Jethro Tull's Ridiculously Elaborate Album Cover
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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I've never clicked on a video so fast lol. I've been WAITING for you to do a Tull video!❤❤
In a recent conversation with a pal, he seemed quite surprised when I mentioned that the album cover was probably the last great gasp of Pop Art and due to the shrinking from LP to CD, we will likely never see its like again. It had never occurred to him that an album cover would be literal Art. That said, I love watching this series, and hope you continue to enjoy what you are doing, and may you be financially secure (as much as one can be in this era as of this post).
Oh man I have had a rough day but that made it all better! I've always loved the creativity and cross-referenced jokes within the fake articles. You're absolutely right that half the experience is lost in streaming, having an entire experience with the music and the artwork was foundational to how I discovered music.
I've spent untold hours in the last 40+ years since this album came out entertained by it and have always thought it was one of the best covers ever.
KInda want to send Aunt Molly's Recipe to Babish and see if he can make it work.
The entire album is social satire.
Sorry Kofi - was going to give, but ain't going to do it - (trawl thru permissions & info rights)-sorry😢
It is very surprisingly how hard it is to find good digital scans of the full album art. I only got to read the whole thing after I got my own copy. Collecting vinyls has made me appreciate album art even more than I did before, and honestly the insides that most will never see are often my favorite parts.
The plural of vinyl is vinyl.
@@innoutisbetterthanculverswell, not everybody is a fluent English speaker that knows every word. He/she may just be unfamiliarized with that gramatical thing, just as I am
@@innoutisbetterthanculvers cry about it then
there is a copy of the newspaper which came with the 40th anneversary cd I have a copy, it's folded so it opens up roughly 2 cd covers wide by 3rd covers long & is the whole newspaper, hope you can find it the print must be from the original source
The LP copy of the Who's Live at Leeds that I bought in 1972 came with a big "Maximim R&B" poster advertising them playing at the Marquee cClub and also contained all kinds of newspaper clippings and accounts of where the band played and how much they were paid for gigs,, and how much money they owed for (smashed) equipment to the local music stores.....CD's and digital downloads omit all that wonderfully odd stuff.
I found Thick as a Brick in vinyl in great shape at a thrift shop a few years ago for $.30 and the puzzles are even untouched.
Very lucky find indeed!
Massive W
I don't like being old...65...but am glad I lived through this era. I still listen to the full TAAB album at least once a month. It has stood the test of time.
@@XanderDDS ha!
I love it, and I also like TAAB2. It's hard to pick a favorite Tull album. It changes. And that's how good they are!
@@XanderDDShahaha. I saw Tull live last night - couldn't possibly sit it out. Never too old to rock and roll!
I'm 25 and Tull is one of my favorite bands. This and Minstrel in the Gallery are two of the best albums I've ever listened to
I was listening to thick as a brick on headphones in 1974 when I was 16 and a stockbroker friend of my father's who was visiting asked if he could have a listen. I handed over my phones and he listened to one whole side of the record, and commented on the depth of the lyrics.
I never really "got" Thick As A Brick in spite of being a huge Tull fan until just last year when they reissued the Newspaper edition in its entirety and I sat down to listen to the album and read the paper.
I dunno why that "unlocked" the music for me, but holy crap it's brilliant. And I *think* I detect specific movements in the work aping King Crimson, Yes, and Genesis's style. I've never seen anyone write about this though, so I may be imagining it. :D
Your interpretation is really interesting, I'm gonna pay more attention to it next time I listen the album
Not sure about these three bands, but the "son is born" sections have always reminded me of ELP!
In 30 years of collecting records, finding a near mint copy of this back in the 90's with the crossword NOT completed is still a highlight. This album and the artwork is the epitome of how to present an album.
I don't recall seeing a copy of "Thick as a Brick" where someone had attempted to do the crossword puzzle, but it was common to see that somebody had drawn in Daffy the duck's " little friend" in the connect the dots puzzle.
The layered quality of this satire can't be overstated. Not only did Ian make a prog concept album by creating its own universe around his album. He also satirised the prog movement by making it in universe writer a cynical upper class 9 year old constantly being lost in profound sounding metaphors. And to top it off it's musically amazingly complex yet very easy to listen to.
I dead ass spent the entire album just looking at the album cover, it’s that elaborate.
Thick As A Brick actually released less than a year after Aqualung
Aqualung released on March 19, 1971
Thick As A Brick released on March 3, 1972
I’ll never forget when I first found this in a record store, only having listened to it and seen the front cover on streaming. It was an instant buy for me
I'm SO glad you made a video on this one. It's easily some of the most unique album artwork/packaging ever made.
On a side note, is the crossword possible? Doesn't seem like it.
Albums were RELEASED in those days not DROPPED, young whippersnapper!!!!!!
Holy fuck, I've heard of Thick as a Brick, but didn't know about the actual album art... that's so amazing. This is why I was so inspired by album art as a graphic design major in the mid 00's. I wanted to design album art so bad, but sadly the industry changed and album art is an afterthought nowadays. Yes vinyl album art is better cuz it's bigger, but there were some really good album art for CDs back in the day.
The most extreme version of the "album disguised as print media" phenomenon is The Guess Who's Artificial Paradise, which was packaged in a parody of a Publisher's Clearinghouse-style junk mail envelope, complete with multiple pages of coupons, ads, etc. That might make for a good episode of Cover Story!
Music experience was always the vinyl cover.
I miss going to store, unwrapping, needle down and combing every inch of art, liner and lyrics.
You became part of the musician's story and something bigger than yourself.
It was a ritual, and it took some time to experience it fully. We also listened to a new album several times before making a judgment. And so we have deep cuts. Is that even a thing now?
In all these decades I've known the music, I was never aware of the ambitious album packaging. Thanks for a unique look at a unique bit of art - a timely meditation on the ongoing disappearance of both physical media and community-based news media
Please do more Jethro Tull!!!!!!!!!
Purchased 2 copies when this was released so that I could stack them on the record changer and let side B drop without needing to stumble 'cross the room, many other albums were purchased the same way...Moody Blues, It's A Beautiful Day, E.L.&P., Pink Floyd...
I'm a wee 33 year old bloke, so I didn't get to experience the peak of music that was 1966 to about 1974. Thick As A Brick stands to me like an obelisk of British prog, amd it is one of my very favourite albums ever. I've must have heard the entire thing hundreds of times. I even know the entire lyrics by heart (too bad this is rarely featured on karaoke bars).
The song is such a perfect blend of British folk and that early 70s heavy metal, and wrapped up in this elaborate abstract universe, being both naive and cynical at the same time. It's perfect music.
Too bad my entire generation is incapable of appreciating, yet understanding this masterpiece. What's so great about the strives for constant gratification through a safe key-progession of synthetic noises that is all modern mainstream music. And don't get me started on lyrics. They really are thick as a brick. Music needs a bit of contrast, elements of dull and ugly wowen into the facric of exciting and beautiful. That's why old Leo didn't put bikini-models and Lambos in the background of Mona Lisa. That's something these old prog bands understood perfectly well. But I guess that's also why it is considered a genre that is a bit of an acquired taste.
Could you imagine if they swapped Kayne West and Ed Sheeran with Gentle Gigant and King Crimson on today's lists? I think I would even consider going to the trouble of curating a radio for myself then. Probably not. As the last one I had got an unfortunate encounter with an axe when they cut Since I've Been Loving You by Led Zeppelin in half just to play more idiotic commercials. Right before my favourite guitar bit. True story. I was a bit drunk and in my workshop, but I don't regret my spontaneous yet passionate decision. I bloody hate commercials.
“Hey Aqualung!”
-Ron Burgundy
Shout out for the square aspect ratio, to match album artwork.
What I think is incredible and also quite fitting is that it took way more time for Ian Anderson, John Evans and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond to make the cover art than it did for the band to record the incredible piece of music...
Incidentally I found a vinyl copy of this album in a thrift store about a year back. Much easier to read the cover on it, haha.
Wow amazing that you made a square video for a video about album arts.. i didn't even know it was possible to make a square video..
wasn't Stand Up by Tull also a popup book within an album?
Just a popup flat of the band, not a book.
Polyphonic has fully brought into the BS myth that Thick as Brick is a parody concept album. Released well before The Dark Side of the Moon, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Three Friends, and Tales from Topographic Oceans. The prog rock concept album really hadn't become a thing yet. Ian Anderson back in the 80s was embarrassed by Thick as Brick in an era when progressive rock was very unfashionably so he decided to label the album a parody.
Freak Out by Zappa's Mothers of Invention came out in the late 60s, Fragile by Yes was out, King Crimson had 3 concept albums out by the time of TAAB's release, Sgt. Pepper and Tommy, while not prog records were definitely concept albums
I have this original album, some of the puzzles are filled in but still has all the pages. My dad bought it when he was younger. By far one of my favorite albums
Perhaps the most continuously read newspaper in the world.
Please do a video on Tales from Topographic Oceans! Or maybe even Van Der Graaf Generator
I bought this album when it first released. I read the album/newspaper as I listened. 👏👏👏👏
I bought my copy of "Thick As A Brick" when the album first hit the market. 50 years later and I still have, and listen, to it. It's truly a classic!
Jethro Tull's Masterpiece!! PLAY LOUD
I love the cover stories section. You should do more.
This album is a masterpiece.. My favorite Tull album. If you want it on vinyl, get a 1st UK pressing though.. It blows everything else away, including the new 50th anniversary pressing.
Ever considered doing a video about the Frank Zappa song Billy the Mountain? (album: Just Another Band from LA)
It's a hilarious, elaborate 24 minute track performed live and it definitely deserves a deep dive and some attention.
"Billy was a Mountain/ Ethel [his little wooden wife] was a tree growing out of his shoulder....." 😉👍
I actually own a first press of this I got from my grandfather. Incredible album
why we loved Albums. especially this one. wb
I always wanted to read more about Julia, "Gerald's chum with whom he writes poems"
You can indeed read more about her if you have the complete newspaper. At the bottom of Page 1, directly below the Gerald Bostock picture/story is this nifty article: "LITTLE MILTON IN SCHOOL-GIRL PREGNANCY ROW". Well, wouldn't ya just know it; our sweet lil' innocent Julia Fealey has wound up preggers, and she names Gerald as the cad responsible. That supposed fact is up for debate, but mayhaps "LITTLE MILTON" should henceforth be referred to as "BIG MILTON"? I don't know, just sayin'. And by the by, we sure didn't have no 14-year gals who looked like that when I was going to school.
@@ijustgottasay1281 You can find PLENTY of 14 year old gals that are even more developed than Julia. I never heard of an 8 year old boy siring a child!
Back when I thought it was a good idea to submit elaborate demos to record labels, I tried some pretty wild stuff 😆
I made a smell box for Thrill Jockey.
A smell box is when you get one of those aluminum shortbread cookie tins that usually end up full of sewing items, and you forage and scavenge for things with a strong smell... pine needles, orange peels, french fries, cinnamon bark... you're basically making ramshackle potpourri.
Then you seal it up and mail it.
I sent a few of them. The only feedback I got was from the band Cerberus Shoal. They'd been on tour so their box sat around at the house marinating a while after it was delivered. I think they enjoyed it?
Thrill Jockey was mum 🤐
Maybe i should try again?
I saw Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick anniversary tour back in 2013. Even if Anderson does not have the same vocal range nowadays, i must say... Their live presentation shocked me. Such a powerfull performance, and his flute is killer as ever was!
Reminds me of the Framley Examiner!
6:51 “HICKS-VILLE LOVES J. Tull” huh, I’m guessing the concert that’s from happened close by to where I am! I wonder what concert the photo is from and happened to that banner ?
So glad you're finally talking about one of my favorite bands 💕
This is my favorite Tull album and NOT because of the newspaper. That is in itself something to write home about.The music has ultra-unusual & changing time signatures, as well as great melodies throughout fluid musical segments. It connects the end of side 1 with the beginning of side 2. As a musician the complexity intrigues as well as impresses me, while it's musical context holds up for the ear as an extremely feel-good sound fest. Yes, I'm considering Aqualung and Songs from The Wood and my second favorite---War Child. And oh yes,the lead in Aqualung's title track could be the best in rock history.Give it a focused listen.Jimmy Page walked into the studio while Martin Barre was laying it down. Still, it was Barre's baby.
When I saw Jethro tall's name and just an album mentioned. I thought it was gonna be thick as a brick. Because that album within itself is pretty trippy. Not just musically, but concept wise. In the way that cover was laid out as well. And the story about the kid and all that. I haven't watched this whole video yet. But man hilarious. I used to have that album. I had the newspaper and everything and I bought it long after the 70s. I've been a tull fan since I was a kid in the 80s. Now im gibna watch the video
I remember reading the cover of my Dad's copy of this when I was a kid 🤣👌
I didn't like "Thick As a Brick". I thought the album cover was better than the music. After "Aqualung" it was very disappointing.
Not Arqualung!
The story that I heard was that critics liked the lyrics of Jethro Tull's earlier song lyrics but faulted the music. Anderson thought by attributing the words to a schoolboy (at least at first) would make critics favor the music over the lyrics.
I had no idea about the artwork. Back then we bought 8track tapes.
I saw their TAAB tour in 1972. It was fantastic.
Yea, I still have that Newspaper LP. We lost all of that with the advent of CDs. Pink FLoyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" came with Two Posters inside it, and "Wish you were here" came with Stickers.
Woooooorrrrrrd 😁
I have this album, my former step-dad stole my mom's record collection but he left them all behind at a house he was staying at and the landlord asked me to clean out everything left behind. The paper is really cool, the album is like nothing else.
I bought this album in 1972 and still have it. Knew it was special but could not grasp the full meaning. Spent hours trying to interpret the lyrics. How was a teenager in Seattle supposed to know what "queueing for sarnies at the office canteen" meant? I understood the context of queueing at a canteen and I just now googled "sarnies". Full circle, 50 years later!
I think your videos are great but I can't watch them anymore and have unsubscribed because the spoken portions of them are at one sound level and the music is at FOUR FUCKING TIMES the volume, or so it seems. I can appreciate a small raise in volume for the music, but you're them TOO HIGH. STOP doing that, please.
Don´t forget The 4 Seasons "The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette" cover (1969)
I saw this vid in my feed yesterday and hadn't watched it yet. Today, I came across an original copy of the album at a record shop, complete with the full newspaper! Needless to say, I snatched it right up!. I haven't seen this album in years, and was really quite surprised to find an intact copy. For $10 no less!
I always felt that Gerald Bostock never got the credit he deserved. Did he not grow up to be a politician, or an I confusing him with another bespectacled hare in the Commons; Harvey' s English cousin.
A random suggestion would be The Return of the Durutti Column by the Durutti Column. It was sandpaper lol
I have every media copy of this album. Cd.record. tape.
1:09 I refuse to believe that Ian Anderson was oblivious to Aqualung being a concept album, unless the packaging of the album was entirely out of his hands. Between the tracks themselves, the fake bible passages on the back cover, and the fact that the sides of the LP had their own titles, Aqualung is not regarded as a concept album by accident.
I own a copy of this, purchased from a used vinyl shop in my town. It appears to be complete and is in surprisingly great quality.
You can still buy the CD, which probably doesn't include the non-rabbit fur.
Where the hell was Biggles when you needed him last Saturday
I only had the cassette, with the front cover. I didn't know about the rest of the package for years.
I really want you to do a cover story on Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones. I’ve always thought it was an awesome album cover but never knew what it meant.
Jethro Tull, lynard skynard, Alice Cooper , back when bands were real !
Thanks!
This is why vinyl is the best. Artists are able to make ambitious projects like making a damn news paper.
I loved the video, especially since I'm a Frank Zappa, i never knew the extent of Jethro Tull's satire
A similar album that I would love to see you cover is The Mothers's album We're Only In It For The Money, the album being a parody of hippie culture, and the packaging being a complete parody of Sergent Peppers
I thought you were dead, Frank!
@@thecandlemaker1329 damm it you got me, actually he invented cloning,i´m A Frank Zappa not THE Frank Zappa, he is somewhere in a basement making synclavier music and sometimes being an edge lord on Twitter.
@@marcocardia3960 Well, you might be interested to learn that when THE Frank Zappa was on his deathbed, he really wanted to talk to... Ian Anderson! Unfortunately, Mr. Anderson never called him. In his own words, he didn't want to become the last person to talk to Frank Zappa.
@@thecandlemaker1329 Thank you! I never knew that, Zappa hid a big heard under his cold public shell
Somebody else in the comment thread here asked for a video segment about Billy the Mountain from "Just Another Band from LA".
I just got this record in a box of vinyls that my friend had given me, the puzzles are untouched but there is a doodle on it, but the condition is great nonetheless.
I was fortunate enough to see the Thick as a Brick concert back in 72 when I was in college. It still ranks as one of the greatest concerts I have ever seen in my life. I still listen t Thick as a Brick quite often although my original album has been lost many years ago.
I love this! As a massive fan of genesis could you do more on prog on this series… hinting at selling England by the pound and other genesis albums !!!
Isn’t that what John Lennon and Yoko Ono did that same year with “Sometime In New York City”?
Would be sicc to get a full in depth analysis of this album
5:42 , the sports section actually made up its own sport called 'fennel'. Completely loony!
I bought the LP on first release. Played it once. Stick with the first three.
Long live ,Ian Anderson's Jethro Tull !
Thick As A Brick is the only album where I never skip any tracks
Its one of Tulls best albums. A great listen - all the way through of course.
I found a copy in Spain years ago, so bought it. When we were drunk one day someone found it and did the dot to dot.
There was a CD special release of the album that had the newspaper printed as a newspaper on newsprint. The CD also came with an interview recording with Ian Anderson. Olias of Sunhillow next please.
I should check if my CD copy has all the pages in its booklet.
6:54
Holy f*ck...I grew up in Hicksville!
Had this lp since its release and i've actually never red the cover, hmm, i guess next yime i take it out i'll take a read
I love how this album is just one big prog rock joke.
Remember when you used a double album cover to sort the seeds from your weed?
Minstrel in the gallery...... Listen to it once again.
This is essentially the analog version of an ARG
But did they ever find the non-rabbit?
I have the original vinyl thanks to my father, who bought it back in 1972. I remember I took it for the first time when I was 12 years old, in 1997, because I was fascinated by that cover. I used to listen to it every day, and while listening I read that newspaper. As a young Italian boy who had studied some English at school, it was one of the ways I got into the English language. And that album was my introduction to Jethro Tull and to the music I have been loving through all my life.
And now I feel so old writing this stuff, am I taking stock of my life already? Well anyway...
Your English is quite good ... thank you very much Jethro?
Video won't go to full screen mobile
What about the second part of the album Tull made - "TAAB 2" - on the back cover there is an internet address for a second part of the newspaper, but the site doesn't function.
In 2012 it was functioning
And now we have Thick As A Brick 2, updating us on Gerald Bostock 40 years later.
"According to Anderson, TAAB 2 ... 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." Wikipedia
It's great music too.
Can you do queen's hot stuff 😊