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Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick 2

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Chrysalis Records
Released: 2012.04.04
Time:
 53:45
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Ian Anderson
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.jethrotull.com
Appears with: Ian Anderson
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] From a Pebble Thrown (I.Anderson) - 3:05
[2] Medley: Pebbles Instrumental / Might-Have-Beens (I.Anderson) - 4:21
[3] Medley: Upper Sixth Loan Shark / Banker Bets, Banker Wins (I.Anderson) - 5:41
[4] Swing It Far (I.Anderson) - 3:28
[5] Adrift and Dumfounded (I.Anderson) - 4:25
[6] Old School Song (I.Anderson) - 3:07
[7] Wootton Bassett Town (I.Anderson) - 3:44
[8] Medley: Power and Spirit / Give Till It Hurts (I.Anderson) - 3:11
[9] Medley: Cosy Corner / Shunt and Shuffle (I.Anderson) - 3:37
[10] A Change of Horses (I.Anderson) - 8:04
[11] Confessional (I.Anderson) - 3:09
[12] Kismet in Suburbia (I.Anderson) - 4:17
[13] What-ifs, Maybes and Might-Have-Beens (I.Anderson) - 3:36

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Ian Anderson - Vocals, Flutes, Acoustic Guitars, Liner Notes, Producer
Florian Opahle - Electric Guitar, Digital Editing
John O'Hara - Accordion, Hammond Organ, Piano, Keyboards
Pete Judge - Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Tenor Horn, E-Flat Tuba
Ryan O'Donnell - Additional Vocals
David Goodier - Bass Guitar, Glockenspiel
Scott Hammond - Drums, Percussion

Mike Downs - Recording Engineer
Steven Wilson - Mixing Engineer
Peter Mew - Mastering Engineer

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2012 CD Chrysalis - 50999 6 38726 2 0



Thick as a Brick 2, abbreviated TAAB 2 and subtitled Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?, is the fifth studio album by Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, released in 2012 as a follow-up of Thick as a Brick, Jethro Tull's highly acclaimed 1972 concept album. It entered the Billboard chart at No. 55.

According to Anderson, TAAB 2 (pronounced /tæb tuː/ by Anderson) focuses on Gerald Bostock, the fictional boy genius author of the original album, forty years later. "I wonder what the eight-year-old Gerald Bostock would be doing today. Would the fabled newspaper still exist?" The follow-up album presents five divergent, hypothetical life stories for Gerald Bostock, including a greedy investment banker, a homosexual homeless man, a soldier in the Afghan War, a sanctimonious evangelist preacher, and a most ordinary man who (married and childless) runs a corner store; by the end of the album, however, all five possibilities seem to converge in a similar concluding moment of gloomy or pitiful solitude. In March 2012, to follow the style of the mock-newspaper cover (The St Cleve Chronicle and Linwell Advertiser) of the original Thick as a Brick album, an online newspaper was set up, simply titled StCleve: www.stcleve.com.

Anderson performed the entire album live on tour in 2012. In August 2014, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson released CD/DVD/Blu-ray Thick as a Brick - Live in Iceland. The concert was recorded in Reykjavík, Iceland on 22 June 2012 and featured complete Thick as a Brick and Thick as a Brick 2 performances by the Ian Anderson Touring Band.

Wikipedia.org



1972 hatte Ian Anderson mit dem Jethro-Tull-Album Thick As A Brick einen absoluten Klassiker des Progressive Rock aufgenommen. Im Mittelpunkt der Songtexte stand die fiktive kindliche Hauptfigur Gerald Bostock. Das Album avancierte zum Spitzenreiter in den Billboard Charts und zu einem beachtlichen Erfolg in etlichen anderen Ländern.

Vierzig Jahre später: Was würde Gerald Bostock, der nun 50 Jahre alt wäre, heutzutage machen? Wie wäre es ihm in all der Zeit ergangen? Der zweite Teil des Albumklassikers zieht die unterschiedlichsten Möglichkeiten in Betracht, was aus dem frühreifen Schuljungen Gerald Bostock hätte werden können, welche Wege er hätte einschlagen können. In den diversen Songs nimmt die Hauptfigur verschiedene Alter Egos an, um die Vielzahl der möglichen Wendungen zu verdeutlichen, die Schicksal und Zufall in einem Leben bereit halten. So illustrieren die Songs nicht nur Geralds Leben, sondern auch die Entwicklungen unserer eigenen Biographien, die nicht selten durch zufällige Begegnungen und Eingriffe völlig neue Wendungen annehmen, auch wenn sie manchmal zunächst noch ganz nichtig und unbedeutend erscheinen.

Ian Anderson über sein neues Album: Wenn unsere Generation auf ihr Leben zurückblickt, überkommt sie sicherlich gelegentlich dieser 'Was wäre wenn'-Moment. Wären wir, wie Gerald, statt dem, was wir sind, vielleicht Prediger, Soldat, Penner, Geschäftsinhaber oder Finanztycoon geworden? Und all jene, die der Generation des Internet und der sozialen Netzwerke angehören, mögen darüber sinnieren, was mit den unzähligen Möglichkeiten ist, die sich bei jeder Gelegenheit anzubieten scheinen.

Thick As A Brick 2 wird in drei Formaten erscheinen: als Standard-CD in einer Jewel-Box, als Digital Download und als Special Edition mit zwei Discs, sprich der CD sowie einer DVD mit einer 5.1 Stereo-Abmischung von Steven Wilson, einem Video über die Entstehung des Albums ( Making Of... ), Interviews mit den Musikern und Lesungen der Songtexte von Ian Anderson an verschiedenen Orten.

Amazon.de



To quote Ian Anderson, “If someone had suggested that I might release a prog-concept album in the year 2012, I would have thought him seriously, dangerously even, off his trolley. But that is precisely what happened.”

Ah, progressive rock, or “prog,” the mutant offspring of psychedelia. Often maligned and misunderstood, it became an easy target as songs got longer and concepts less, well, conceptual.

Jethro Tull began life as a folk-based blues rock band, but they had a secret weapon in frontman Ian Anderson, who looked like a hobo and played flute. Flute! Not exactly your standard artillery in the rock ‘n’ roll game, but he didn’t just make it work, he made it work well. The fact that he was not only an ace flautist but could also write some great songs certainly didn’t hurt.

Though not born of prog, Tull slid into their art rock shoes pretty comfortably. By the time their landmark LP ‘Aqualung’ was released, they were toe-to-toe with the giants of prog like Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, but there was something keeping them on the sidelines of all the grandeur.

With their 1972 album ‘Thick As a Brick,’ Tull leader Ian Anderson decided to throw his lot in the fire.

The original ‘TAAB’ album was meant to be a parody of the more pompous aspects of progressive rock. Mission accomplished — but it also happens to be one of the era’s finest artifacts. One song spread over two sides of an album, expertly played, and a storyline holding it all in place. In other words, a “concept” album. Concept albums date back to either the Who’s ‘Tommy’ or the Pretty Things’ ‘SF Sorrow,’ and throughout the prog era it became almost expected to have a go at the form.

Enter Gerald Bostock, the central figure in Anderson’s storyline on ‘Thick As a Brick 2.’ In 1972, Bostock was a 10-year-old lad beyond his years. It’s been 40 years since the original ‘Brick,’ and for the occasion, Anderson decided it was time to answer the “whatever happened to” question.

Gerald Bostock is now 50 years old and, as Ian Anderson himself explains on his website, this sequel will “examine the different paths that the precocious young schoolboy … might have taken later in life and … create alter-ego characters whose song-section identities illustrate the hugely varied potential twists and turns of fate and opportunity.” Anderson adds that it will also “echo how our own lives develop, change direction and ultimately conclude.”

The story unfolds as Gerald reflects on his life, and brings up some “what ifs” concerning the different paths he could’ve taken. There are subtle references to Anderson’s path over the last 40 years woven into the story as well.

So that’s the tale of Gerald, but what of the music within?

Longtime Tull fans will be happy, as this new ‘Brick’ has vintage Tull written all over it. Though credited to “Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson,” it’s more like Tull than much of Anderson’s solo work over the years. Some familiar themes and melodies creep in periodically to subtly tie it to the original album, but while it by no means sounds like a 1972 release, it does have that certain something that allows past and present to walk hand-in-hand. You’ll hear spoken-word narration, and of course Anderson’s flute is still front and center when called upon.

As you’d expect, prog-esque bravado and top-shelf musicianship are also in full flight. Dynamically produced by all around renaissance man, Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, No Man and many more), he captures a very full sound, sonically merging the warmth of the old with the attack of the new. He’s also intimately familiar with Tull’s music — last year he did the remix/remaster thing with ‘Aqualung’ and has recently done the same for the original ‘Thick,’ which is due out later this year.

Ultimately, ‘Thick As a Brick 2′ is an album sure to please longtime Tull and Anderson fans, and possibly one of the best examples of an elder statesman artist finding his way back from whence he came without cliche. It’s doubtful non-believers will be converted by it, but that’s okay — the disc is a nice journey from present to past to future for those who want to ride along. Stay tuned as Anderson takes both ‘Bricks’ on the road this fall.

Dave Swanson  - April 8, 2012
ultimateclassicrock.com



Some 40 years after the release of Jethro Tull's prog landmark Thick as a Brick, chief Tull Ian Anderson crafts a sequel. Sensibly titled Thick as a Brick 2, this 2012 set brings us up to speed with the life of Gerald Bostock, who was a mere lad of 10 at the time of TAAB but is now an adult shouldering a myriad of responsibilities. His disappointments and mild triumphs make him a different man than he was, yet underneath it all he's still that recognizable child, and the same can be said for Anderson's music: it's cleaner and streamlined, not as indulgent or idealistic as his younger work, boasting a more sensible structure, yet it still bears all of his signatures from the flute to rambling folk-rock. To criticize TAAB2 for not having a clear hook to pull you inside is unfair: Anderson is assuming a familiarity with his work, so he's giving himself time to write around the point, taking diversions wherever he finds them, sometimes in the form of eight-minute mini-suites, sometimes in the form of brief two-minute interludes. TAAB2 doesn't sound contemporary but it doesn't sound classic either - it sounds caught between the two eras, as if it was recorded in 1990. That may turn off some listeners, but they're the kind who wouldn't spend any time with an Anderson album anyway. Those diehards who are still curious after all these years will find Thick as a Brick 2 an effective, if not quite compelling, sequel to a beloved classic.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide
 

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