Aqualung is the fourth studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released on 19 March 1971 by Chrysalis Records. Blending progressive rock, folk and hard rock, the album expands on the eclectic musical approaches explored on the band's previous albums by featuring riff-heavy rock songs alongside acoustic, singer-songwriter material placing greater emphasis on lead vocalist and primary songwriter Ian Anderson. Lyrically, the album addresses themes of religion and spirituality, alongside social issues such as homelessness and prostitution. Its prominent critique of organized religion led some critics to describe Aqualung as a concept album, a characterization the band has consistently denied.
Recorded at Island Records' new recording studio in Basing Street, London, Aqualung was Jethro Tull's first album with keyboardist John Evan as a full-time member, their first with new bassist Jeffrey Hammond, and last featuring Clive Bunker on drums, who left the band shortly after the release of the album. The recording process was hindered by technical difficulties associated with the new studio, with Anderson expressing doubts about the album, viewing it as a make-or-break moment for the band.
Aqualung was a major commercial success, becoming Jethro Tull's best-selling album with sales exceeding seven million copies worldwide and marking the band's emergence as a regular presence on FM radio and major arena act. Initial critical reception was mostly positive, with the album since receiving widespread retrospective acclaim for its musical experimentation and engagement with philosophical and social themes. It produced two successful singles, "Hymn 43" and "Locomotive Breath", the latter of which remains one of the band's most iconic songs. The album's title track, "Aqualung", has become one of the band's best-known songs, due in part to its distinctive lead guitar riff played by Martin Barre. Aqualung has frequently appeared on best-of album lists and has been cited as an influence by numerous artists within rock and progressive music.
Production
The bulk of the album was recorded at Basing Street Studios, London, in December 1970, with some re-recording taking place in February 1971 after the January European tour. Those two early 1970 tracks were recorded with a different bass player than used for the main recordings. After the last of the 1970 American tours, bass player Glenn Cornick was fired from the band, and was replaced with Jeffrey Hammond, an old friend of Ian Anderson. Aqualung was Hammond's first album with the band, and the first album for keyboard player John Evan as a full member; his previous involvement had been as an additional musician on Benefit.
The album was one of the first to be recorded at Island Records' newly opened recording studios on Basing Street. Led Zeppelin did some recording for Led Zeppelin IV at the same time, though in the smaller of the two studios in the converted chapel. In an interview on the 25th anniversary edition of the album, Tull's bandleader Ian Anderson said that trying to record in the larger studio was very difficult, because of its "horrible, cold, echoey" feel. In a stylistic departure from Jethro Tull's earlier albums, many of Aqualungs songs are acoustic. "Cheap Day Return", "Wond'ring Aloud" and "Slipstream" are short, completely acoustic "bridges", and "Mother Goose" is mostly acoustic. Anderson claims his main inspirations for writing the album were Roy Harper and Bert Jansch. The first side of the LP, titled Aqualung, contains several character sketches, including the character of the title track, and the schoolgirl-aged prostitute Cross-Eyed Mary, as well as two autobiographical tracks, including "Cheap Day Return", written by Anderson after a visit to his critically ill father.
The second side, titled My God, contains three tracks—"My God", "Hymn 43" and "Wind-Up"—that address religion in an introspective, and sometimes irreverent, manner. However, despite the names given to the album's two sides and their related subject matter, Anderson has consistently maintained that Aqualung is not a "concept album". A 2005 interview included on Aqualung Live gives Anderson's thoughts on the matter:
Drummer Clive Bunker believes that the record's perception as a concept album is a case of "Chinese whispers", explaining "you play the record to a couple of Americans, tell them that there's a lyrical theme loosely linking a few songs, and then notice the figure of the Aqualung character on the cover, and suddenly the word is out that Jethro Tull have done a concept album".
"Lick Your Fingers Clean" was recorded for Aqualung, but was not included on the album. The song was drastically re-worked as "Two Fingers" for Tull's 1974 album, War Child. "Lick Your Fingers Clean" was eventually released in 1988 on the 20 Years of Jethro Tull collection. It was then released as a bonus track on the 1996 and 2011 reissues of Aqualung.
Another song, "Wond'ring Again" was recorded on 21 June 1970 together with the original version of "Wond'ring Aloud" (included as one single seven-minute song on the Steven Wilson remaster of associated recordings 1970–1971, titled "Wond'ring Aloud, Again"), and was considered for release on the album before Anderson decided to drop it from the final track listing. "Wond'ring Again" was subsequently released on the compilation album, Living in the Past, in 1972. A re-recording of "Wond'ring Aloud" was included on Aqualung. Glenn Cornick played bass on the song and says that it is his favourite song he recorded with the band. Silverman was paid a flat fee of $1,500 for the painting. or perhaps from Chrysalis' office during a robbery. It peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard's North American pop albums chart; the single "Hymn 43" hit No. 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album went on to sell over seven million copies, and is the band's best-selling album.
The single "Hymn 43" was released on 14 August 1971, and reached number 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, spending two weeks in the chart. along with the title track, "Aqualung".
The album was re-released in a 40th anniversary edition on 31 October 2011. The release contains a new stereo and 5.1 surround remix of the album by British musician and producer Steven Wilson, the original quadraphonic mix, and comes in three different editions—a "collector's edition" containing the album on LP and two CDs, as well a DVD and a Blu-ray disc (with better sound quality than the DVD) and a hardback book; a "special edition" containing the two CDs and an abridged version of the book; and an "adapted edition" containing two CDs (with 2 extra songs not included in the other two 40th anniversary editions) and 2 DVDs in a hardcover book (written content is the same as in the Collector's Edition book, only the Chronology differs slightly). Justifying the remix, Steven Wilson said: "Jethro Tull's Aqualung is ... a masterpiece, but was sonically a very poor-sounding record. So, some didn't rate it as highly as they should have. What we did with Aqualung was really make that record gleam in a way it never gleamed before. I think a lot of people, including myself, have come around to thinking that the album is a lot better than they even gave it credit for previously. So, there is certainly something very gratifying about being able to polish what was already a diamond and making it shine in a way it never has before". Additionally, according to mastering engineer Steve Hoffman there were tape stretching problems with the original session mixdown master, implying that many editions of the album used multigeneration copies as their source.
Critical reception
Aqualung received mixed to favourable reviews from contemporary music critics. Rolling Stone magazine's Ben Gerson lauded its "fine musicianship", calling it "serious and intelligent", although he felt that the album's seriousness "undermined" its quality. Sounds said that its "taste and variety" made it the band's "finest" work. Aqualung was voted the 22nd best album of 1971 in The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, was more critical of the album in a 1981 review, and described Anderson's undeveloped cultural interests and negative views on religion and human behaviour as both boring and pretentious.
In retrospective reviews the album is generally lauded and viewed as a classic.
{|class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Publication
! Country
! Accolade
! Year
! Rank
|-
| The Village Voice
| US
| The 1971 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll
| 2012
|align="center"|337
|-
| The 100 Best-Selling Albums of the 70s
| UK
|
| 2004
|align="center"|90
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| Q
| UK
| 40 Cosmic Rock Albums
| 2005
|align="center"| 7
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| 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
| US
|
| 2005
|align="center"| No order
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| Guitarist
| UK
| The 20 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time
| 2014
|align="center"|43
|-
|}
Track listing
Vinyl release (1971)
Original North American Reprise Records pressings of Aqualung contained a slightly edited version of the title song, with its first three seconds (i.e., the first utterance of the song's signature riff) removed. These pressings correspondingly list the song's length at 6:31.
CD issue (1996)
40th anniversary special edition (2011)
<!-- 14Aug2018 changed it from "collector's edition" to the proper "special edition"-->
The 2011 version was remixed by Steven Wilson and remastered by Peter Mew.
40th anniversary adapted edition: Remixed and mastered by Steven Wilson (2016)
<!--As can be seen on Rhino Records' release notes for the album here http://www.rhino.com/article/now-available-jethro-tull-aqualung-45th-anniversary-edition, this is a 45th anniversary release, NOT 40th. -->
<!-- 14Aug2018: ACTUALLY THIS IS INCORRECT!! IT IS INDEED THE 40TH. Watch the youtube video (link below) to confirm. Specifically goto 2:04 and look at the title page of the book! It very clearly says 40th and the date is MMXVI (I also have seen it in person and can confirm)! The 2016 is the "40th anniversary adapted edition", the 2011 is the "40th anniversary special edition." The youtube video is 'https://youtu.be/-pbm-fzsYUc' YOU NEED TO REMOVE THE APOSTROPHES FOR THE LINK TO WORK. The reason they are both "40th anniversary editions" is because they are both the same 2011 remastered material by Steven Wilson-->
The 2016 edition was remastered by Steven Wilson of his 2011 remixed material as he did not like Peter Mew's mastering.
Aqualung Live (2005)
Aqualung Live is a live album of a performance of Aqualung before an audience of 40 invited guests at XM Studios in Washington, D.C., on 23 November 2004. It was released in the UK in September 2005 by RandM Records. In the US, the album was given away to ticket holders on almost all US concerts in October and November 2005, before being given an official release on 7 March 2006. Royalties from the European release went to various charities for the homeless.
;Track listing
<small>All songs written by Ian Anderson</small>
- "Aqualung" – 7:56
- "Cross-Eyed Mary" – 4:34
- "Cheap Day Return" – 1:21
- "Mother Goose" – 5:39
- "Wond'ring Aloud" – 2:00
- "Up to Me" – 3:35
- "My God" – 8:27
- "Hymn 43" – 4:22
- "Slipstream" – 0:59
- "Locomotive Breath" – 5:19
- "Wind-Up" – 6:40
- Riffs – Another Monkey – 1:27
- Recording the Original – 2:05
- Choosing My Words with Care – 1:17
- Hummmmmm 43 – 0:35
- A Different Kettle of Very Different Fish – 1:02
- But is It Any Good? – 1:42
Personnel
- Ian Anderson – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, flute, production
- Martin Barre – electric guitar, descant recorder
- Jeffrey Hammond (as "Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond") – bass guitar, alto recorder, odd voices; backing vocals on "Mother Goose"
- John Evan – piano, organ, Mellotron
- Clive Bunker – drums and percussion
;Additional personnel
- Glenn Cornick – bass guitar (played with the band at rehearsals for the album in June 1970, some of which may have been recording sessions – particularly early versions of "My God" and "Wondring Again/Wondring Aloud" – although he is not credited on the album)
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