Aqualung

On Aqualung, the lines began to blur between myth and man: Is Jethro Tull Ian Anderson? Is Anderson Aqualung? Is Aqualung Jethro Tull? Like the disheveled character on the album’s cover, or the band’s portrait on the gatefold, Anderson and the rest of Jethro Tull become larger than life with Aqualung-and in fact, became all three. Anderson (along with wife Jenny, who wrote the title track’s lyrics) tackles his views on religion, giving the album the loose distinction of “concept.” Here Tull takes their music to a new commercial level, mixing their own progressive brew with the hard riffing of the then-current heavy rock (think Led Zeppelin) to deliver very classic rock songs. “My God,” “Hymn 43” and “Locomotive Breath” teem with classic riffs and hooks, and Barre’s double-tracked guitar is the ace in the hole. The title track and “Locomotive Breath” are also FM radio-friendly; the album would become standard issue to nearly every guitar-wielding teenager of the era. Yet it’s also interspersed with gentler moments that hearken back to the Tull of the previous album, in particular on “Mother Goose.” In a role he would hold for a decade, David Palmer gracefully employs his orchestration skills on “Wond’ring Aloud.” The band toured the US extensively in support of the album, which finally cracked the US Top 10 at No. 7. In the UK, it would rise to No. 4. It was one of the first albums of the progressive era to earn a gold record and has since achieved multi-platinum status.