Aqualung
by Jethro Tull

From kcendsley1 07/12/2019 23:04 | #239400 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I was a 16-year old camp counselor in training, far from home in a primitive forest. I ran a high fever for two days with a horrific bout of tonsillitis. All I could do was lay on a bunk in a cabin with no air conditioning and listen to my records on headphones, sweating and hallucinating. This was one of those records. I cannot be objective about believing it is an all-time great.

From Boltzmann TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/24/2019 16:09 | #245918 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Is this where it begun? Pretentious hard rockers and heavy metallers that try so hard to make something complex and serious, they end up with accurately orchestrated rock (a contradictio in terminis if you ask me)? It sounds forced and only fools people who are more into rock than music, and who think a piece that lasts for 11 minutes and has a lot of switches in style must be intelligent, people who think criticizing religion is still controversial. As Robert Christgau said: the town free thinker; the city's poseur.

I guess this album also renders the missing link between the dissonant and off-beat guitar riffs of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, and that of hard rock and heavy metal and thrash metal of the '80s. A link that seems logical but I wouldn't have dared to assume. With that in mind this album did leave somewhat of an interesting legacy, and they don't sound like they want to be Love, Jimi Hendrix, and Frank Zappa all at once anymore. Their importance isn't indefensible, I'll admit that, but you'll lose the discussion eventually if you do defend them.

From Brad1770 TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/31/2019 11:14 | #236939 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Looks like a concept album , smells like a concept album , sounds like a concept album so must be a concept album ? Well, no according to the band

Regardless its an awesome album lead by the wonderful "Locomotive Breath"

A dorky flute playing dude who stands on one leg would front one of the biggest bands in the world by the time this double album came out in 1971 , who'd have thunk it !

Unforgiving, multi-faceted and thematic, but never overwhelming. There are some classic songs here - Locomotive Breath, for one - but there's consistency and quality throughout both sides of the LP.

Aqualung might offer the most tasteful use of the flute that I've yet heard in a rock record. Recommended listening for anyone who wants to know why and how Jethro Tull broke ground in the early '70s.

From Decurso TOP 100 COMMENTER 06/22/2014 03:59 | #114973 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

For a band more known for folk/blues and prog-rock, this is pretty full on. Heavy and sinister, while still showcasing Tull's folk roots. and as always, the musicianship is top notch. One of the best albums ever. Period.