . . . Implied in all of this nonsense is more nonsense that Tull has generated at least 5 masterpieces. Tossing around the label of "masterpiece" as if it was a cigarette butt is neither attractive nor constructive.
This is Tull's best album. I enjoy Benefit, Brick, Wood, etc. They are all fine works. However, this is a perfectly paced album with a solid, propulsive groove across 5-minute-average tracks that allow this the crossover necessary to make this a monument to Tull's artistic legacy to rock music. The album best represents Tull's blues-based, slightly classical-and-jazz inflected, hard driving, progressive rock sound and, therefore, the best showcase of the band's strengths.
Tull fanatics might have other favorites. However, this is the one for those who simply want one Tull album and want to listen to one of rock's great albums. A "Greatest Hits" album simply does not justice to a band as album oriented as Tull.
I deduct 1/2 star in this album due to the remastered sound, which may be due to a problem originating in the master tapes. While the sound is clean, it is remastered at an extraordinarily low volume and with a slightly diminished high end. While this is immediately noticeable and disappointing upon first listen, this may or may not have been the best way to optimize the album's fidelity.
Free Music Review: "His cross was rather bloody/ He could hardly roll his stone..."
Hit: 5 Stars
When people talk about progressive rock being dull and dated and pretentious, they surely can't be thinking of Aqualung. Jethro Tull's gospel-weary opus may be full of flute solos and lyrics about man's relationship to God, but it still rocks more righteously than anything Guns `N' Roses ever did. There's not a Moog synthesizer or an extended suite to be found (except for the title track, and it's not really all that extended), and pyrotechnical displays of instrumental prowess are kept to a tasteful minimum. Classical influences share space with strains of blues, folk, and a bit of gospel. The lyrics, even when they become abstract, make sense more often than not, and they're almost always poignant. The band even insists that it isn't a concept album, and sometimes it seems that they might actually be telling the truth! So, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, don't consider Aqualung a prog rock album. Just think of it as a blistering rock `n' roll record that happens to be, well, smart.
And then listen to it. Let that ludicrously good title track smash you in the gut. Listen to Ian Anderson's grizzled sneer, to that insistent guitar riff, to the sudden (and totally cool) tempo changes, to those fantastic lyrics. It's one of the greatest album openers ever, and it isn't even the best song here. That honor probably goes to "Hymn 43," a barnstorming surge of mutant gospel that burns with Biblical fury and melodic intensity. The lyrics are sheer bombastic brilliance, a scathing indictment of opportunistic religious leaders and human selfishness. My personal favorite line on the album has to be "and the unsung Western hero/ he killed an Indian or three/ then he made his name in Hollywood/ to set the white man free/ ah, Jesus save me!" Either that or "if Jesus saves/ well he'd better save himself." Other brilliant songs about organized religions and their failure to bring man closer to God (hey, maybe it really is a concept album!) include "My God" and "Wind Up," and both of them drip with dark genius. "Cross-Eyed Mary" ain't so bad either. I also love "Mother Goose," with its poetic childhood imagery and vaguely Medieval melody (okay, I guess it really is a prog rock album), and "Locomotive Breath," which rules on every level. Just like the rest of the album.
Free Music Review: AQUALUNG WILL HAVE YOU "WONDERING ALOUD" ! (Jethro Tull classic ponders religon, society, philosophy)
Hit: 5 Stars
It really can't be denied that Jethro Tull's Aqualung (1971) is a rock classic. With it's sophisticated rock/folk/jazz sound, timeless characters, thought provoking lyric and subject matter, it 's almost more like a classic novel than an early 1970s rock music album.
The album is divided into two sections; Aqualung and My God.
Aqualung begins the album with the tale of a despicable/lovable derelict, and it's followed by Cross-Eyed Mary. Mary is an underage prostitute, who "gets no kicks from little boys, but rather make it with a letching grey". Both songs are rock classics with plenty of electric guitar and singer Ian Anderson's trademark flute and unique vocal interpretations. The English folk-songs, Mother Goose and Wondering Aloud, are pleasant acoustic tunes on the surface, but both hint at the agnostic theme that dominates the second half of the album. Up To Me is a folk/rock ditty of choice and consequence, "And if I laughed a bit too fast, well it was up to me".
My God takes the listener head-first into the album's commentary on God and religon. Anderson's wrath seems to be directed less at God, and more at the church and how religon has molded God into a convenient and manipulative concept.
My God (the song) begins as a serious, minor-key acoustic guitar and piano dirge, then turns into a flute and Gregorian chant duet, and finally roars and menaces as a foreboding electric-metal rock song. Hymn 43 is an all-out rock song where Anderson protests the use of God's name to advance a selfish agenda, "If Jesus is, then He better save himself from the gory glory seekers who use his name in death!". Locomotive Breath is a rock classic that chronicles the spiraling, out-of-control life of an unidentified man who's prayers don't help him to slow things down. Wind-up ends the original album on a more hopeful, but still cynical, note, where Anderson even talks to God, who tells him, "I'm not not the kind you have to wind up on Sunday". This acknowledges the existence of God, but also the fact that you don't have to go to church on Sunday to know Him.
Simply put, Aqualung is an English classic, a rock music album like no other, great folk/rock/jazz music, and a thought-provoking piece of rock art.
Free Music Review: "salvation ala mode and a cup of tea"
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is classic. One of my favorites of all-time. Whether it is to be considered a two-part concept album or not, the music and lyrical content is extremely rich. Consider the brilliant title track: it starts with a powerful, driving sound with lyrics introducing Aqualung (formed by man by the "dust of the ground" and "cast into the void") as a dirty, menacing pedophile which is society's view and then, in slower, acoustical parts, Anderson's lyrics sympathize with the homeless man ("Do you remember December's foggy freeze") and takes stabs at society's treatment of men such as Aqualung. The rest of the album is just as rich and wonderful. The free spirited acoustical "Mother Goose" and the soothing but introspective acoustical "Wond'ring Aloud" are two of my favorites. Hard rocking numbers in the same vein as "Aqulaung" include the disturbing enjoyment of "Cross-Eyed Mary" (Iron Maiden did a cover of this one) and "Locomotive Breath" which, like the title track, is always included in Tull concerts.Whereas the first side (or half) of the album may be seen as a criticism of society, the second side is a stab at organized religion with the heaviest tracks on the album "My God" and, especially, "Hymn 43." "Locomotive Breath" uses a train to symbolize the unstoppable influence of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory on the church ("Old Charlie stole the handle"). The remarkable album ends with the acoustic "Wind Up" which sports some of the best lyrics on record ("He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays"). If you just know the two big hits and have not heard this album in its entirety, you are really missing out on something truly special. What I do not understand about this release, however, are the choice of bonus tracks. "Song for Jeffrey" through "Bouree" do not fit well and are, of course, available elsewhere. I read where Glenn Cornick (former bass player) talks about playing on several original takes of Aqualung including an unreleased version of "My God" before he had to leave the band. Where are these tracks? Now they would be what I would consider a "bonus" on an album such as this which is almost too perfect to add something from outside. I almost considered shaving off a star, but could not give this classic less than 5.