Top 10 Best Jethro Tull Albums
I've done the best Jethro Tull songs, so now it's time to do the hard task of picking 10 albums in the amazing Jethro Tull repertoire.
I know "Aqualung" was great, but there were certain moments in that album that really were not that good, such as any of the acoustic links in the album. "Thick As A Brick" has no filler at all, and is just plain fantastic.
"Masterpiece" cannot be topped. And that is exactly what Thick as a Brick is. Far better (for prog. ) than Aqualung. (And since I'm a progger, this gets my vote. )
Nothing beats this album, by far the best prog album of all time and possibly the best album of all time. Masterpiece!
Really don't mind if you sit this one out... I was in love with this song after just 10 seconds... Music vocals concept and ian anderson... Perfect
Aqualung is, of course, the Tull album that first got me (and other Tull fans not old enough to witness the 60's) into the band. To be sure it is a great classic rock album and it really set the tone for the bands unique sound, but as much as I love it, it doesn't have enough of what makes me love Jethro Tull to be any higher than #6 on this list. It seems to be number 1 or 2 on most Tull fan lists.
Martin Barre shows why he is the king of riffs here in this album which showcases his excellent talent sounding formidable in both the acoustic and electric side of his guitar playing; oh yeah and Anderson writes great tunes too!
Awesome album, Aqualung (the song) has one of the greatest guitar solos ever, and their is many other great songs on this album.
The greatest JT album of them all. Every song a bit of a twist from the last one. Completely encompasses every aspect of what makes Tull unique.
A great all round album, but song for song I probably like "Stormwatch" more. But if I was trapped on a deserted island I'd pick Heavy Horses over Stromwatch because of the the title song. The song Heavy Horses is not just the best Jethro Tull song, but the greatest song ever. I love the music and the words of this song so much. But don't get me wrong, I still love the whole album.
This, for me is the best Tull album. The poetry is very close in quality to the best English poets. The musical accompaniment is totally suitable for the songs and is nicely complex as well as perfectly simple. Aqualung and Thick As come a joint second in my rating.
I wasn't into Tull in the seventies, but thirty plus years later they're in my 2 or 3 all time favorites. Heavy Horses is truly outstanding and the title track is my favorite Tull song. The melodies and arrangements of the songs are exceptional.
The best out of the trio of folk-rock albums. Not a bad song on the album. Just a SOLID collection of songs. One of my top three favorites!
A very underrated album yet excellent and eclectic!
Not the best but a little underrated one. anyway its very good one
Minstrel In The Gallery is with out question the greatest Tull album. The title song is Tull at their absolute best. The whole album is truly a masterpiece. Every song is not just good, but great. Most of them are my favourite Tull songs. The whole rang of Jethro Tull's sound can be found in fine form.
Totally agree. Genius. Off to the Albert hall 30th June to see Thick as a Brick performed live (part 1 and 2). But Minstrel is my all time favourite album...
This album is perfect. PERFECT it makes you think of Tull in a whole new light
I am a Tull completist bootlegs, Ians martins and collecting music teach member have contributed on
I am a long time fan and have seen them live many times
MITG is my number 1. This was and standup next
Crest Of A Knave was a great comeback for Tull after Under Wraps went against their usual musical format. Favorites of mine are Steel Monkey, Farm In The Freeway, Said She Was A Dancer and Budapest. This album won a Grammy too! It's one of Tull's greatest albums.
Pretty damn strong from start to finish, and the bonus tracks The Waking Edge and Part Of The Machine are also real solid.
Even the biggest Jethro Tull fans can admit this album did not deserve the grammy it won.
Martin on top form
I really like what Ian Anderson does with old English folk music. So it should be no surprise that I love "Songs From The Wood. " Maybe the most beautiful album to be found in the Tull Discography. The most folky of the Tull Folk Trilogy for sure. It would have made a better follow up to Minstrel In The Gallery than Too old To Rock N' Roll: Too Young To Die did.
I'd call this album underrated, but the critics dug it and die hard Tull fans understand it for what it is (a masterpiece). But I have introduced many a casual fan to Tull with this album, and though to a person they did not recognize any of the songs, they all walked away wanting more. From the Fire at Midnight to the acid rock Pibrach, this album has it all.
My favorite for sure. So much creativity. Evocative moods and images. Great performances all around. Between this album and Heavy Horses, the rhythm section of Barlow and Glascock were at full strength; exuberant, but never self-aggrandizing. Everything works in perfect balance on this record. Truly an experience.
This is the quintessential album reason that Jethro Tull doesn't get acknowledged for its rock brilliance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--JT marches to its own rhythms and Ian Anderson doesn't give a rat's ass about what is appropriate rock fare. This album stands out among all of them, and I have been following them since 1969.
My first ever concert was when Tull recorded "A Passion Play". They became my favorite band with "Aqualung" and the big event for me was always their next new release which I couldn't wait to get my hands on. One of the big problems for me at my first concert was that the "APP" album was not released here in Kansas City until two weeks after the show. The radio stations played a cut from side two ("I am the overseer over you" part.) but that was all we got to hear. You really had to hear the whole album first to really enjoy it played live. (I always had to hear a new Tull album two or three times before getting to like it.) Also the sound was pretty bad. There was a lot of distortion because of the bad acoustics at the Municiple Auditorium. When the album finally came out I listened to it all the time. It's a better done album than "TAAB". I think they had more time to do a one song album right this time. To me "TAAB" sounds like a rushed effort. Ian Anderson in an interview said ...more
For me the best albums are thick as a brick and passion play just for the complexity of their music and majestuosity and genius composition, only genius like Ian Anderson could have been done these albums. My favorite band of all time, then my second favorite band is Pink Floyd with another genius Roger Water.
Javier LLerena
This album is extremely addictive that would have you listening to it for hours, especially between the parts at 9:o5 all the way to 20:00. True masterpiece and an album everyone should listen to sometime or another!
Not for the uninitiated, but after repeated listens a more deep and varied exploration of a theme than even the masterpiece that is Thick as a Brick.
Tull's second album marked a turning point because Ian Anderson took control of the band and added much of the folk rock elements the band is now know for. Martin Barre makes his debut here. Favorites of mine are New Day Yesterday, Bouree, Nothing Is Easy, We Used To Know, and Reasons For Waiting.
This is a great jethro tull album. It's very unique compared to the other music of jethro tull. Every song is very listenable with so many different influences. This one should be in your tull collection.
When you think about the songs recorded in 1969 that were NOT on this album, you realize what a watershed year this was for Tull: Living In The Past, Christmas Song, Love Story, Sweet Dream, Driving Song, 17, Witch's Promise, Teacher (released a year later on the U.S. version of Benefit) - practically a whole other album of great songs.
For me Stand Up is Jethro Tull's real first album. Not as unique as the Tull albums that would eventually follow, it is never the less a great album that still rocks just as loud now as back in 69.
For me, this is Tull's most musically consistent album from start to finish, from individual song craft aspects. Not as conception-oriented as those albums which would follow it, but being far less bombastic becomes the trade-off here, of which becomes a surprise 'benefit' in itself. No matter whether one prefers the original UK release to the rearranged US version, much of the experimentation of Tull's first two releases starts paying off in earnest on this collection.
This is by far the best Tull album as a true band and not a Ian Anderson solo effort with backing that so many later Tull albums became. Also the last album with Glenn Cornick on bass, incredible player. Ian was just a band member and songwriter at this point, he sure put an end to that... Starting with Aqualung.
Stand Up should be seen as Jethro Tull's real first album, and not This Was, for it is on Stand Up that we first see the musical soul of Tull. Not as unique as the Tull albums that would eventually follow, it is never the less a great album that still rocks just as loud now as back in 69.
Greatest Tull album. Every member shines, not just Anderson. Vocals, guitar, drums, bass and flute. Every song is a gem and Tull was never to reach such heights again.
Totally underrated album- I was well and truly locked into the punk thing in '76, and can't even remember why I bought this record!... But I did, and to this day I love it.
I love the conceptional continuity of this album. I also think it is totally underrated.
They were so big at this point that they headlined Shea Stadium in '76.
Often mistaken for a compilation it is surly not. It is a must have album for any Tull fan. It showcases Tull's range in ways that no other album does.
Agreed that it's low on this list because it's considered somewhat inaccurately as a Best Of, but it's really a collection of the contemporary songs at the time that for the most part were unreleased in the U.S., which turned out to be sone of their strongest material.
Living in the Past should definitely be in the top five. It's very well crafted album. It'll put you in a good mood for sure!
A masterpiece...a must have
I've never understood why this album is so underrated. It's got everything that makes a great Tull record, save the humor. It's dark and sounds just like the album art suggests. Beautiful interplay between the instruments. Incredible work by Barry Barlow and David Palmer. Even the lyrics are some of Ian's best. Why oh why is this not considered one of Tull's best?
"I don't care for the most acoustic folk-Irish sounding songs, mainly the instrumentals - having grown up in a small rural town in N. Dakota as a metalhead, I have a distaste for anything remotely like country music to this day - but there is brilliant Prog Rock here that stands up to the best Gerry Rafferty, Who, and Pink Floyd. and the song "Dark Ages" is epic in harmonic vocals and several complex change-ups in change in town. I'd put this up with the best for sure.
Stormwatch is arguably the hardest and softest of the Tull Folk Trilogy. I do believe that it is possibly the last great Tull album. I say that despite the fact that I have placed "Broadsword And The Beast" at #10. "Stromwatch" also has the song Elegy which I think is the best instrumental (or at least tied with Bouree) of the bands catalog.
How is this album below Rock Island? One of the best Tull albums in my opinion, definitely in my top three. It should definitely be up with Songs From The Woods, or TBATB at least. And Elegy is simply beautiful.
This album gets so much flack for supposedly sucking, so many people just dismiss it. It is a very simple album with a number of instrumentals, and its not my favourite, but it is certainly far from the worst in the collection.
Beggars Farm, My Sunday Feeling and Song for Jeffery are all excellent. Vastly underrated in this collection.
An incredibly underrated album. Tull's debut with a much more blues/jazz influence, thanks to guitarist Mick Abrahams of Blodwyn Pig fame. Favorites of mine are My Sunday Feeling, Beggar's Farm, Serenade To A Cuckoo, Darmha For One and Song For Jeffrey. This album is neat because Ian Anderson wasn't quite the leader of the band of this point.
Features one of the best songs they ever made - a song for Jeffrey!
The Broadsword And The Beast", like "A", could not escape the influence of the 80s. But unlike "A", "The Broadsword And The Beast" manages to pull it off. In Fact, It does more than pull it off, it is actually a better album for it. "The Broadsword And The Beast" takes the synthesizer sound of the 80s and uses it with the same wisdom as Peter Gabriel or Pink Floyd did in the 80s. Ian Anderson uses it to make the songs sound more epic like in a movie score. Plus, there are some songs that sound like they could have been taken strait off of Tull's earlier work. So even though "The Broadsword And The Beast" sounds totally different from any of Tull's earlier work, it sounds uniquely like Tull and is a solid work... dare I say it, a great album if one is willing to be open to Tull's new sound. Sadley, Jethro Tull would not return to this sound.
Synthesizers done right. Most 80's stuff sounds dated and old school but a listen to Broadsword is a listen to timeless sounding music from the master. I'm going to have to go with this one being Tull's best. Yes I love the 70's stuff and other than the weaker voice I love 90's tull as well. Broadsword has Ians voice still intact and at his songwriting peak. An overlooked album that all the fans of the 70s stuff really need to give it a good listen.
An absolutely awe inspiring album. I'm doing an art project where I have Ian (who the cover figure is based off of) in a climbing position coming out of the canvas.
Best album as far as I'm concerned. Very atmospheric and a mix and contemporary social issues and concerns stirred into medieval melodies. Absolute gem!
I really liked this album when it came out. I think the keyboard and violin worked really well and there are some really tuneful songs. Easily in my top 5 Tull albums.
The Tull album that symbolizes the end of the 70's era for the band. The traditional sound of Jethro Tull is missing in this album.
This Album is only understood by the real Jethro Tull Fans. An its surely in top 5.
Massively underrated. It has some great moments and would definitely be in my top 5.
Definitely a top 5 album. Great elements from the 70's while still an evolved sound
It is hard to believe that this album is so far down on this list.
This is a most amazing work of true Jethro Tull musical art. it is a strange mixture of theater,melody, and madness that IS Jethro Tull.
Tull's last album which covers traditional Christmas songs and Christmasy Tull songs. The whole album is superb and great to listen to at Christmas time.
I feel as this album is underrated, and it is the only 21st century Jethro Tull album
This is my favorite Tull album, listening start to finish. It's more of a rhythm-based, bluesy-rock album, and a bit less of the folksy singalongs of some of their other masterpieces (but that's what I prefer to listen to) Every tune is full of great riffs, and yes, the flute is there too. The greatest track is "This isn't Love" It rocks the hardest, has a fantastic hook that makes me hit Repeat several times, with baseline, drums, guitars.. and the vocals are just what I'd expect from a Tull album, that sort of juvenile fun. But, If were writing the lyrics I'd definitely had named that tune "This is Pure Love" because that's exactly fitting. And It got a great deal of radio airplay back in it's day on my local rock-radio FM station in Mississippi. After blasting off with This IS Pure Love, unwind, sitback and enjoy this whole fantastic album.
Stay away from this one. Generally regarded as one of the worst albums made by an otherwise brilliant band. Everything below it on this list is far superior, as well as Benefit, Stormwatch and a string of other masterpieces.
Tull's best album of the 90's. A bit of a rocker, every song is worth listening to
Another Christmas Song might be the last great Tull song (with some decent songs in the years thereafter, but none that are really essential). The poignant lyrics, captivating melody, and typically understated fills by Martin Barre are just perfect.
Martin Barre's guitar playing on the outro of the title cut is just brilliant.
Very underrated. Later that Same Evening and Apogee are among Ian Anderson's best compositions.
I know it's very 80's, but I still have a soft spot for it.
