Jethro Tull-Thick As A Brick (1972)

 

Artist: Jethro Tull

Title: Thick As A Brick

Label: Reprise

Format: LP 

Cat #: MS 2072

Year of Release: 1972

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1972 Tan Reprise with 12 page foldout newspaper

Sold Price: $4.99

Listed Condition: G+/VG

Sell Date: 9/22/20

Discogs Last Sold: 9/3/20 $99.00 NM/VG+

Low: $1.00

Median: $6.37

High: $99.00

Current low price: $0.99 G+/VG, $3.00 VG/VG

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 128

Have/Want: 6342/397

Where Sold: Tampa, FL

Time it took to sell: 3 years

Where and When Bought: AlBums, Worcester Used, around $3.99 in the early 80's.

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go?: Yes

This is absolutely a formative album for me in many ways.  It was my introduction to the Album Rock format.  I had albums passed down from my parents--Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, folk and classical stuff.  I had some Beatles.  I had some top 40 singles from the Disco era and hit juggernauts like Saturday Night Fever, but I had no conduit to prog album rock until my 4th Grade teacher Mr. Fletcher told me Boston rock station WCOZ were now broadcasting full albums at 9 at night.  My first was Dark Side Of The Moon, and the second Thick As A Brick.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  Lo and behold my local library had Thick As A Brick in the pop bin after I got my initial exposure, so I was able to take the record out and fully see the poetic exploits of fictional child auteur "Little Milton" aka Gerald Bostock  Bostock né Anderson's fictional couplet "Your Sperms In The Gutter/Your Love's In The Sink" had a strange quality for a young lad years away from his first ejaculation.

Another thing about Thick As A Brick was it stretched one song over two sides.  With "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands," I knew as a 3 year old this could be done.  But TWO?  The WCOZ male DJ intoned after the first side fade out that we will now be hearing Side Two.  And closely I listened to my AM/FM clock radio in bed in deep aural observation.

What an album.  I'm seeing some premium movement as a NM copy went for $99.00.  Somebody wanted a high end first pressing.   However being a Billboard number one album, many are for sale and mine was marked up and well worn, even though I paid a top rate $3.99 for a used copy at Al Bums, one of two used record standbys.  I never replaced it on CD either early or remastered for some reason, but I would put this in the lower half of my top hundred albums of all time if I bothered to do such a list.  Easily my favorite Tull album, although Aqualung might have surpassed it in my mind for "Hymn 43" alone.  I saw Tull live in 1984 on the Under Wraps tour, a particularly shitty album that was featured at that arena show.  I seem to remember he popped out of a cake during the truncated "Thick As A Brick" encore. By the time I saw Tull again in Newark, NJ (or Ian Anderson's version of it), they did a sequel and played both albums over two sets start to finish.  Enjoyable show, but these days I've been enjoying guitarist Martin Barre's club shows a bit more.