Well, here's a different kettle of fish -- new albums (sorta) from The Beach Boys and Jethro Tull (or more properly, "Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson"), 50 years on for The Boys, 40 years on from the original Thick As A Brick (TAAB), and I think 45 years or so from JT's first album.
The good news: not terrible in either case.
Let's face it, nobody expected anything from The Beach Boys. Name their last good album, then count how many albums they managed to squeeze out since then. Product, product, product, with no sense of quality control. Then there's the whole inter-band strife (troubled genius Brian vs talent-free egomaniac Mike Love is the USA Today/pap digest version). Oh, and a few of the Wilson Brothers died. So now what? Once again, Brian is writing to a deadline (the tour starts tomorrow!! Where are the songs!!) And the results are...surprise! Mixed!
"That's Why God Made the Radio" relies a lot on Brian Wilson's touring band, so they know how to give a good approximation of those golden Beach Boy harmonies. Add Mike Love's nasal whine, but cushioned with pillows of background vocals, plus he's miked pretty close, so not much straining -- and we have, well, this year's version of The Beach Boys. There are 12 songs, 4 of which are really good, 2 aren't terrible, and the rest are not bad. Yeah, I know -- but this could have been a total wipeout! There are cute touches: we hear some of Brian's favorite sounds in the mix (tack piano, bass harmonica, bicycle bell), but the predominate theme is nostalgia and the sunset of our lives. Several of the lyrics refer to "can we just go back" (remember "Do It Again"?)
Most of The Beach Boy albums were suffused with melancholy; it was couched in 'summer is so short and the sun's going down', but us sensitive types figured it out. On "That's Why God Made the Radio", I'm not sure if The Beach Boys are underlining this theme for the rubes, or if they're just figuring it out themselves: "Hey, summer's gone -- it's a freakin' metaphor for life!!"
That said, I really enjoy the 'single', "That's Why God Made the Radio", though why it sounds like "Theme from Midnight Cowboy" confuses me. And the last 3 songs are really good; "Summer's Gone" is one of Brian's best songs, hampered by the too-too much arrangement, but the opening wind-chimes, and the fade-out wind-chimes/ocean surf -- if that's Brian's last production, he can go out a champ.
Then we have "Thick As A Brick 2". I've listened to this in bits, so I'll just give first impressions. But, some background first: the "Aqualung" album broke Jethro Tull big time, follow-up "Thick As A Brick"?: one 'song' spread over 2 sides of an LP. Parody of prog-rock excess or Ian's ego exercise? Discuss. In any case, it was a massive hit. 40 years on, why a sequel? The critics will have a field day! (Umm, a critic hasn't written about Jethro Tull since Johnny Rotten was in short pants.)
First, this isn't really a sequel; it follows the life story (or rather, the options) of the 'author' of the original -- oh hell, why am I writing this? If you got this far, you know the story. Here's my first impression: Ian looks back musically, trains a new crew to approximate the JT sound, and he writes his musical version of Joyce's "Ulysses", via Dickens and BBC kitchen-sink dramas. Heck no, it's not that profound, but Ian's hidden so many musical clues (not just Jethro Tull songs, but Fairport Convention-ish folk appropriations and classical motifs), that it entertains strictly on the whole Spot-the-Clue entertainment aspect.
Sound-wise, this will be a major disappointment if you jump from TAAB to this 'sequel", but if you've followed Tull through the years, you might find this a fun crossword-puzzle of past glories and more recent album tracks. As Ian sang many years ago, "it's only solitaire", and he's done a great job of entertaining us with his own one-upmanship.
