Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play

Aqualung brought Jethro Tull to the popular forefront of the early 70’s. It also came out at a point where concept albums were beginning to gain movement in the establishing progressive rock movement, which means it was considered one despite the fact that there was no real intent to write one to a specified theme. Out of this the band essentially established its position in the progressive royal family through its satire of the concept album.

Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play are technically not concept albums. In fact they can hardly be considered ‘albums’ in the strictest classical sense, as each one only really includes one ‘song’ with multiple recurring themes mixed in together. On the other hand they are the technical definition of a concept album, in that they each have a very specific theme, the likes of which weren’t exactly common, even among ‘concept’ albums of the time, about the most fully fleshed out storyline in rock by this point was The Who’s Tommy.

Thick as a Brick is also a brilliant piece of satire as well as a good rock album. The bulk of the story is told on the front page of the LP cover, which doubles as a full newspaper. Gerald Bostock submits a poem titled ‘Thick as a Brick’ into a children’s poetry competition and is eventually disqualified after offending the citizens of his hometown, but since that has little to do with the competition itself the official reason is that he is too ‘intellectually advanced’ to compete in a children’s poetry competition. “My word’s but a whisper, your deafness a shout.”

A Passion Play is the more directly narrative work, although probably the least compelling. It basically tells the story of Ronnie Pilgrim, a man who dies and has a somewhat awkward experience with the afterlife, being subjected to a rather embarrassing montage of his life events and at the end of it not even liking heaven nor hell all that much at the end of it.

When it comes to albums so similar in scope I have to lean towards the experience provided by Thick as a Brick, it sounds a lot fresher and more surprising, even though I’ve heard it a lot more than I have A Passion Play, which I’ve only listened to all the way through a couple of times.

Thick as a Brick