Jethro Tull - A Passion Play
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CD Details
Artist: Jethro TullEdition: Music CD
Format: Enhanced, Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2003-05-20
Music Label: Capitol
Soundtracks:
- A Passion Play - Part 1 - Jethro Tull
- A Passion Play - Part 2 - Jethro Tull
Music reviews of A Passion Play
Music Review: This album really took me by surprise
Rating: 5 Stars
There is no getting around the fact A Passion Play is without a doubt the most controversial album of Tull's career. The rock critics said nothing good about this album. Prog rock detractors would tend to use this album (as well as Yes' Tales From Topographic Oceans and ELP's Tarkus) as the reason punk rock happened. Fans either tend to consider this their worst album or their best album. Let's say I am one who believe in the latter. This is definately not an easy album to get in to, and it's little wonder that some of the critics that did praise Thick as a Brick didn't praise this one. Tull was going for a much more complex brand of prog than they ever done before, going as far as trying to beat Gentle Giant in the complexity game (Tull actually did tour with Gentle Giant, and GG actually ended up on Chrysalis Records by 1975, same label as Tull). In fact some of the passages of this album actually remind me a bit of Gentle Giant. Like Thick as a Brick, A Passion Play was basically one cut that takes up both sides going through many different changes, with Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond's silly children's story, "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" dividing side one and two (that is, if you own the LP). That makes reviewing this album a bit more difficult than other Tull albums (other than Thick as a Brick, of course) since it's not a collection of separate songs. John Evan added some Mini Moog synthesizer, making this the very first Tull album to use synthesizers. Still Evan's Hammond organ and piano are his most dominant keyboards. The lyrics have something to do with the afterlife and whether you'll end up in heaven or hell. Ian Anderson not only provides his trademark flute, but also sax (this isn't the first time he played sax, as he played it on "Dharma For One" on Tull's debut, This Was way back in '68). The album does start off rather slowly, with the sound of a heartbeat, and strange electronic effects, before the music kicks in. Here you get to hear plenty of Evan's Mini Moog, then the music slows down with just Anderson's vocals and acoustic guitar. Some of the instrumental section near the beginning tend to be quirky in a Gentle Giant manner. Then of course you get "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles". This is the only part of the album you actually get to hear David Palmer's orchestrations while Hammond-Hammond tells his story about the hare. Then you get the second half of the album which sound like five different songs, with bizarre synth effects dividing them out. I think the album's best moments are on this second (and final half). I remember when I bought this album thinking I would hate the album, hearing how the rock critics despised this album and instead this turns out to be one of my Tull favorites. That simply means you can't always believe everything a rock critic says (often he just gets his opinions from listening to a particular album only once or twice, and most good prog requires four or five listens to "get it", as opposed to simple 3 minute R&B derived rock which only needs one or two listen to "get it"). Yes, it's difficult to get in to, but I still feel this is one of their best albums.
Description of A Passion Play
Digitally remastered reissue of 1973 album includes the enhanced bonus track 'The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles' & theatre programme (enhanced section taken from the album 25 Years Of Jethro Tull Longform VHS video release). Includes liner notes written by Ian Anderson. Chrysalis. 2003.Following quickly on the heels of their career-defining Aqualung and Thick as a Brick, Ian Anderson's Jethro Tull demonstrated that their musical and thematic ambitions were as muscular as ever on 1973's Passion Play. But if Thick was a bit tongue in cheek about its conceptual conceits, Passion was a dizzying example of the prog-rock era's overweening musical aspirations at their zenith. Anderson now sums up it its obtuse, theater-as-metaphor libretto as "the theme of post-death meanderings in another world," but the sheer propulsive tension of Tull's sprawling musical interplay insures its folk-rooted baroque and roll a tight orbit around this mortal coil for nearly the album's entirety. This digitally remastered, enhanced CD edition features the complete video for the album's Lewis Carroll-esque interlude "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles," a theatrical program and typically self-effacing new introduction by Ian Anderson. --Jerry McCulley
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