I was big Tull fan up until Passion Play. Listening to the clip you've posted I hear nothing there that's going to change my mind. I tried a couple of reconciliations with War Child and others, but it was no good, the magic had died.

The word banal springs to mind. Sorry steadfast Tull fans, that will possibly upset you, but probably not as much as this pile of dog doo-doo upset me back in 1973.

I've always wanted to like but just can't get excited about. There always seemed to be a couple of really good songs on each album but - to my ears - it rarely held together as a piece. Ian Anderson always comes across as an intelligent, articulate and interesting cove but the music is just too inconsistent for me. Mind you, a Tull compilation is a good listen.

...but one's tastes develop and times change and so on, and I don't retain the same level of interest I guess. That said, I DO have soft spots for bits of their canon - generally early parts. I'm finding myself quite excited by the forthcoming Aqualung remix/deluxe edition for instance, and I heard 'Thick As A Brick' playing in a second hand record store in Edinburgh maybe three years ago and had to stay until it had played through (40 odd mins!) - I was transfixed by it, and in awe of its melodious cleverness.

I'm on the fence about A Passion Play - I can see why it was a bridge too far at the time, and it lacks the 'power' of TAAB, in both sound and 'vision'. Still, I do see a few of its 'edits' (some of which were even released as singles outside of the UK, and included on the two 'Best Of' Vols from the later 70s) as being sprightly tunes with intriguing lyrical matter.

It's also remarkable what some diehard Tull film collectors are doing in trying to fill the notorious 1971-76 gap in Tull on (pro)film - incredibly, their peak years as a stadium live act - by syncing up 8mm amateur film with either live sound from audio bootlegs or sound from the relevant studio records. One guy has pretty much presented all of A Passion Play (LP version) using disparate bits of 1973 8mm, while this chap, a Mr 'TullTapes', has synced up really good live audio from the tour with around 10 mins of film, in brief clips - the first 6 or so mins are bits of A Passion Play, then its Aqualung, an otherwise unrecorded instrumental and Locomotive Breath. Whatever one thinks of the music, it's dedicated and clever stuff!

It reminds me of the string of concept albums done by The Kinks at around the same time. Impressive but not very enjoyable. I prefer Minstrel in the Gallery, Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses.

By quite a long way. Not that I was ever a massive fan of the band, but I hopped on board for "Aqualung", which I loved, and then "Thick As A Brick" which I thought even better. From the first listen, I absolutely adored "A Passion Play". I found it more humorous than pretentious, with Anderson making full use of the Pythonesque humour popular at the time. With the continuous music bridging the various "song" segments, it felt like being led around a particularly weird and wonderful series of carnival sideshows. Heck, I even loved the daft-as-a-brush "Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles", which bridged sides 1 and 2 of the vinyl album. If ever an album stood as "an entertainment", it was this one, for my money. After the splendid excesses of APP, I rather lost interest when they returned to albums of shorter songs. Takes all sorts, eh?

...I think it's about time we had the massively underappreciated promotional video, don't you?

Blimey. I bow to no-one in my love of Prog, but this album is truly a stinker. Bereft of decent melodies, the lyrics sound like they were made up on the spot (lots of brackets as well, if memory serves)(never a good sign).
The totally unfunny interlude about the hare and his bleedin' specs only goes to show that being in a band that was famously drug-free didn't prevent self-indulgent tosh from being recorded and foisted on us all.
I've just watched the video. My God! Was it a single as well? And I say all this as a big Tull fan. But I always cite this record as Exhibit A when talk comes round to Why Punk Had To Happen. I'm just surprised it took another 3 years.

....for me JT (the JT it's OK to like) made one amazing LP and then went proggy or in Free's case, heavy.

After relatively ho-hum debuts, Free's wonder LP was the second one where the dubious delights of guitar trickery was put on the back burner for song structure and soul and Kossoff never fully forgave them, and Tull's....'Stand Up'.

'Stand Up'....erm....stands up to 'Abbey Road' etc., not sure the proggy stuff does and, of course, they were still having hit singles and appearing on TOTP (a good thing).

onto my new iPod touch last week and I'm loving it all over again. Mind you my JT collection on CD only has APP, MitG, TOtRnR and Warchild. I went off them at SftW, I also have TaaB and Bursting Out on vinyl.

One of their most inventive albums, displaying the band's musical dexterity and Ian Anderson's extraordinary lyrical gifts. I love it and urge readers to play it over the weekend. I'm going to.

My favourite is Aqualung - as noted elsewear it was he firt LP I ever bought. However I did own this when it came out and obviously sold it later as I didn't listen to it much after that.

On rehearing after ?? years I have to say it sounds fine. I can see its Anderson spreading his wings and seeing where it will take him - into longer and more complicated pieces. Still those little acoustic guitar vignettes to tie the different pieces together. Very much of its time in feel with different time signatures. I guess you had to be there!

I've just given this a spin. It's as fresh, brilliant, witty and immediate as ever. It really is an extraordinary album that ranges across a number of interesting musical ideas. The weaving together of the various themes and the brilliant lyricism of Ian Anderson reflects a band at the top of their game. The musicianship really is first class. "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" is, I grant you, an annoying and unwelcome interruption but this can be treated a a kind of Pythonesque intermission to the main event.

I've always regarded this as an important album in the progressive rock genre because the band push out the musical boundaries. Many bands were experimenting in 1973 when this album was released. This was the year of 'Dark Side of the Moon' (Pink Floyd), 'Tubular Bells' (Mike Oldfield), 'Brain Salad Surgery' (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), 'Selling England By The Pound' (Genesis), 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII' (Rick Wakeman), 'Larks Tongues in Aspic' (King Crimson), 'Space Ritual' (Hawkwind), 'Foreigner' (Cat Stevens), 'Bedside Manners Are Extra' (Greenslade) and 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' (Yes). Halcyon days for lovers of prog rock.

I saw the Oberammergau Passion Play in 1980. Live performances last 7 hours and it has been going since 1634. Very much like most bands of the prog oeuvre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberammergau_Passion_Play#Length_and_freque...

Tull's 'Passion Play' clocks in at just over 45 minutes, so plenty of time for a nice cup of tea. If you begin playing it at 16.34 you should be finished by around 5.20pm.

I bow to no man in my love of the Tull, certainly one of my favourite British bands. My favourites are Stand Up, Aqualung, TAAB, Songs from the Wood, followed by Heavy Horses and Warchild. Even lesser albums such as Stormwatch or Crest if a knave have much to recommend them. For some reason I've never heard "A" - maybe the white suits? Minstrel and Passion Play I enjoy when I listen to them but somehow don't draw me like the others. I've put PP in the car to give it a regular lis and see if it clicks.

Interesting categorisation of the albums here by JT themselves

http://www.j-tull.com/discography/studio.html

BTW the Jethro Tull Internet radio station is great. Loads of obscure stuff. Can't get TuneIn radio to play it on the iPad tho for some reason.

(well, lost to me anyway). Back in the 1980s there was a TV series about the history of Britain - the details of which escape me but for the fact that it had a lovely theme choon by Tull which, I think, was otherwise unreleased at the time.

A brief furtle on the Interweb turned up this. I love it

(Jethro Tull/Coronach)

"Grey the mist; cold the dawn;
Cruel the sea and stern the shore.
Brave the man who sets his course
For Albion.

Sweet the rose; sharp the thorn;
Meek the soil and proud the corn.
Blessed the lamb that would be born
Within this green and pleasant land.

Brown furrow shine
Beneath the rain washed blue.
Bright crystal streams
From eagle mountains born.
Fortune has smiled on those who wake anew,
Within this fortress nature built
To stay the hand of war.

With the wind from the east
Came the first of those who tread
Upon this stone, this stone of kings;
This realm, this new Jerusalem."

...I have the 7" single from the time. But the 12" single is a major rarity (not longer, just a different format - which is why I didn't bother buying it at the time!).