Minstrel in the Gallery [Original recording remastered]

Product Description
24-bit digitally remastered reissue of 1975 album with 5 added bonus tracks Summerday Sands', 'March The Mad Scientist', 'Pan Dance', 'Minstrel In The Gallery' (live) & 'Cold Wind To Valhalla' (live). Capitol. 2002.

Minstrel in the Gallery,Jethro Tull,Capitol,Album Rock,Flute,Hard Rock,Pop,Prog-Rock/Art Rock,Rock,Rock/Pop

Minstrel in the Gallery [Original recording remastered]

Average customer rating:

Very entertaining album.
Mixed Bag
Tull at their Best!
One of Tull's best, one of rock's greatest!
I'm just a Baker Street Mu.....I can't get out!!!

Minstrel in the Gallery
Jethro Tull
Manufacturer: Capitol
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) | Classic Rock | Styles | Music

General | Classic Rock | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Songs from the Wood
Warchild
Heavy Horses
Benefit
Stand Up

ASIN: B00006JKOL
Release Date: 2002-11-05

Tracks:

Minstrel In The Gallery
Cold Wind To Valhalla
Black Satin Dancer
Requiem
One White Duck/O10=Nothing At All
Baker St. Muse: Pig-Me And The Whore/Nice Little Tune/Crush-Barrier Waltzer/Mother England Reverie
Grace
Summerdays Sands
March The Mad Scientist
Pan Dance
Minstrel In The Gallery (Live)
Cold Wind To Valhalla (Live)

Album Description

24-bit digitally remastered reissue of 1975 album with 5 added bonus tracks Summerday Sands', 'March The Mad Scientist', 'Pan Dance', 'Minstrel In The Gallery' (live) & 'Cold Wind To Valhalla' (live). Capitol. 2002.

Album Details

Digitally Remastered Reissue of the Tull Classic! While the Influences of Pre-Elizabethan English folk music abound, make no mistake, this is a complex hard rock record that pretty much coalesces all past Tull foibles into a recording formula that succeeds artistically and aesthetically. One cut (Baker St. Muse) is held to 17 minutes (unlike the side long tracks found on "Thick as a Brick"), While "Cold Wind to Valhalla" and "Requiem" are two of the sweetest songs JT ever recorded. This album marked the end of the Tull classical period, as events surrounding them would bring them back to the here and now for their next album....

Customer Reviews:

Very entertaining album. .......2007-06-29

I hate to give a tull album 4 out of 5 stars, but I did that in the consideration for those that may not be huge Tull fans, or may be very new to Tull.

This album displays wonderful work from every member of the band. Barre's guitar solo on the title track is wonderful, but I cannot help but notice the killer bass and drums that are backing it. Anderson's voice is better than ever, and his songwriting is right on the spot.

Songs such as "Cold Wind to Valhalla" really hits the right place. The forest-like jams that are contained on this album never get old to me. One of my favorite Tull albums, and I hope I will always have it in my collection.

The album is full of heart, and it's just fantastic.

Mixed Bag.......2007-06-09

Side 1 of this is fairly sad. The title track is okay - nothing great, but it manages a Zeppelin-like swagger. The following 2 songs sound like parody though, particularly "Black Satin Dancer" with its riff stolen from Santana floating around in it.

Side 2 though, less bombastic and more acoustic (with arrangements) is good stuff and "Baker Street Muse" reminds you that Anderson was a songwriter of real talent, he really did some great work and this is some of it.

Tull at their Best!.......2007-03-15

This is definitely one of the two or three tippity-top Tull albums. It's a bit more centered on an introspective snapshot of Ian's personal life and marital problems, rather than the usual grand philisophical themes, but the result is poignant and excellent.

One of Tull's best, one of rock's greatest!.......2007-02-07

This album has an excellent mix of great examples of the different sides of Tull - acoustic folk song ("One White Duck"), heavy metal ("Black Satin Dancer"), folk-lore ("Cold Wind To Valhalla"), and epic progressive (folk) rock ("Baker St. Muse" is kind of a return to "Thick As A Brick", but only 16 minutes this time!). The musicians are superb. John Evans's Beethoven-inspired playing here converted me from someone who didn't like piano in rock. Martin Barre has a unique style of playing - not really sounding like other hard rock or progressive rock guitarists, but adept at both. This whole album is unique and magnificent.

I'm just a Baker Street Mu.....I can't get out!!!.......2007-02-02

This Tull gets better and better with every listen and in some ways it may be their best. Baker Street Muse is like Thick as a Brick part 2.
The star of the show here is drummer Barrimore Barlow, especially in the title track.

Average customer rating:

Minstrel in the Gallery
Jethro Tull
Manufacturer: Chrysalis
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B000PFJ452

Average customer rating:

One of J-Tull's Finest
The best Tull album of all
"Valkyrie maidens cry"
Jethro Tull Rocks
Very Good

Minstrel in the Gallery
Jethro Tull
Manufacturer: Capitol
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Hard Rock | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) | Classic Rock | Styles | Music

General | Classic Rock | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Stand Up
Songs from the Wood
Benefit
Warchild
Too Old to Rock: Too Young To Die

ASIN: B000008H1W
Release Date: 2000-09-12

Tracks:

Minstrel In The Gallery
Cold Wind To Valhalla
Black Satin Dancer
Requiem
One White Duck/0 10 = Nothing At All
Baker St. Muse: Pig-Me And The Whore/Nice Little Tune/Crash-Barrier Waltzer/Mother England Reverie
Grace

Customer Reviews:

One of J-Tull's Finest.......2006-02-17

OK, this is the Minstrel in the Gallery release to go after. Do not, I repeat do NOT buy the re-release with the bonus tracks. None of them do a thing but hurt this great release.
Not only does this contain one of the group's best-written, best-known songs, Minstrel in the Gallery, but it's got much more. Be it Requiem (one of the finest acoustic songs in the band's catalogue), Cold Wind to Valhalla (a myth-influenced winner, at least in my book), or Baker St. Muse (One of their finest extended pieces), this album has some great music. Pick it up!

The best Tull album of all.......2004-04-01

Jethro Tull's music is so complex and indiosyncratic that 1) it is impossible to classify or even characterize; 2) it is rather an "acquired taste;" and 3) at its best, not only do you never get tired of it, but it gets better with every hearing. This disc is all of those things in spades. This is one of the 7 or so Tull albums I owned and played incessantly back in the mid-70s. Recently, when my turntable finaly reached the point that I couldn't patch it up any more, there were very few albums of that vintage that I bothered to replace with CDs, but this one was at the very top of the list. As much as I love Tull, on reflection I realize that many of the other albums were mixtures of some real gems and quite a few clunkers. This one is uniformly superb, and not just because it is a fairly coherent "concept album." In particular, the mixture and balance of the various contrapuntal sounds, including the string section as well as the famous quirky flute and the usual rock instruments, is outstanding, and this stage in the evolution of the lineup surrounding Anderson and Barre (Barlow, Hammond-Hammond, Evan) was the one with the best synergy. Anderson's vocals and nonsensical-yet-profound lyrics were never better, the quality of the flute playing is by far the best, and the flute is integrated into the overall flow of the songs as it rarely was elsewhere. While the title track and One White Duck probably got the most semi-popular play back when it was released, to me it might be Cold Wind to Valhalla and Black Satin Dancer that wear the best now. Baker Street Muse remains an amazing example (even better than the epic Thick as a Brick) of an extended, medley-type assemblage that somehow clearly hangs together. My only regret is that I am somewhat reluctant to introduce these gems to my nearly-teenage daughters because they might listen a bit too closely to the words! They also might well, like most people, have to have the patience to listen about 10 times before getting over the quirky rhythms and the not-always-hummable melodies and beginning to appreciate how great this stuff really is. In my middle age I recently had the same experience with the Shostakovich string quartet #8, so I know how it feels.

"Valkyrie maidens cry".......2002-08-13

This album is a "5", I don't even have to think about it. I agree with another review, that at first this sounded like something that didn't make much sense. But this is one of those albums that doesn't necessarily sound great right from the start. You have to give it time to "all come together", and when it does (on about my 5th listen) you know you are hearing something spectacular. After the medieval beginning to the song "Minstrel in the Gallery" comes drum rhythms and guitar stuff that is incredible. There are unique rhythms in portions of some of these songs that can take some time to get the hang of. After it all sinks in the whole thing comes together. "Cold Wind to Valhalla" is easy to follow right from the start and some of the others. "Black Satin Dancer" has a different sound that takes some getting used to but to sum it all up; This is Jethro Tull's best album. That's my opinion, but I have heard nearly all the others and as good as they are, nothing compares to this one.

Jethro Tull Rocks.......2002-07-28

After "Aqualung" and "War Child" were such huge successes, I was worried that Jethro Tull had, as Frank Zappa phrased it, gone commercial. "Minstrel in the Gallery" corrected that notion. "Minstrel in the Gallery" returns Tull to their original self-defined genre.

I always get a kick out of people trying to fit Jethro Tull into any particular type of music, because they are just plain not anything. While they have elements of hard rock/metal, elements of pop, elements of progressive, elements of folk, elements of rennaisance, and even a bit of classical here and there, they are all of the above and none of the above. They just are.

The opening track, "Minstrel in the Gallery", begins with hammering and noises that make it sound as though the group is on a stage that is being prepared for a play. The song then transitions into a bard-like minstrel song, and then takes off into a hard rock song. An excellent opening song that sets you up for the things to come.

"Cold Wind to Valhalla" won't fool you. There are some violins and flavor of folk/rennaisance, but at around 1 minute and 45 seconds into the song it switches into overdrive and you realize you are listening to a solidly rock song. Excellent use of violins in this song to help the orchestration. Hard to believe that violins can be a hard-rock instrument.

You hear classic Jethro Tull in the beginning of "Black Satin Dancer", then some hard rock riffs, and you suspect what will come next in this song. And you would be right and wrong. This song is a sensual song with allusions of sexual foreplay and intense longing, perhaps even lust. Sometimes I felt some occasional elements of King Crimson, and then not. The hard rock elements intertwine with classic Tull and some occasional progressive flashes. A most excellent song.

Then you are lulled by the melancholy strains of "Requiem", as Ian Anderson and company sound more like Kansas or Simon and Garfunkel, and yet, the sound is still Tull. This song is meant to be listened to for the feel, and not for the words.

Then, as you move into "One White Duck/0^10 = Nothing at All" you realize that "Requiem" was a perfect transition between "Black Satin Dancer" and this song. I love this song, because it seems to have meaning, and seems to have no meaning, and you hover on the edge of understanding without understanding, though you think you should, and could, if you could listen a little longer and read the lyrics just one more time. But this song is, of course, classic Tull, and the lyrics do mean something, but they are art, and art is for the interpretation of the listener. Don't make too much of this song, and don't make too little. Just listen and love it.

Then, off to signature Tull, the extended, intertwined story-song, "Baker St. Muse". Here you have an intro about a muse, a very down-to-earth fellow crying out that Jethro Tull wasn't the commercial group that "War Child" seemed to make them out to be. We are in the gutter like we always were, singing about the things that haven't changed, and so on to the next part of our story...

The other songs are stories of the street, likely stories of the Baker St. Muse (aka Jethro Tull). These songs are very sexual. Today they might even get a warning label, even though there is no use of the crude words which seem so popular. There is no need, the point is well made without resorting to a limited, non-descriptive vocabulary. This group of songs finish with "Mother England Reverie", which is a protestation that the singer is just a street player, a muse, and he'll never be anything but.

The CD finishes with a wrap-up song, "Grace", which is a marvelous little epilogue that not only finishes the CD, but also asks a simple, but layered question, "Hello breakfast. May I buy you again tomorrow?" In the context of the CD the question more likely means, can we be here tomorrow, can we still do what we are doing? And perhaps, in consideration of the other songs, will anyone care.

Sometimes I think of the songs, coming after the nearly-pop success of "Warchild", as being an apology for straying from the princples of Jethro Tull's music and style. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps not. Regardless, listening to the seven albums before Warchild, and then "Warchild", and then "Minstrel in the Gallery", you realize that "Warchild" was not Tull's usual music, and "Minstrel in the Gallery" put them squarely back where they once were.

Jethro Tull has never been everyman's group. Never will. They occupy a unique place in modern music that will likely never be defined. This CD is solidly at the heart of the kind of music Jethro Tull is known for making. It is among the best of Jethro Tull.

Very Good.......2002-07-25

This is and excellent example of classic Jethro Tull. It has some fast, powerful songs, as well as some smooth, soft ones. The best comparison I can make to another album is "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" by the Moody Blues. By this I mean(as any Moody Blues fan will probably agree) that you have to listen to this album more then once to appricate all the songs. Some of the songs, like the title track, will probably appeal to you at once. Others, like Requiem, really need to grow on you.

Tracks:

Minstrel In The Gallery
Cold Wind To Valhalla
Black Satin Dancer
Requiem
One White Duck Nothing At All
Baker St Muse
Grace
Summerday Sands
March The Mad Scientist
Pan Dance
Minstrel In The Gallery
Cold Wind To Valhalla

Album Description

Japanese remastered reissue of 1975 album, that's unavailable domestically, packaged in a limited edition miniature LP sleeve features 12 tracks including 5 bonus tracks, 'Summerday Sands', 'March The Mad Scientist', 'Pan Dance', 'Minstrell In The Gallery

Album Details

Digitallty Remastered Japanese Limited Edition in an LP-STYLE Slipcase.

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