After months of being used to the olde, folky sound that went
\nhand-in-hand with Jethro Tull, it would be an understatement of
\nepic proportions to say I was surprised to hear the opening couple
\nof seconds on the band’s 1984 album. At first, I thought I grabbed
\nan electronica\/disco album by mistake! Only when I heard the flute
\npassages in the background was I assured that this was my favourite
\nrock band, taking yet another musical direction.<\/p>\n
The first track, “Lap of Luxury” met with an astounding “what
\nthe hell is this?” from yours truly. Instead of the usual dual
\nmelodies of Anderson’s flute and Barre’s guitar, the song had
\nsynthesisers, and, the bane of my musical enjoyment, electronic
\ndrums. Of course, leave it to Ian Anderson to be the only one who
\ncan use these drums effectively.<\/p>\n
Along with the prog\/folk musical feel, the timeless lyrics are
\ngone as well. Seen on songs like “European Legacy” and “Later, That
\nSame Evening” (to name a few) the lyrics seem to be based around
\nespionage or the Cold War. While the words themselves aren’t
\nterrible, a lot of the tracks seem very dated nowadays.<\/p>\n
The thing that really strikes me about this album is hot
\nhit-or-miss each of the tracks are. There really is no
\nmiddle-ground. Songs like “Radio Free Moscow” and “Paparazzi” are
\nexcellent rocking tunes, while stuff like “Tundra” and “Astronomy”
\nare dismal failures.<\/p>\n
Even in this album, which is an oddity unto itself, there are
\nthe odd tracks. The ones that stick our are “Nobody’s Car,” which
\nsounds pretty awful, and “Under Wraps #2,” which is actually a
\nreturn to the folk stylings that are sorely missed on this
\nalbum.<\/p>\n
Overall, this is definitely not going to be everyone’s cup o’
\ntea. This album was heavily disliked in the American market, and it
\nwas a heavy blow to their popularity overseas. I also do not
\nrecommend this CD to any newbies to Tull, lest they end up
\nforsaking their classic ’60s and ’70s work. However, for die-hard
\nTull fans, people who dig electronica or ’80s pop, or people who
\nare really open-minded, this album will be a good, if slightly
\nstrange record to have in their collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":24814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5643],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38031","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jethro-tull","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38031","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\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38031"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}