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Versione 1
Rating: First of all, let me say that I don’t like the business of anthology albums, because, as far as I’m concerned, two are enough, and that anthologies shouldn’t be eliminated nor erased, because they still allow you to get a more or less complete overview of an artist’s or a band’s discography. If you are dealing with already well-known groups, you can do without them, but when it comes to much more particular and niche bands, such as Kansas, Renaissance, or even Magma, buying anthologies becomes basically mandatory.
That said, I’m about to review what, for me, is the ultimate Jethro Tull anthology album, namely 50 For 50. Released in 2018 to celebrate the band's fiftieth anniversary, it’s quite a substantial set: in fact, it’s a triple anthology album.
Also in this case, the discussion I made regarding double albums is valid. Indeed, such complete records represent the culmination of the band’s career, because they allow listeners to enjoy the great energy that the band manages to unleash. It’s true, we’re not dealing with the great suites typical of Yes, epitomized in albums like Drama and in what I consider to be their ultimate masterpiece, Tales From Topographic Oceans, but we are dealing with songs from a band that has been able to sublimate prog by contaminating it with folk and jazz, even though Tull made more experiments to broaden their sound in order to reach the levels of Yes’s symphonic prog rock. The result of these experiments, for example, are songs that unfortunately ended up only as bonus tracks: one example is A Small Cigar.
The tracklist of this compilation, personally selected by Ian Anderson, includes all the massive super classics by Jethro Tull, except perhaps Love Story, which is a little-known song from the very early Tull period. As Ian Anderson explains in the booklet that comes with the album, his task is to choose the songs that have left a mark on the collective memory, and above all, in that of the fans.
Tracklist
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