CoronaVinyl Day 269 (J): Thick As a Brick by Jethro Tull

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "J," and the only "J" albums I have left are all by artists I've already featured, but they're all good ones, so you should feel some modicum of relief.  Today's selection is Jethro Tull's fifth studio album, 1972's Thick As a Brick.

With Thick As a Brick, Jethro Tull decided to do something that seems like it only could have been done in the '70s.  They made a parody of a concept album, apparently about a fictional eight-year-old boy named Gerald Bostock, who is featured in the large phot on the album cover.  As you can see, the album packaging is pretty fantastic.  It folds down to open up like a 12'x16' newspaper, with 12 pages of fake newspaper copy.  For some reason, the third phot above is upside down, but I dare not fix it.

The album is only one song on each side, "Thick As a Brick, Part I," and "Thick As a Brick, Part II," so I'm not going to pick a favorite song on each album.  A trimmed down version of the first side has been a popular FM/AOR/classic rock song, but didn't chart on any of the major countries' charts.

Even without a hit single, the album was a huge success across the world, reaching #1 on the Billboard album chart and on the album charts in Australia, Canada, and Denmark, as well as the Top 5 on the album charts in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, and The UK.  It would be the first of two #1 albums in a row on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the second of five consecutive Top 10 studio albums for the band in the U.S.

The Spotify version of the album has two bonus tracks, a live version of Part I and an interview with the band.