JETHRO TULL: "THICK AS A BRICK" ( FULL ALBUM IN HD) RELEASED 3/10/1972..

"THICK AS A BRICK" is the fifth studio album by the English Progressive rock band Jethro Tull. Released in 1972, the album includes only one song, the title track, which spans the entire album. Thick as a Brick was deliberately crafted in the style of a concept album (and as a "bombastic" and over the top parody). The original packaging, designed like a newspaper, claims the album to be a musical adaptation of an epic poem by a (fictional) 8-year-old boy, though the lyrics were actually written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson.

Thick as a Brick was Jethro Tull's first deep progressive rock offering, coming four years after the release of their first album (1968). The epic album is notable for its many musical themes, time signature changes and tempo shifts - all of which were features of the progressive rock scene, of which was emerging at the time. In addition, the instrumentation includes harsichord, xylophone, timpani, violin, lute, trumphet, saxophone, and a string section-all uncommon in blues-based rock.

Band frontman Ian Anderson was surprised by the critical reaction to their previous album, Aqualung (1971), as a "concept album", a label he firmly rejects to this day. In a interview on In the Studio wirh Redbeard (which spotlighted Thick as a Brick). Anderson's response to the the critics was: "If the critics want a concept album we'll give the mother of all concept albums and we'll make it so bombastic and so over the top". Ian Anderson has been quoted as stating that Thick as a Brick was written "because everyone was saying we were a progressive rock band, so we decided to live up to the reputation and write a progressive album, but done as a parody of the genre". With Thick as a Brick, the band created an album deliberately intergrated around one concept: a poem by a super-intellegent English schoolboy, named Gerald Bostock, about the trials of growing up. Beyond this, the album was a send-up of all pretentious "concept albums". (The idiom "thick as a brick" is an expression signifying someone who is stupid" or slow to learn or understand".)

Anderson also stated in that interview that "the album was a spoof to the albums of YES and EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER, much like what the movie Airplane! had been to Airport". The formula was successful, and the album reached number one on the charts in the United States.
Side one No. Title "Thick as Brick, Part 1" Length 22:40
Side two No. Title "Thick as Brick, Part 2" Length 21:06

Individual names of the title "Thick as a Brick".
1. Really Don't Mind/ See There a Son Is Born
2. The Poet and the Painter
3. What Do You Do When the Old Man's Gone? From the Upper Class
4. You Curl Your Toes in Fun / Childhood Heroes / Stabs Instrumental
5. See There a Man Is Born / Clear White Cirles
6. Legends and Believe in the Day
7. Tales of Your Life
8. Childhood Heroes Reprise.

Personel:
Ian Anderson - lead vocals, acoutic guitar, flute, violin, trumpet, saxophone.
Martin Barre - electric guitar, lute.
John Evan - piano, organ, harpsichord.
Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond - bass guitar, vocals.
Barriemore Barlow - drums, percussion, timpani.
David Palmer - brass and string arrangements.

"Thick AS A BRICK" released March 10th, 1972.
Recorded December 7th, 1971 at Morgan Studios.
Genre - Progressive rock, art rock, hard rock, and folk rock.
Lenth - 43:46
Label - Chrysalis, Reprise Records.

All lyrics written by "Gerald Bostock" (Ian Anderson). All music composed and produced by Ian Anderson.