Here’s a rhetorical question: Does a band really need to put out
\ntwo boxed sets within five years of each other?<\/p>\n
That’s the question one would have to ask of Ian Anderson, the
\nliving, breathing force behind Jethro Tull. It was one thing for
\nAnderson to help compile
\n20 Years Of Jethro Tull<\/i>, a set which did a good job of
\nchronicling the band’s history up to their comeback (if one could
\nreally use that term, since the group never went away). But to
\nrelease a set like
\n25th Anniversary Box Set<\/i> — a set which cost me $80 back in
\nthe day, and which is now out-of-print — just five years later,
\nand feature precious little new material, was a questionable
\nmove.<\/p>\n
When I first listened to it shortly after buying it, I believed
\nI had gotten royally ripped off. Dusting it off for the first time
\nin a decade as part of this retrospective on Tull, I was able to
\nappreciate some of the nuances I hadn’t seen the first time around
\n— and, indeed, the performances are pleasant enough. Yet one has
\nto wonder whether there was something better that Anderson could
\nhave provided the fans with — say, the boxed set of bootleg
\nrecordings promised in the booklet which has never
\nmaterialized.<\/p>\n
First things first: there is absolutely no reason that Anderson
\nneeded to include a disc of Jethro Tull’s “classic” songs remixed,
\nfor a few reasons. First, he absolutely butchered “Songs From The
\nWood” — Ian, I love ya, but you don’t fix what ain’t broken, bub.
\nSecond, no matter what, long-time fans were going to find something
\nmissing from this collection. Third — and most importantly —
\nthere are so many best-of collections out there (even back in 1993)
\nthat it was sheer redundancy to re-package them again.<\/p>\n
The two discs’ worth of live material — one from Carnegie Hall
\nin 1970, the other featuring performances from around the world —
\nprove to be the shining stars in this set. To hear the maturation
\nof the band — and especially to hear the rest of the show that was
\nfirst featured on
\nLiving In The Past<\/i> — is something worthwhile for fans of
\nall ages. Granted, the newer material (or the more recent
\nrecordings) don’t seem to pack as great of a punch, but when you
\nhear Anderson take on “A Song For Jeffrey” (the third version on
\nthis set) from 1993, you can’t help but hear Anderson time warp
\nback to 1968 in his vocal style.<\/p>\n
This leaves one disc — “The Beacon’s Bottom Tapes” — which
\nfeatures the band recording “live in the studio” remakes of old
\nclassics. This isn’t as successful of an experiment as Anderson may
\nhave hoped, but there is a kitsch factor to this disc which even
\nthe long-time fans have to appreciate. After all, if one goes to
\nsee Jethro Tull in concert today, this is what you can expect the
\nband to sound like.<\/p>\n
Yet the question still remains: did the world really need
\nanother multi-disc box set from Jethro Tull? Honestly, the answer
\nis “no.” Had this been pared down to a two-disc set, maybe just
\nfocusing on live recordings of Tull through the years, it would
\nhave been a more powerful collection. As it stands, there are
\nmoments of grandeur on
\n25th Anniversary Box Set<\/i>, but this is one that is truly for
\nthe completists only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5643],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38042","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\/38042","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38042"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}