Every Jethro Tull album ranked from worst to best!

[Scrotum Scissor]

Is it one person's list, or based on some kind of voting?

Oh, I'm sure it's submitted to the very same level of analytical scrutiny as when those mean Classic Rockers awarded the second and third Egg albums two stars due to the band "obviously not having understood what made ELP so fantastic". I sure wonder what their argument would be if they were to attempt reviewing something by Xenakis or Partch or Ives or Nancarrow.

[Score2112]

When having this conversation, the two always seem to be at the top of some and the bottom of others is Passion Play / Minstrel. Minstrel people aren't as strong on Passion and Passion people usually pass over Minstrel. Interesting.

Count me in the APP camp. For some reason, Minstrel never caught on with me. Find much of it rather boring.

[Mister Triscuits]

I sure wonder what their argument would be if they were to attempt reviewing something by Xenakis or Partch or Ives or Nancarrow.

Xenakis: "So random! My six-year-old could spatter notes and call it stochastic."
Partch: "Learn to play in tune, guys."
Ives: "I think my copy of the CD is defective, it's got two different pieces playing at once."
Nancarrow: "This may have sounded impressive in the '50s, but nowadays everybody's got a studio app and can make wacky stuff."

[Facelift]

Oh, I'm sure it's submitted to the very same level of analytical scrutiny as when those mean Classic Rockers awarded the second and third Egg albums two stars due to the band "obviously not having understood what made ELP so fantastic". I sure wonder what their argument would be if they were to attempt reviewing something by Xenakis or Partch or Ives or Nancarrow.

I fully agree with the two-star rating for Egg album #2, and I'd have no problem writing about Ives, Xenakis, etc. (though implying that either Egg or ELP are deserving of that kind of analysis is pretty silly, IMO. They're rock bands).

[Garden Dreamer]

Broadsword and Too Old to RnR are way too high on the list (compared to where I would place them, of course)

[Scrotum Scissor]

I fully agree with the two-star rating for Egg album #2, and I'd have no problem writing about Ives, Xenakis, etc. (though implying that either Egg or ELP are deserving of that kind of analysis is pretty silly, IMO. They're rock bands).

But you see, you yourself would most likely have some rather reasonable and relatively insightful basis and argument for your opinion - and acknowledge how subjective judgement rarely rests on a term not even inherent in the very intentions of the object at hand. As for the contemporary music analogy, that was indeed somewhat crude, I suppose; what I was actually implying was that you wouldn't normally flog a Partch or Nancarrow composition for not aspiring to be Mozart or Beethoven.

And I'd gladly give Egg's second album five fucking stars and know how come.

[PROGMONSTER]

I only rank the band according to their remixed album sets. Too many songs missing on the original albums alone. If there's a song that sounds a bit commercial, I just put it down to the band trying something different or trying to get extra cash

[PROGMONSTER]

Ok here's my remix ratings with original album ratings in brackets. Ive also done the first two remastered albums. I've only included 1 version of any studio song from the 2 cds of every remix and ignored any multiple versions. So I have used quads or early versions occasionally. I have also ignored repeated compositions from chateau tapes which are on A passion play. Didn't bother with Sunshine day or 17 which sound like 1965 music

This was 7.5/10. An album and a half of studio tracks(6.5/10)
Stand up 8/10. An album and a half of studio tracks(7/10)
Benefit 8/10. An album and a half of studio tracks(7/10)
Aqualing 9/10. Two albums worth of studio tracks(7.5/10)
Thick as a brick 9/10
A passion play 8.5/10. Two albums worth of studio tracks(8/10)
Warchild 8.5/10. Two albums worth of studio tracks and one orchestral album(7/10)
Minstrel 7.5/10. One extra track(7/10)
Too old 8/10. An album and a half of studio tracks(6.5/10)

[PROGMONSTER]

These are the lists for each album session I've used in my iPod. Once the remixes have all been done I can add the other albums

My Sunday Feeling
Some Day the Sun Won't Shine
Beggars Farm
Move On Alone
Serenade To a Cuckoo
Dharma For One
It's Breaking Me Up
Cat's Squirrel
A Song For Jeffrey
Round
Love Story
Christmas Song
One For John Gee

A New Day Yesterday
Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square
Bouree
Back To The Family
Look Into The Sun
Nothing Is Easy
Fat Man
We Used To Know
Reasons For Waiting
For A Thousand Mothers
Living In The Past
Driving Song
Sweet Dream

With You There To Help Me
Nothing To Say
Alive And Well And Living In
Son
For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me
To Cry You A Song
A Time for Everything?
Inside
Play In Time
"Sossity; You re a Woman
Singing All Day
Witches promise
Teacher

Aqualung
Cross-Eyed Mary
Cheap Day Return
Mother Goose
Wond'ring Aloud
Up To Me
My God (Quad)
Hymn 43 (Quad)
Slipstream
Locomotive Breath (Quad)
Wind-Up (Early)
Lick Your Fingers Clean
Just Trying To Be
Wond'ring Again
Slipstream (Take 2)
Life Is A Long Song
Up The 'Pool
Dr Bogenbroom
From Later
Nursie

Thick as a brick

A passion play(inc. foot of our stairs extension)
The Big Top
Scenario
Audition
Sailor
No Rehearsal
Left Right
Animelee (1st Dance)
Animelee (2nd Dance)

WarChild
Queen and Country
Ladies
Back-door Angels
SeaLion
Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day
Bungle in the Jungle
Only Solitaire
The Third Hoorah
Two Fingers
Paradise Steakhouse
Saturation
Good Godmother
SeaLion II
Quartet
WarChild II
Tomorrow Was Today
Glory Row
March, The Mad Scientist
Rainbow Blues

Pan Dance
The Orchestral WarChild Theme
The Third Hoorah
Mime Sequence
Field Dance
The Beach (Pt. I)
The Beach (Pt. II)
Waltz Of The Angels

Minstrel In The Gallery
Cold Wind To Valhalla
Black Satin Dancer
Requiem
One White Duck/010 = Nothing At All
Baker St. Muse
Grace
Summerday Sands

Prelude
Quiz Kid
Crazed Institution
Salamander
Taxi Grab
From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser
Bad-Eyed And Loveless
Big Dipper
Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die!
Pied Piper
The Chequered Flag
Salamander's Rag Time
Commercial Traveller
Strip Cartoon
A Small Cigar (Orchestrated Version)

[at least 100 dead]

Xenakis: "So random! My six-year-old could spatter notes and call it stochastic."
Partch: "Learn to play in tune, guys."
Ives: "I think my copy of the CD is defective, it's got two different pieces playing at once."
Nancarrow: "This may have sounded impressive in the '50s, but nowadays everybody's got a studio app and can make wacky stuff."

You should be editor-in-chief of teamrock.com!

[Scrotum Scissor]

You should be editor-in-chief of teamrock.com!

Except that they arguably wouldn't know "stochastic".

[miamiscot]

Listened to Heavy Horses last night in honor of this thread.

I might have to consider placing it a bit higher in my rankings. Wow! After all this time it still totally blew me away.

[Facelift]

Listened to Heavy Horses last night in honor of this thread.

I might have to consider placing it a bit higher in my rankings. Wow! After all this time it still totally blew me away.

IMO it's the Tull album that holds up the best today. I don't love the title track (usually skip it), but everything else - awesome. I used to buy in to the idea that it was part of a pair (with SftW), but over time I find that the similarities are more on the surface than anything else. For the most part, HH is leaner, tougher, and more human. By comparison, SftW has a more "arranged" and polished sound.

[miamiscot]

IMO it's the Tull album that holds up the best today. I don't love the title track (usually skip it), but everything else - awesome. I used to buy in to the idea that it was part of a pair (with SftW), but over time I find that the similarities are more on the surface than anything else. For the most part, HH is leaner, tougher, and more human. By comparison, SftW has a more "arranged" and polished sound.

It had been a couple years (at least) since I listened to it as a whole. I wasn't prepared for just how well it has, in fact, held up. Songs From The Wood is amazing but damn - maybe I like Heavy Horses better after all!!!

[Scrotum Scissor]

Listened to Heavy Horses last night in honor of this thread.

I might have to consider placing it a bit higher in my rankings. Wow! After all this time it still totally blew me away.

This is actually kinda cool, as "One Brown Mouse" was streaming from an open window in my neighbouring apartment building as I was returning from a run just now!

It's a great album. Less overtly "prog" than SftW, but with better folk-pop input ("Acres Wild", "Mouse" etc.).

[chalkpie]

^ Who ya' running from?

I think I would pick 'Wood' over 'Horses', but we're only talking two or three C.H.'s

Love 'em both to snot.

PS - "Velvet Green" might be my favorite IA composition of all time - notice I said might.

[strawberrybrick]

My top 5 would include (on any particular day)
This Was
Stand Up
Benefit
Living In The Past (4th side is my fav of all Tull)
Minstrel In the Gallery
Under Wraps (great songwriting)

the rest are the rest~

[chalkpie]

This is actually kinda cool, as "One Brown Mouse" was streaming from an open window in my neighbouring apartment building as I was returning from a run just now!

It's a great album. Less overtly "prog" than SftW, but with better folk-pop input ("Acres Wild", "Mouse" etc.).

PS- Richard - I watched a few docs on the Lofoten Islands - holy fucking Mary's jugs, batman. Just unbelievably gorgeous - seriously has to be in the top 10 most gorgeous places on Earth.

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ Who ya' running from? [...] snot.

Oh, iwuzz Chichen Itza's feet carrying Yamishogun's lovely belly with Dame Edna's bosom and a donkey's skull equipped with Rufus' brain in it. The head fell off during flight, btw - yet the thing kept charging.

[chalkpie]

Oh, iwuzz Chichen Itza's feet carrying Yamishogun's lovely belly with Dame Edna's bosom and a donkey's skull equipped with Rufus' brain in it. The head fell off during flight, btw - yet the thing kept charging.

I actually knew that. I just wasn't sure if it was a donkey, ass, or rectum.....

[Scrotum Scissor]

the Lofoten Islands - holy fucking Mary's jugs, batman. Just unbelievably gorgeous - seriously has to be in the top 10 most gorgeous places on Earth.

It probably is. You know, even here this is a trip to save your assets for, but the true experience would be to board the Hurtigruten coastal cruise (starting in Bergen, my initial hometown) and catch the full blow of Valhallan nature from deck. You'd reach Lofoten after some five days, and they tell me it's pretty damn spectacular. Costly, though. I've only taken the liner from Bergen to Molde off season while doing my service back in '94/5, still even THAT was something to really remember.

[Birdy]

5 ESSENTIAL:

Aqualung, Stand Up, Thick as a Brick, Songs From The Wood and Passion Play

5 MORE GREAT ALBUMS:

Minstrel...., Heavy Horses, Benefit, Stormwatch and This Was

5 PRETTY GOOD ALBUMS:

Broadsword, Warchild, A, Crest of a Knave and Too Old To Rock...

5 MEH, I can take them or leave them albums:

Dot Com, Under Wraps, Rock Island, Roots To Branches and Catfish Rising


Oh and the Christmas album is nice!

[Scrotum Scissor]

This is actually kinda cool, as "One Brown Mouse" was streaming from an open window in my neighbouring apartment building as I was returning from a run just now!

The person was actually still blasting Tull out his window when I hit the sack at 01:37 AM this morning. He played almost the entire TaaB! I don't think I've ever really had that experience before; someone terrorizing the neighbourhood with sound that's actually this close to heart. Strange.

[Trane]

5 MEH, I can take them or leave them albums:

Dot Com, Under Wraps, Rock Island, Roots To Branches and Catfish Rising

Can I urge you to re-listen to Roots To Branches with fresh ears?? It's likely to jump at least one echelon of your, if not even two.

I mean, to my eyes, it's hurting them to see RTB lumped in with the other four (two of which are really down the Tull ladder)

[Fracktured]

IMO it's the Tull album that holds up the best today. I don't love the title track (usually skip it), but everything else - awesome. I used to buy in to the idea that it was part of a pair (with SftW), but over time I find that the similarities are more on the surface than anything else. For the most part, HH is leaner, tougher, and more human. By comparison, SftW has a more "arranged" and polished sound.

I absolutely love the title track of Heavy Horses. Having been around horses I can relate to it and I think Ian hit the nail right on the head with the lyrics and the music. The album is great also.