Passion Play [Original recording reissued]

Jethro Tull | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 14, 1999)
• Original Release Date: 1973
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000007MVX
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #164,563 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. A Passion Play Pt. 1

2. A Passion Play Pt. 2

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I don't understand this album either., April 30, 2002

By 

spiral_mind (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passion Play (Audio CD)

Ahh, the glorious 70s. Yes were elevating the 20-minute suite to an art form, the Who and Genesis were developing the idea of the rock opera, and outlandishness and excess seemed to be the order of the decade. Somewhere in the shuffle Jethro Tull were going through a transition between their beginnings in the blues and their era of medieval-rock to rival Ritchie Blackmore. After the brilliant Aqualung was mistakenly labeled a concept album, JT's songwriter Ian Anderson produced a 'true' concept album in the head-trip Thick As A Brick. And while deciding which direction to head in the next year, Ian and the boys sat down and put all the pieces they'd been working on into yet another album-length song. Knowing their sense of humor I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Tull aimed to make this album even more challenging and impenetrable than the previous one.. partly as a challenge to themselves, partly out of spite for the less-than-friendly critics.

And so we come to A Passion Play. Challenging it certainly is. And bizarre, earthy, intricate, wonderfully lively at times and properly sedate at others. The composing and musicianship are some of the most accomplished you'll hear on a Tull album, worthy of at least four stars. I leave off that fifth one because, while undeniably distinctive, the record can be just *too* impenetrable: often confusing and occasionally silly. APP doesn't merely test the waters of metaphorical strangeness; it gives a sly grin before diving completely off the deep end. Anderson's lyrics make next to no sense on the first few listens (and little more afterward). The music seems part rock opera and part theatrical soundtrack with plenty of oddities (heartbeats, harpsichord, glockenspiel) thrown in. It's what Frank Zappa might have produced if he'd been an Englishman with a fixation for medieval music and pseudo-religious imagery. And yet the album isn't only enjoyable to cerebral prog-heads who get off on the strangeness & intellectual challenge of it all; it's highly enjoyable to the right people despite these qualities, not just because of them. The absurdity factor reaches its high point in "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles," an aimless mock-fairy tale meant as an 'intermission' to the play. This may be considered blasphemous, but I recorded a tape of the album solely so I could leave out that part - I find it much more enjoyable going from one act of APP right to the next.

But I digress. I apologize if those comments seem a little confusing, but it's the most my limited writing skills will allow when dealing with this album's level of complexity and sheer adventurousness. The important thing: DO NOT buy this CD unless you're already a Tull fan. Go for Aqualung if you like classic rock, Songs From The Wood if you have a taste for English folk, Minstrel in the Gallery if you like both of those, Thick As A Brick if you like 70s prog. Then if you enjoy Brick and want more of a challenge.. give this one a good few listens and you may start scratching the surface.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tull's Greatest Work, September 7, 2000

By 

Alan Caylow (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passion Play (Audio CD)

Okay, so following up a one-song album (Thick As A Brick) with *another* one-song album was probably not the smartest thing to do---considering the critical beating that Jethro Tull took upon the release of "A Passion Play," I think these guys were just asking for it! But Ian Anderson & the boys did it anyway....and released their most powerful album ever. To my ears, 1973's "A Passion Play" is easily Jethro Tull's greatest work. The band have made *many* stunning albums in their 30+ years of life (and continue to do so to this day), but of all their albums, none have blown me away in quite the same way that "A Passion Play" always has. I LOVE this album!Oddly enough, "A Passion Play" came about totally by accident---Ian Anderson & company had initially planned a double-album follow-up to their highly successful "Thick As A Brick" album from 1972, and were quite busy recording the double-album in France. But the band were plagued by various technical difficulties in the studio, and, in the end, Anderson became so fed up with the "funky French recording studio" (as he put it), that he finally put a stop to the troubled recording sessions. Bruised by the experience, the band then headed back to England, and were faced with a choice: either re-record the whole double-album from scratch, or work on something completely different. Although a few musical elements from the France recordings were retained (and some material from the aborted album has subsequently appeared on Jethro Tull's double-CD, "Nightcap"), the band chose to work on a totally different project....and "A Passion Play" was born. Talk about a happy accident!Retaining the same "one-song" format as it's predecessor (i.e. 45 minutes of continuous music, with no individual song titles), "A Passion Play" easily stands out from the rest of Jethro Tull's catalog as the band's darkest album to date. (The striking black & white photo on the album cover alone, featuring a ballerina laying flat on her back onstage in a huge theater, with a trickle of blood coming down her cheek, is enough of a tip-off to the material contained within.) Tull fans have interpreted "A Passion Play" in SO many different ways over the years, and this is MY personal interpretation, which you may disagree with if you wish---it's a concept album about a man who commits suicide (by hanging himself, apparently), and, ala Dante's Inferno, is taken on a journey through the afterlife (first Hell and then Heaven). He is then given a second chance at life, and, at the album's end, is reborn again.... Now that's a VERY heavy concept, and not everyone appreciated it back in 1973. Also, being the second album in a row from Tull that followed the one-song format, the critics at the time had more than enough ammunition to fire at the band. But did any of the album's detractors actually LISTEN to it? If they had, they would've discovered that "A Passion Play" is quite an amazing work. Never before had Ian Anderson written a musical piece or sang it with THIS much depth & passion, and he & his cohorts, Martin Barre, John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond & Barriemore Barlow, play this opus with great fire (there's more than one reason why this album is called "A Passion Play"!). The band's musicianship throughout is very tight, and they come up with some incredibly stunning moods, sounds, and musical atmospheres that beautifully carry the album along. And despite the album's theme of death & the afterlife, Jethro Tull still make room for their reknowned good humor on this record. Even Ian Anderson knew that the listener could probably use a short break from the album's dark storyline, and so, right smack in the middle of the album, the band briefly halt the music---and tell a humorous children's story, "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles"! Some see this portion of the album as unneccesary, but I've always liked it. *I*, for one, think it's funny! And then, with the story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles told, the band simply pick up where they left off with the album's main storyline, and we're back into breathtaking Tull music once again....Ian Anderson was asked in a radio interview a few years back about what he thinks of "A Passion Play" these days. Anderson said that although he still likes "A Passion Play," he now feels that the album is "too serious" a Tull record, and "lacks the warmth" of the group's other albums, which is why the band no longer play anything from it in concert anymore. Although I totally understand Anderson's opinion, I still think it's a shame that the band will happily play a small piece from "Thick As A Brick" in concert, but ignore "A Passion Play" (which WAS, in fact, a #1 album for them, for Heaven's sake!). But nevermind---there IS the album itself. Yes, "A Passion Play" is Jethro Tull's darkest, most serious album, but to me, it is also their best. With all due love & affection to the band's other albums, "A Passion Play," in my estimation, is Jethro Tull at their creative apex. To hell with the critics---"A Passion Play" IS Jethro Tull's masterpiece. Thank you so much, Ian Anderson & company, for making it.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Dark Side of Tull, April 27, 2000

By 

Bellagio "Bellagio" (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passion Play (Audio CD)

Following upon the success of Thick As A Brick, and to the absolute dismay of critics of the day, Tull repeated the "trick" of creating a seamless album in the style of a classical oratorio. While the critics were aghast, the album must not have been too far off the mark -- it sold well enough to finally displace Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon from the #1 spot in the album charts.

While the advisability of creating an album so similar in structure to Thick As A Brick the following year must be questioned, there can be no doubt that this dark and brooding effort is a masterwork containing music significantly more complex than that found in the earlier work. There are some serious problems in the connection of a number of the separate elements -- Passion Play's seams show much more than Thick As A Brick's -- so much so, in fact, that one is at times left wishing that they'd simply finished the separate elements as individual songs. It certainly would have given less fodder to the critics of the day.

This album is most definitely not Mom's Good Time Rock and Roll. The subject matter consists of a fanciful walk through the afterlife -- replete with a vist to Hell. It opens with the then cliche effect of a beating heart -- a not-so-inside joke on Pink Floyd -- which in this instance is stopping rather than starting, opening the album with death of the protagonist.

The music itself is rich and extremely polished, the rhythms and melodies are dance-like in the classical sense (somewhat unusual for Tull), in fact Tull would not match these production values for another four years, until "Songs From The Wood." While some of the more inventive pieces are found in the first half of the album, this album diverges from its predecessor in that the second half (the visit to Hell -- Overseer Overture and The Foot of our Stairs) contains the more compelling music. The powerful and heavily syncopated ending, highlighted by Martin Barre's strident guitar riffs and Mr. Anderson's sumptuous vocal, is probably the most well-known element of the album.

Ian Anderson's vocals on this album are perhaps the finest he's ever recorded, rich and with a truly remarkable range. For those of you familiar only with Aqualung or the later, post-illness albums, Ian Anderson's vocals here will be a revelation.

There is, of course, the issue of the middle break: "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles". I have had the chance to discuss this odd little piece with a number of Tull fans, some of whom think of it positively, comparing it to Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." Others look on it more in terms of an inebriated take on "You Know My Name (Look up the Number)". I'm going with those who think that the band pounded down a few extra pints that night.

The Double CD "Nightcap" contains early-version recordings (recorded in Paris while the band was in tax exile from England), essentially demos and rehearsals, of music which would eventually, after serious reworking, form the central structure of "A Passion Play." These Paris recordings, the "Chateau D'isaster" tapes, are fascinating in that they show very clearly that "A Passion Play" began life as a more farcical and lighter work than the very dark and brooding final release. Especially noteworthy is the hilarious "Look At All The Animals" (which would have, IMHO, been a nice substitute to the "The Hare...").

This is an essential work for true Tull fans -- Ian Anderson's stunning vocals alone commend the album to true fans. Perhaps it is not as seamless in structure as Thick As A Brick, nor with music as easily accessible as that earlier album. However, the music here is significantly more complex and interesting than anything the band had created up to this time.