Jethro Tull Zealot

While having dinner this evening Becky and I listened to the new album from Jethro Tull titled The Zealot Gene that came out last week. I saw it on Spotify and decided to mark it for listening. I should delete it right away before it becomes part of my algorithm. 

The album was really bad in many ways but maybe would have been OK fifty years ago as a follow-up to Aqualung rather than the nonsense that they put out regularly over the next decade or so. Anderson can no longer sing very well and the really good band members from back in the day are not there. Well, at least he can still play flute in that simpleton pompous village idiot style.

This new album is the first real Tull set since the mid 1990's and it sounds like a parody of their 70's prime. It reminded me of Stonehenge period Spinal Tap. Becky and I made jokes about the music throughout dinner like getting up, putting tights on and then making a tik-tok dance video to it. We didn't make it all the way through the album and I had to change the mood mon. 

Looking back on the music of Jethro Tull I really did like their first few albums up until Aqualung in 1971 which I liked but it came out while I was overseas most of the time and did really get to hear it much. Later I heard it way too much when it became a main staple of 70's classic rock. I really disliked the albums that came after that from Thick as a Brick, Passion Play, and on and on. I was certainly done with them.

I really liked their first three albums and enjoyed them for many years. I saw them live once in 1969 and a club in Philly. The albums I liked were 1968's This Was, 1969's Stand Up and 1970's Benefit. 

This new album Zealot Gene also has an awful cover. What were they thinking.