Customer Reviews

Very Best of Jethro Tull

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My rating is not for the music contained in this package; it's for the inconsideration shown to casual fans of this group. Incidentally, I am anything BUT a casual fan of JT. Outside of a live B-side version of "Jump Start", I've got everything Tull has ever put out. Obviously, though, I'm not representative of Tull's fan base. Most of them have four or five discs and a "best of" set.

Jethro Tull has had more greatest-hits albums than most bands have had regular releases. And STILL they haven't gotten it right! This set is missing some of JT's best & most well-known tunes, like "Skating Away", "Cross-eyed Mary", "Black Sunday", "Teacher", "Farm On The Freeway", "Budapest", "Dun Ringill" and "Nothing Is Easy". There is really no excuse for the exclusion of "Skating Away", "Teacher", and "Cross-eyed Mary". These songs are infinitely preferable to tunes like "Broadsword" & "Steel Monkey".

A "best of" Tull collection really needs to be two discs. In addition, unlike the approach used for the 25th Anniversary Best Of collection, there is no real necessity in including songs from every album. For a Tull greatest hits package, you've really got to concentrate on the classic 70's period of the band. There's definitely a lot of worthy music on Crest Of A Knave and Roots To Branches, and tracks from each should be included, but 70's era Tull is by far the biggest draw for the casual fan.

In my humble opinion, the almost-perfect Tull compilation would look something like this:

Aqualung
Bouree
Locomotive Breath
Thick As A Brick (multiple sections edited together)
Teacher
Skating Away
Budapest
Too Old To Rock 'N Roll, Too Young To Die
Bungle In The Jungle
Roots To Branches
Heavy Horses
Songs From The Wood
Black Sunday
Farm On The Freeway
Witches Promise
Minstrel In The Gallery
Ring Out, Solstice Bells
A Passion Play (multiple sections edited together)
Life Is A Long Song
Cold Wind To Valhalla
Valley
Cross-eyed Mary
Dun Ringill
Moths
Nothing Is Easy
Dangerous Veils
Living In The Past

Due to the immense clout I wield with both the band and EMI/Chrysalis, I'm sure my suggestions will be implemented immediately. Seriously though... I think with a song list like this you can satisfy the most casual fans and still show the many musical & lyrical facets of the band to potential hardcore fans. Who knows? When The Best Of Jethro Tull Volume XXVII comes out, they might have gotten it right. Until that time, M.U. (the original Tull hits collection) and Repeat (volume two of M.U.) should be remastered and combined for re-release pronto!

Lovingly assembled and carefully remastered, this collection stands head and shoulders above other Tull collections. It's a mix of older and newer material, sequenced for listening rather than archiving (i.e. the songs aren't arrenged chronologically). From Ian Anderson's brief but insightful liner notes: "Mixing up the tempos, key and time signatures made, I think, for a more interesting programme." Right he is!

I'll leave selection debates to future customers, saying only that the major hits are all here and this listener at least is delighted with the album tracks, including "Broadsword," "Sweet Dream," "The Witch's Promise," and "Heavy Horses" (the latter has been cropped to roughly one third its original length, but tastefully so).

The mastering is by and large excellent, despite some overly judicious applications of treble equalization, most prominently on "Thick as a Brick" (which, by the way, was trimmed from 45 minutes to 3). For most of the album, timbres are natural, bass is taut, and the tracks haven't had the life squeezed from them by heavy dynamic compression (which keeps everything LOUD, all them time, robbing music of its natural swells and cadences).

To my ears, it sounds like the music may have been de-hissed and subsequently re-equalized to compensate for now-missing high frequencies. I regard this as a Bad Thing, but even still I must concede that the producers did a fine job (no producers or engineers are credited!). The music on this disc sounds better than any other Tull CD I've heard, excepting the amazing and now out of print Mobile Fidelity gold discs.

The booklet includes small pictures of the 23 contributing Tull members from across the years. The only things missing are track-by-track annotations giving us date, album, and musician and production credits.

For the most part, though, the music speaks very nicely for itself! Whether you're seeking an introduction to the band or a refresher course in its peculiar brand of folky, English "Ba Roque" progressive rock, *The Very Best Of* is the disc you want.

Jethro Tull have created such a vast collection of material over the last 33 years that it is difficult to condense highlights of their career onto one CD. As group leader/flutist/composer Ian Anderson even says in his liner notes, if one were to ask Tull fans to compile a "Best Of" CD then there would be as many different selections as there are fans. It is to Tull's credit that their music is so wide-ranging, from rock to folk to blues with jazz and classical influences et al. thrown in for good measure. But, when it comes to "Best Of" albums...

This is not the first Tull compilation, but it is one of the better ones. Okay, Tull "standards" (i.e. those that get regular FM radio play to this day) are included, but they are not among my favorite Tull songs. Still, less-than-dedicated fans who want to own one Tull CD would probably desire "Locomotive Breath," "Living In The Past," and "Aqualung." Thankfully, some more esoteric, recent, and higher quality Tull material is also included here (the majestic "Broadsword" and the bamboo-flute driven "Roots To Branches" - misspelled on the CD cover as "Root To Branches," but one can't have everything!). This balance of "the hits" and some decent album cuts make this an overall pleasing collection.

One major criticism is the cruel editing suffered by "Heavy Horses;" a multi-movement gem in its original form, here it has the guts taken out of it and all that is left is the verses and the choruses.

A final thought: on a recent national call-in radio show, a listener asked Tull members Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, and Andrew Giddings to name their favorite Tull songs. Their choices were, respectively, "Budapest," "Under Wraps #2," and "Dun Ringill." None of these are present on this album.

That ought to tell someone something...

Jethro Tull will soon be celebrating its 35th anniversary. At this point most listeners either love or hate the band. I once was a Jethro Tull fanatic--- attending back-to-back concerts, listening exclusively to thier music, etc.--- so, it's kind of hard to write an objective review. I'm not the biggest Tull fan anymore. Indeed, I went through a time where I mocked them. I've made my peace, though, and can stand back and recognize that some of what they did was brilliant, some silly, and some both.

That said, this collection is really an odd, cobbled-together lot. It starts predictably with the earlier AOR hits like "Aqualung", "Locomotive Breath", etc. and throws in an odd sampling of (sometimes brutally edited) album tracks. It's packed to the brim with music at nearly 80 minutes! However, the problem is that there seems to be no sense to this collection. It's only reccomendable because it's the only Tull collection in print. They should have either put together a purely "singles" collection, or more carefuly selected alum tracks... for instance, there is almost NOTHING from the late 70's, an era which many Tull fans love best. "A Passion Play", Tull's greatest work, is not represented at all. "Skating Away" easily Tull's best "single" is absent, in favor of the lesser "Bungle in the Jungle"... "Heavy Horse", once a majestic, multi-part mini-epic got a hatchet job and now is an ordinary (but still gorgeous) 3-minute pop song. TWO tracks from "Broadsword and The Beast" appear, but NOTHING from "A". Why??

I feel this collection tries to smooth away the idiosyncratic nature of Tull, which is exactly what people loved about them in the first place. It is devoid of the fascinating album tracks that earned Tull legions of fanatical fans. For casual fans and the uninitiated, it's good listening. All kidding aside, few things in the history of popular music can match the energy when Anderson's wild, lyrical flute clashes and weaves with Barre's angular, precise guitar playing. There are some moments in Tull's recorded history that can easily match that of any "classic rock" band. Like them or not, no one ever sounded like them. They were and continue to be true originals. The same goes for Anderson's lyrics-- they are strange, anacrhronistic and occasionally Elizebethan-sounding, but unique and sometimes incredibly touching and beautiful. For many, Tull has become an object of mockery, but
if you go back and listen with open ears and without cynicism, you might hear the magic they undoubtedly created and be overwhelmed by it. I'm just not sure that this is the collection that best captures that magic.

The sound is not, as some reviewers would have you believe, a totally lost cause. I think the midrange is generally nicely done, but the life is ucked out of the mid-bass on down and there is alot of "air" missing at the top. Anyway, it's no worse than the original CD issues, but probably not better than the original vinyl either. Tull never were an audiophile-friendly band anyway.

Nobody ever played a flute quite like Ian Anderson; and no band ever sounded quite like Jethro Tull. And while this single-disc "best of" collection is not perfect, it is nevertheless an accurate representation of Tull's 30-plus years of making quirky, rarely-commercial folk-art rock. The liner notes, written by Ian Anderson himself, are brief but to the point; and considering the liner notes are about all you get in the way of documentation with this disc, it's a good thing Anderson personally penned them.

And what of the music selections on this compilation? I must confess that they are impressively diverse, spanning the early recordings and carrying us right up to the present day. There are more early tracks than later ones; and there should be, because the earlier ones are better, and more well-known. The inclusion of "Aqualung", "Living in the Past", "Locomotive Breath", and "Sweet Dream" were low-risk, but expected. The edits of "Too Old to Rock n Roll", "Heavy Horses", and "Minstrel..." are regrettable, but tastefully done, and understandable, considering the time limits. As it is, you get over 78 minutes of Tull on one CD, so it's hard to complain. There are a couple of nice surprises: the inclusion of the beautiful "Witch's Promise", and sneaking in "A Song For Jeffrey" near the end of the disc.

There are, however, a couple of inexcusable omissions (considering some of the song that WERE included). Where is "Teacher"? How could "Skating Away" be left off, but "Bungle" included? And while I like the more recent songs like "Broadsword" and "Roots To Branches", if I'd been doing the choosing we'd get "Orion" from Stormwatch in favor of one of those two.

Despite the complaints--and no matter what songs were chosen, any owner of multiple Tull vinyl albums would complain--this disc is well worth the money. It's a valued addition to anyone's CD collection, and a fine representative introduction to a new generation of Tull fans in the digital age. And hey, I can always fire up the CD burner and make my own mix, correcting the record company's flaws and including "Teacher", "Skating Away", "Orion", and the FULL version of "Minstrel in the Gallery." Excuse me while I go take care of that!

Jethro Tull represents one of the most progressive and experimental elements of sixties rock, and the individual songs as well the concept albums are delights to listen to and enjoy. This is an excellent compilation of their hits, although I was a bit bummed to discover that it did not have "Skating Away (On The Thin Ice Of A New Day)" on it. Other than that regrettable shortcoming, this is a very full complement of Ian Anderson masterpieces, ranging from the emblematic "Aqualung" to the trippy "Living In The Past', from a raucous "Bungle In The Jungle" to a comical "Too Old To Rock And Roll/Too Young To Die".

The compilation covers the progress of the group all the way from its early beginnings with songs like "Living In The Past" and "Aqualung" to its final efforts with songs like "Broadsword" and "Heavy Horses". Among my favorites here are "Locomotive Breath", "Songs From The Wood', and of course, "Thick As A Brick". Ian Anderson was famous for doing his own particular thing, for his quirky brilliance in arranging song structures and instrumentation, for mixing rock with a folksy twang, and for also never trying to cash in by copying the successful work of others. The group never tried to go mainstream rock, but were quite successful with their own peculiarly British take on sixties rock. Enjoy

- 11 of 12 songs from Original Masters are inlcuded. - 17 of its 20 songs are contained on The Anniversary Collection (which is in my opinion a much better choice) - It has: one song from year 95, three from the 80's and the rest is below 79. Half of the songs are from year 72 and before.

This selection doesn't show anything new compared to previous ones, the most recent work is not here as stated above. The songs are great of course, because it's such a great band, but I don't see the point of this release.

If you are not very well acquainted with British Folk-Prog music, but you just want to get a bunch of the most "Radio-ed" versions of Jethro Tull, this CD is for you. But if you want something extra, go to the double-CD "The Very Best" (import) by EMI International. It may be a bit expensive in relation to this one, but you'll find more of good Tull music that you expect.

Ian Anderson's hand-picked version of "The Very Best of Jethro Tull" is an honest beginner's manual, a history lesson, a modest musical snapshot. There is a difference between the terms "greatest hits" and "best of"-the former refers to the successful singles, while the latter refers to songs that represent a band at their high point whether those songs were popular or not. This 20-track, single disc collection excels due to its honesty and Anderson's refusal to become a hypocrite; as he explains in his humorous liner notes, he stopped bashing compilations because he realized that half of his own CD collection consists of best-of and/or hits packages. "The Very Best of Jethro Tull" does its best to describe various points in the band's lexicon to the lucky new listener. There are moments that range from the legendary (`Aqualung,' a shortened `Thick as a Brick,' `Locomotive Breath'), then to what Anderson aptly calls "spectacular duds"-from the critically dismissed (the short masterpiece `Too Old To Rock N' Roll: Too Young To Die'), to some pieces from the later parts of Tull's career (`Roots To Branches,' `Steel Monkey'--headbangers were horrified that Tull won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Performance). Some pieces of the Jethro Tull puzzle have been excluded however; albums such as "A" and "Under Wraps" may not have been successful but are still noteworthy points in the band's thirty-plus years; some of these albums may be shown on the front cover collage but are missing from the gallery of album covers in the CD booklet. But perhaps they are being reserved for a worthwhile sequel.
The tracks are not in chronological order for once, but rather the sequencing has been chosen to make a balanced tapestry of different signatures, moods, and themes, which is much more creative than simply putting the songs in the order they were released. Some songs have been newly edited but that doesn't make them any less enjoyable; Anderson compares the reasons for the edits to the reason one might castrate a family dog. Aside from all this, there's little more one can say without repeating himself; "The Very Best of Jethro Tull" is an honest compilation, and thankfully doesn't tout itself as an "essential" history disc.

Jethro Tull has had so many best of's that by now you'd hope that they would have a definitive single disc collection. This collection is too broad and does not present the tracks in any order. Narrowing the scope to '68-78', in chronological order, I have come up with my own track listing:

1. Song for Jeffrey
2. Living in the Past
3. Sweet Dream
4. Teacher
5. Witches Promise
6. Aqualung
7. Locomotive Breath
8. Cross-Eyed Mary
9. Thick as a Brick (edit)
10. Life's a Long Song
11. Bungle in the Jungle
12. Skating Away...
13. Minstrel in the Gallery
14. Too Old to Rock and Roll...
15. Songs from the Wood
16. Heavy Horses