Artist: Jethro Tull
Title Of Album: 20 Years Of Jethro Tull - 3 cd - Limited Edition Box - The Definitive Collection
Label: Chrysalis
Years: 1988  
Genre: Progressive Rock - Folk
Source: CD

CD 1
Playing Time: 77:42
Total Size: 438,50 MB

CD 2
Playing Time: 76:40
Total Size: 470,59 MB

CD 3
Playing Time: 78:24
Total Size: 487,01 MB

Quality: FLAC+Cue+Log+Info+M3u8+Cover[Front Back CD]
Bitrate: Lossless

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                      Tracklisting
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CD 1. The Radio Archives and Rare Tracks

1. A Song for Jeffrey – 2:47
2. Love Story – 2:43
3. Fat Man – 2:55
4. Bourée – 4:04
5. Stormy Monday Blues – 4:05
6. A New Day Yesterday – 4:19
7. Cold Wind to Valhalla – 1:32
8. Minstrel In The Gallery – 2:08
9. Velvet Green – 5:52
10. Grace – 0:33
11. Jack Frost and The Hooded Crow – 3:20
12. I'm Your Gun – 3:18
13. Down At The End Of Your Road – 3:30
14. Coronach – 3:52
15. Summerday Sands – 3:45
16. Too Many Too – 3:27
17. March The Mad Scientist – 1:47
18. Pan Dance – 3:24
19. Strip Cartoon – 3:16
20. King Henry's Madrigal – 2:58
21. A Stitch In Time – 3:38
22. 17 – 3:07
23. One For John Gee – 2:04
24. Aeroplane – 2:16
25. Sunshine Day – 2:26

CD 2. Flawed Gems and the Other Side of Tull

1. Lick Your Fingers Clean – 2:47
2. The Chateau D' Isaster Tapes:
A. Scenario – 3:26
B. Audition – 2:34
C. Rehearsal – 5:12
3. Beltane – 5:17
4. Crossword – 3:34
5. Saturation – 4:23
6. Jack-A-Lynn – 4:41
7. Motoreyes – 3:39
8. Blues Instrumental (Untitled) – 5:15
9. Rhythm In Gold – 3:04
10. Part Of The Machine – 6:45
11. Mayhem, Maybe – 3:04
12. Overhang – 4:27
13. Kelpie – 3:32
14. Living In These Hard Times – 3:09
15. Under Wraps 2 – 2:14
16. Only Solitaire – 1:28
17. Salamander – 2:49
18. Moths – 3:24
19. Nursie – 1:32

CD 3. The Essential Tull

1. Witch's Promise – 3:50
2. Bungle In The Jungle – 3:33
3. Farm on the Freeway – 6:33
4. Thick As A Brick (extract) – 6:32
5. Sweet Dream – 4:32
6. The Clasp – 3:30
7. Pibroch (Pee Break) / Black Satin Dancer – 4:00
8. Fallen on Hard Times – 3:59
9. Cheap Day Return – 1:22
10. Wond'ring Aloud – 1:58
11. Dun Ringill – 3:00
12. Life's a Long Song – 3:17
13. One White Duck / 010 = Nothing at All – 4:37
14. Songs from the Wood – 4:29
15. Living in the Past – 4:07
16. Teacher – 4:43
17. Aqualung – 7:43
18. Locomotive Breath – 6:00

This boxed set is a project worthy of the Franklin Mint. It spreads three CDs, which are packaged in a nice purple box.

Although subtitled The Definitive Collection , the album is filled with four hours of largely unreleased flotsam and jetsam that plays to the sensibilities of the collector, not the casual listener. Noted iconoclast Ian Anderson — Jethro Tull's flute-playing main man and madman — left no stone unturned and avoided obvious choices. He's collected twenty-three live cuts, nineteen studio outtakes and twenty-three previously issued recordings, fifteen of them rare B sides and whatnot. Of the meager eight tracks that appear as they did on Jethro Tull albums, Anderson's choices verge on the eccentric: "Cheap Day Return," from Aqualung , and "Only Solitaire," from Warchild , for example.

The encyclopedic set is subdivided into "The Radio Archives," "Rare Tracks (Released but Only Just)," "Flawed Gems (Dusted Down)," "The Other Sides of Tull" and "The Essential Tull." The radio material — especially the BBC shows from 1968 and '69 — is the most interesting. You can hear the nascent band catapulting into the unknown as it hybridizes blues, jazz and progressive rock in fresh ways.

For their own part, the rare tracks are not shoddy outtakes but rather songs that didn't fit into a given project. Because Tull has often been conceptually heavy-handed, these leftovers sometimes prove more listenable than the leaden albums they failed to make.

The "flawed gems" and "other sides" are the real litmus test of devotion to this band. You can hear the hinges creak on some of these riff-sodden songs; others are promising experiments. Of the latter, a three-song suite from a scrapped 1972 album, here dubbed "The Chateau D'Isaster Tapes," is more dynamic than its title might gest.

Obviously, "The Essential Tull" is something of a misnomer, since only one Tull standard, "Bungle in the Jungle," appears as it did in its original release. Still, the live versions of such Tull classics as "Aqualung" and "Locomotive Breath" — numbers for which nearly every arena goer in America has flicked his or her Bic at one time or another — are performed in sprightly, spruced-up versions that belie their age.

By weight and volume, 20 Years of Jethro Tull is cumbersome. Yet in reconstructing the history of his band, Ian Anderson has emphasized its lilting, acoustic-textured aspects and removed ballast from heavier Tull favorites in the more limber live arrangements he chose. With its obsessive emphasis on unissued material, this boxed set is perhaps best described as a deluxe souvenir for serious fans only. Yet there are doubtlessly some recent Tull converts who will dive into this deep mother lode headfirst — and not come up disappointed.