Having blatherd on about how “Thick as a Brick” is just a parody of a prog album, Ian Anderson has now decided that “A Passion Play” is crap as well (The latest Word In Your Ear podcast).
Pleased as I am to hear interviews with some of my faves, I’d really rather they just shut the f…k up when it comes to dissing their own work. These are two of my favourite albums… ever.
I know what you mean. I suppose everyone is allowed to re evaluate their work but it’s disappointing when an album is a favourite. Some stuff comes to be appreciated over time and viewed as a lost gem while others don’t wear that well. FWIW, I thought that Anderson came across quite well overall on the podcast.
The late James Blast started a thread on the Steven Wilson remix and it seems the album, despite a difficult birth, is liked by fans of Tull.
No issue overall – IA certainly gives a good interview. It’s just this one thing and I’m sure others do it as well.
Haven’t heard the podcast yet – but it is a bit of a letdown when artists do that, although opinions do change over the years and I suppose what seemed good at the time doesn’t always sound such a great idea forty years later – see also Roger Waters on his lyrics for DSOTM.
Better get on with my Heavy Horses review before he changes his mind on that one too 😉
See also Ali Campbell on that Promises & Lies documentary claiming that Signing Off was a bit crap cos they didn’t know what they were doing. (If that’s the case, it’s a shame they learnt imho.)
Ian Anderson has a bit of form on this; snide about his (to me) best albums (LITP/PP/TAAB), and adopting current style for … what exactly? Profit?
Hence “Under Wraps” is the early 80s electro album, And “she said she was a dancer” the Dire Straits one. I’m surprised he didn’t go disco … UNLESS YOU KNOW DIFFERENT.
I have still not recovered from his karaoke concert with the “Bohemian Rhapsody” cover about 10 years ago.
If he thinks it is crap, can anybody who has bought the album get a refund (adjusted for inflation) for purchasing sub-standard product?
I used an inflation calculator and I suspect I paid something like £2:20 for TAAB, which works out at about £28 in today’s money.
Andy McCluskey out of OMD was on Pebble Mill performing Sailing on the Seven Seas, which was a suprise chart hit during a fairly lean period. Afterwards he reflected on his 15 years of showbiz stardom like he was George Burns* looking back at a long career.
Asked about the lyrics of the song, he said that he had the tune and jammed in any old rubbish for lyrics, made up in moments. Doesn’t have to make sense – as long as it scans. This was a bit of a blow. Up to that point, I thought the lyrical side was one of their strengths – enigmatic, mysterious and no- doubt deeply significant. Not the case.
*Pete’s dad.
If you really don’t mind, I’ll sit this one out.
I interviewed Anderson a few years ago and asked him whether his negative feelings towards a Passion Play were coloured by the critical hammering it got, which signalled a change in Tull’s fortunes in terms of chart success (from consistent Top 10 albums to Top 20 placings).
While he acknowledged that the reviews hurt at the time (if you read old MM/NME stories from then, Anderson speaks of it being the best work the group has done), he genuinely thinks it’s not a great piece of work.
It doesn’t overly bother me that he’s not too keen on an album which I find flawed, but with some stunning moments – his view has no influence on mine.
The Genesis mainstays, Banks and Rutherford, are unnecessarily dismissive of a lot of their early stuff (except for Supper’s Ready, which seems to have an unhealthy amount of reverence attached to it). Rutherford seems to find it hard to say anything good about Selling England By The Pound (considered to be their best Gabriel-era album). By contrast, Steve Hackett talks lovingly about the individual compositions and gives a real sense of how they were working well together as a band at that point. I know who I’d rather listen to.
I don’t give a flying pigs ear if the artist/band decide a former work of art is not very good. I rarely read what they have to say as it is much preferring the views of fellow fans. However if I like a certain album I’m not going to unlike it just because someone says it’s shite, even if it’s the creator of the album.
Dr Winston O’Boogie notoriously trashed much of the HJH’s output in his bilious post breakup interviews. “Rubbish”… “Garbage”… “That was Paul’s, glad I wasn’t on it” etc etc
T.S. Eliot famously dissed The Waste Land as “just a piece of rhythmical grumbling”
Surely a wee bit harsh, there, Tom?
I thought my last thread was rubbish.
The difference is everyone else thought so too.
Aye, fair point.