Ho hum. Another greatest hits album. Why bother? Ian Anderson
\nhimself talks in the liner notes about how he always thought that
\ngreatest hits compilations were rather like cheating. So why
\nrelease one at all? Well, ask Anderson himself in his own words,
\n“to get a flavour of a band with whom I was only partially
\nfamiliar”. Fair enough.<\/p>\n
I was only partially familiar with Jethro Tull myself I’ve more
\nthan a passing acquaintance with
\nAqualung<\/i> and
\nSongs From The Wood<\/i>, but couldn’t name a track off
\nWar Child<\/i> or
\nRock Island<\/i> if you paid me. If the purpose of a greatest
\nhits CD is to give you a taste of things, then
\nThe Very Best Of Jethro Tull<\/i> works. It’s like the sampler
\nplate at a Greek restaurant varied, interesting, and leaving you a
\nbit hungry for more, or at least for a few pieces of pita
\nbread.<\/p>\n
The tracks on
\nThe Very Best Of<\/i> are varied in tone and tempo, much like all
\nof Jethro Tull’s work. More importantly, however, they’ve been
\nremastered, and not since Alan Parsons’
\nDefinitive Collection<\/i> can I remember a compilation that
\nimproved so much on the originals. Tracks like “Aqualung”, “Living
\nIn The Past” and “Locomotive Breath” snap and chime with new life,
\nand even the overly-produced “Steel Monkey” has a new life and
\ninsistent energy to it. “Songs From The Wood”, “The Whistler” and
\n“Bouree” are more delicate, clear, and harmonic.<\/p>\n
The big winner, though, is “Broadsword”. I know I’ve heard this
\ntrack before, and I remember it as being boring and bombastic, a
\nbad example of adolescent Dungeons-and-Dragons-rock. On
\nThe Very Best Of<\/i>, it practically reaches out, grabs you, and
\nforces you to listen to what has turned into an eerily fascinating
\nsong with insistent, building energy.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, not even remastering could save “A New Day
\nYesterday” (which I had not heard before, and I question why
\nexactly it was included. It doesn’t sound like Tull, and it’s not
\nvery good). Anderson made what he called necessary edits on
\n“Minstrel In The Gallery”, “Too Old To Rock And Roll; Too Young To
\nDie”, and “Heavy Horses”. I’m not that familiar with the original
\ntracks, but the edits seem cohesive and complete on their own.<\/p>\n
Overall,
\nThe Very Best Of Jethro Tull<\/i> does what it’s supposed to do;
\nsummarize one of the most varied and idiosyncratic bands of the
\nlast 30 years in one CD of tracks designed to make you look deeper.
\nI found myself thinking that perhaps I need to own some more Jethro
\nTull therefore, it’s a success, and recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5643],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37105","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jethro-tull","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37105"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37105"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}