Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick (1972)

Art rock, we are told, presented a threat to rock and roll for its disconnection from the rhythm-and-blues roots of rock, its pretentious themes and lyrics, its over-complex musicianship, and its unbearable whiteness of being.  Such music, we are further told, deserved a shellacking from the punk movement and died a richly deserved death at the hands of a snyth-pop/hip-hop sound that emerged  from new generations of less white and less male recording artists in the early eighties and hasn't let go of the charts since.  But what about a parody of art rock being art itself?     

Jethro Tull's leader Ian Anderson conceived "Thick as a Brick" in response to the growing plethora of long-winded albums coming from British rockers in the early seventies and interpretations of the band's own Aqualung as having been a concept album rather than a collection of songs that simply belong together.  I am referring to this album's title in quotation marks rather than in italics for a reason; it's in fact a single song spread out over two sides.  Anderson presents "Thick as a Brick" as a poem, set to Tull's music, that was written by a fictional eight-year-old lad named Gerald Bostock.  The mock newspaper that served as the record's sleeve has a story explaining that "Thick as a Brick" won first prize in a poetry contest - a prize that was rescinded by the contest judges after a reading of the poem on BBC Television because of its "extremely unwholesome attitude towards life, his God and Country."  The article goes on to say that a shocked British public has concluded that poor Gerald is believed to be mentally disturbed and seriously needs help.  Other stories in the paper, which folds out when the sleeve is opened, cover rather absurd, silly, parochial issues that local newspapers in Britain always seem to be concerned with.  Anderson was not only parodying the pomposity of art rock, he was also poking fun at staid British society in general.

But how can one possibly satirize art rock when, as I noted in my review of Yes's 1973 anti-masterpiece Tales From Topographic Oceans, the most pompous art rock satirizes itself?  Very brilliantly, at least here.  Anderson presents the schoolboy Bostock's poem - referencing scatology, the Boy Scout Handbook, and comic-book virtues - with some of Tull's most challenging music.  Jarring, heavy chord changes supported by Martin Barre's electric guitar flow out of some of Anderson's loveliest acoustic arrangements of guitar and piano and lead into some ethereal orchestration arranged by David Palmer.  Adding some extra punch to keep the music interesting are keyboardist John Evan with some majestic organ passages, and new drummer Barriemore Barlow is equally impressive with his pointed assaults.  The lyrics ultimately seem to make little sense, but anyone who tries to find meaning in them to explain poor Gerald misses the joke.  Anderson is playing with our heads the same way Monty Python's Flying Circus - an inspiration for "Thick As a Brick" - played with the stuffiness of British cultural values.  The title itself - a term for stupidity - is a clue to the joke.

American rock critics - in 1972 waiting for a new kind of rock to come from the street to save us from such art-school haughtiness - slammed "Thick as a Brick" for being so, well, dense, but if they thought Anderson was being serious, then the biggest joke of all was on them.  You yourself may wonder if Anderson only called "Thick as a Brick" an art-rock parody to hide the fact that he let the success of Aqualung go to his head and wanted to make something even grander, but the fact that Anderson has never taken himself too seriously means that he got the last laugh here.

Gerald Bostock would be proud.