Budapest became a staple song on tours after this album was released, and was magical to see them do it live. As with a lot of Tull songs the dynamic duetting between Martins crunchy guitar breaks and Ian's flute always sends shivers down my spine. Tull music is special, and attending a Tull concert was a truly magical experience.
I'm glad you went with the Part of The Machine bonus track version. Great closer, indeed. Glad you liked COAK so much. As I mentioned in Part I comments, this is Top 10 Tull, for me.
That's not true. Why else is the song on the remastering from 2005 ?! 🤦🏿♀️ Well, 1987 was still a time when releasing an album meant releasing an LP. The maximum capacity of this recording was approximately 2 times 22.5 minutes. Ian chose this path for both spatial and dramaturgical reasons. There was a 3-track 12" maxi single with Steel Monkey on the A-side and Waking Edge and Dogs in the Midwinter on the B-side (cough. I still own a copy of both the LP and the maxi single). Then Ian decided to include “Part of the Machine” as “icing on the cake” on the 1988 compilation “20 Years of Jethro Tull”. Even 37 years later, I would still like to ask Ian why he treated one of his 20 best songs the way he did. (Although I could name a new top 20 every day for a week...)
As much as I loved this album adding Part of the Machine just made it even better. I had heard this song before on an anniversary two album set. Was glad they added it here. One of my favorites.
Martin’s acoustic guitar work on Budapest was just brilliant. Saw them live when the did the Crest tour. Actually, a lot of the songs on the album showed off his acoustic work
Budapest was a stand out for me because of the acoustic and the atmosphere. And Ian's vocals. 🙏 Martin is a demon on this on whole record! All over the place. Love it.
Yeah, I've been in love with this group since I first saw them at Balboa Stadium in San Diego in 1975-1976. They were in a class by themselves then and now so many years later and while in his mid seventies, still progresses. 69 y/o TullFan
I was at that same show at Balboa Stadium! As I remember that was when they had the big video screen called Tullavision! An there was a high wire act by the Great Walenda...probably spelled his name wrong.
Ric Sanders was a bandmate of Dave Pegg in Fairport Convention - Pegg was in Tull and Fairport at the same time - other Fairport members Dave Mattacks and Martin Allcock were also in Tull for short periods.
I think you'd really like "Farm on the Freeway", although the radio burned a lot of us out to it. You'd hear it with fresh ears. Lyrically amazing. The one you've got to hear is "Jump Start". On the album I bought it was on side 2. "Hey Jack-the-Ripper won't you come on over, hook me up to the powerlines of your love!"
Side one is the side that had the tracks that got radio airtime, specifically STEEL MONKEY and FARM ON A FREEWAY. But "Budapest" gets lots of play time in concerts. I actually prefer their BROADSWORD AND THE BEAST album over this one. Booth are good but maybe that one is a bit better. Just my opinion.
You're right Machine was one of the best tunes on the album, cutting it was insane. Tull always creates a amazing ambience and atmosphere with the music.
Tull is hands down my favorite band of all time. Seen them live over a dozen times. Ironically Metallica is my second favorite group. This album is borderline perfection. But it's not fair to classify it as hard rock/metal. I'm glad they got the Grammy recognition. But it should have gone to Metallica. Now... the real injustice.... they're not in the R&R Hall of fame. 🤬They should have been inducted 10x over!
Anderson's voice was declared dead a few years before this. Thousands of angry fans scream he should retire or get another singer and there you go enjoying his dead voice. Dude, the dude doth abide. including an awsome album in 2023 and probably one this year in his mid seventies. If he'd quit when even his fans were screamin at him, we wouldnt have the last 6 or 7 wonderful albums both solo and band
Whoever said his voice was dead was dead brained. He hasn't sounded better to me. I mean, he sounded great on the 60s and the 70s records too but this was fantastic imo
The next album Catfish Rising was pretty decent too. Saw them on the all the tours from Broadsword onwards and the Catfish Rising Tour was pretty stand out. The tour program was pseudo menu, and on stage there was a raised table where he was being served food as part of the act. Took my younger sister to that one, she wondered what the heck was going on but enjoyed the whole performance. Lets face it Ian is an absolute entertainer. The deluxe reissues with the bonus tracks, and live discs plus tons of printed materials are an absolute must because there are no bad Tull songs. In fact some of the bonus songs like Part of the Machine here are absolute bangers! Loving your Tull journey, they are truly unique.
Haven't heard this all the way through in many a moon. Martin Barre was allowed to shine on this album & he wears his 80's Mark Knopfler/Billy Gibbons influences proudly on his sleeve here for sure!
yah, Richie is a big fan, read an interview from the 70s recently where he just gushed about Tull's musicality. Imagine that combination, great musical potential but too many cooks in the kitchen, ultimately.
When I originally got Crest of the Knave it was the vinyl and didn't have The Waking Edge or Mountain Men - a great loss. Since getting the CD, Mountain Men is possibly my favourite song on the album.
@@L33Reacts . He doesn’t think the band is heavy metal. It’s folk progressive. They arrived with Kings Crimson, Yes and Genesis. Others have Suggested…Songs from the Wood.
Part of the Machine wasn't cut. It couldn't have been the closer for this album because it didn't exist yet. It was written a year later for the 20 Years of Tull collection. I don't know why they later added Part of the Machine to a rerelease of Crest of a Knave instead of a rerelease of 1989's Rock Island, particularly given that multi-instrumentalist Martin Allcock made his first appearance on this song before being featured on Rock Island.
This was the first album they recorded following Ian blowing out his voice during the Under Wraps tour. Unfortunately, his voice has continued to deteriorate ever since, and he has had to continually adjust his songwriting to accomodate his ever-decreasing range. Notice that the instrumentation quiets or pauses when he sings on most of his later material. It's actually painful to hear him try to sing the old stuff in concert.
I'm sure Ian knows his vocal limits and writes to fit them. RokFlute from last year shows how he can adapt. But, of course the fans are going to want to hear the old stuff, and Ian will accommodate. No one can expect a man of 75 to sound like he did at 25. He did have a new singer for a while. Too bad that didnt last. But they're HIS songs.
I never got hooked on this album, some of its tracks sounding to me like a Dire Straits' copy ("She Said She Was a Dancer", "Budapest" and "The Waking Edge") or 80s ZZ Top ("Steel Monkey" and "Raising Steam"), not to mention the fact that Ian Anderson's voice wasn't what it was three years earlier! I still prefer the electro rock of Walk into Light (Anderson's solo album from 1983) and 1984's Under Wraps (on which Ian's voice was still intact). Crest of a Knave isn't for me (and neither are their subsequent albums). Anyway, there's all their previous albums to make up for it.😉
This album is very interesting in that it has a really wide range of rankings and scores by critics and fans, for a variety of reasons, and it also is viewed differently over time. Very much a love it or hate it album. You can tell Ian was not super confident in how the album would be received by how much he took on rather than bring in a keyboardist or have Doane and Gerry drumming more across the whole album. So, for some, strike one with the drum programming and fairly perfunctory keyboards. And then the turn toward a bit of a western flavor to some of the guitar and vocals, just a different direction. Despite doing more himself, he allowed Martin more input overall, so the guitar feel and slight Dire Straits flavor is maybe a bit on Martin, combined with the fact Dire Straits were relatively hot at the time so it's not too surprising. And on the Grammy thing, no this album is not a metal album on par with the metal releases of the day. But they had always been a pretty heavy band - whether musically, lyrically or thematically - so it was not beyond the realm of reason that you would include this album in a 'hard rock/heavy metal' category. Metallica were young pups when this happened, it's not like the Grammys has ever liked hard rock or metal, few voters gave a crap about how innovative Metallica was at that time, I'd seen them 4 times by 1990 so I was a huge fan and actually shocked and disturbed they lost since they were performing, but I quickly came around to thinking Tull was more than deserving to win the award. And then they did the right thing the next year, split the grammy into two categories, Metallica has won many awards, it all worked out in the end. (Metallica was explosive when they started out, then Cliff died and they went in the toilet IMO, sort of tragic. But then, when your nickname is Alcoholica you're probably headed for choppy waters.) So, thanks as always for the reaction, Lee. It does suck that albums up into the mid 80s tended to be 43-54 min and had been for years, part of why cassette tapes were 90 min, so you could put one album perfectly on each side, etc. 'Part of the Machine' as many have noted came out on the 20 Years of Jethro Tull compilation set the next year, and then was added to the remastered CD when they cared less about album length. One of my fave songs on the album is 'Mountain Men', it is a really nuanced commentary on the role of Scottish regiments in the British military over time. A total Ian topic. And it segues so well into a very personal song 'Waking Edge'. Then 'Raising Steam' to me is a great album ender if you only have 45 min. to work. So, all the things that are great about Tull. Stompy and rocking at times, Martin ripping off solos, then sophisticated, nuanced themes and lyrics from Ian, nice moody playing, introspective themes ... this album does a lot.
Sadly, I feel like this was the last truly great Tull album. Rock Island, Catfish Rising, and the rest that followed all felt forced and uninspired to me. It's like they poured it all into this one and had nothing left. I absolutely love Jethro Tull, so it hurts me to say anything negative. That said, they put on many great concerts supporting all of those albums, and those were just as fantastic as you'd think. I think they were supporting the Nightcap collection when they had a full bar set-up on stage. I liked that one a lot.
I didn't love the Rock Island album, aside from the title track, Another Christmas Song and bits here and there. I thought Catfish Rising was at least an interesting attempt at something different, with some successful parts here and there. Roots to Branches was a strong effort overall, in my opinion.
Budapest .. Ian can write this wonderful song about really nothing ... the guys in the band admire a young lady whose helping backstage, and then theyre somewhat dissappointed that they didnt run into her again.
I don't know that they cut "Part of the Machine" from the English and European release. Somebody else might know better. I never heard it until it came out on some bootleg discs and I wilted. It's so scathing, of all of us. We all know why they cut it. The 1% doesn't like mirrors.
I've always considered CoaK to be one of the weaker albums, preferring even stuff like Dot Com or Under Wraps over most of it. To me a lot of it feels too self indulgent, like a dirty old man justifying his proclivities even though nobody asked. I will admit the arrangements through out were some of the tightest ever and Anderson's growing mastery of the flute reapply shines - but even there it feels self-indulgent. It could be that my initial impressions were formed when I was in a bad mood and that has tainted my feelings ever since. And music industry politics won them the Grammy :P. I figure someone said "oh, we've never given this long-lived and extremely influential prog band anything, let's do it this year". Nobody saw it coming, they weren't even there because they knew they weren't going to win, so why bother.
I like Metallica too, but musicianship, composition, lyrics... no contest. Also, if it wasn't for Jethro Tull and other pioneers, Metallica would not have been! This is not a knock on Metallica, but I think they disrespected Jethro Tull@@L33Reacts
I love this album and no one ever mentions it. Kudos for doing the entire thing!
The whole album won the Grammy.
I love how much you love Tull!
I envy you being in the discovery phase, but happy to come along for the ride once again
Budapest became a staple song on tours after this album was released, and was magical to see them do it live. As with a lot of Tull songs the dynamic duetting between Martins crunchy guitar breaks and Ian's flute always sends shivers down my spine. Tull music is special, and attending a Tull concert was a truly magical experience.
I'm glad you went with the Part of The Machine bonus track version. Great closer, indeed.
Glad you liked COAK so much. As I mentioned in Part I comments, this is Top 10 Tull, for me.
Part of the Machine was not cut from the album. It was written latter to be featured on the 20th anniversary tour and it is magnificent!
I don't think that's true, my friend. 😀 either way it's An amazing song
Yes, it was recorded later.
That's not true. Why else is the song on the remastering from 2005 ?! 🤦🏿♀️
Well, 1987 was still a time when releasing an album meant releasing an LP. The maximum capacity of this recording was approximately 2 times 22.5 minutes. Ian chose this path for both spatial and dramaturgical reasons. There was a 3-track 12" maxi single with Steel Monkey on the A-side and Waking Edge and Dogs in the Midwinter on the B-side (cough. I still own a copy of both the LP and the maxi single). Then Ian decided to include “Part of the Machine” as “icing on the cake” on the 1988 compilation “20 Years of Jethro Tull”.
Even 37 years later, I would still like to ask Ian why he treated one of his 20 best songs the way he did. (Although I could name a new top 20 every day for a week...)
Great reaction. Love your channel. Cheers my friend.
"Part of the Machine" wasn't cut, it was a bonus track recorded a year later and appeared on the excellent 1988 box set "20 Years of Jethro Tull".
As much as I loved this album adding Part of the Machine just made it even better. I had heard this song before on an anniversary two album set. Was glad they added it here. One of my favorites.
Big come back. Love mountain men.
Martin’s acoustic guitar work on Budapest was just brilliant. Saw them live when the did the Crest tour. Actually, a lot of the songs on the album showed off his acoustic work
Budapest was a stand out for me because of the acoustic and the atmosphere. And Ian's vocals. 🙏 Martin is a demon on this on whole record! All over the place. Love it.
I love this album. It was present during some very pivotal moments in my life
He is an observer of his environment and it results in his stories of his reactions to such observations. Such a songwriter
Yeah, I've been in love with this group since I first saw them at Balboa Stadium in San Diego in 1975-1976. They were in a class by themselves then and now so many years later and while in his mid seventies, still progresses.
69 y/o TullFan
I was at that same show at Balboa Stadium! As I remember that was when they had the big video screen called Tullavision!
An there was a high wire act by the Great Walenda...probably spelled his name wrong.
This was a highlight od the show when I saw them in 2000.
People ask me why I love Tull…..I’m glad to see you see and hear what I do.
Ric Sanders was a bandmate of Dave Pegg in Fairport Convention - Pegg was in Tull and Fairport at the same time - other Fairport members Dave Mattacks and Martin Allcock were also in Tull for short periods.
steel monkey won the grammy, its very heavy, amazing song
I think you'd really like "Farm on the Freeway", although the radio burned a lot of us out to it. You'd hear it with fresh ears. Lyrically amazing.
The one you've got to hear is "Jump Start". On the album I bought it was on side 2.
"Hey Jack-the-Ripper won't you come on over, hook me up to the powerlines of your love!"
He did side one but he had to move it to Patreon, as it was blocked on YT. It's a free view.
At any rate, he loved side one.
@@nyrocks5580, thanks. I'll check that out.
Side one is the side that had the tracks that got radio airtime, specifically STEEL MONKEY and FARM ON A FREEWAY. But "Budapest" gets lots of play time in concerts.
I actually prefer their BROADSWORD AND THE BEAST album over this one. Booth are good but maybe that one is a bit better. Just my opinion.
You are blessed with such a beautiful daughter
You're right Machine was one of the best tunes on the album, cutting it was insane.
Tull always creates a amazing ambience and atmosphere with the music.
It wasn't cut. It was recorded in '88
@samuelecallegari6117 thanks for the clarification, I just remembered the crap capital did with the Beatles.
It's a bonus track from 1988, not cut.
Part of the machine is a great track-lyrics as always are just so good
Tull is hands down my favorite band of all time. Seen them live over a dozen times. Ironically Metallica is my second favorite group. This album is borderline perfection. But it's not fair to classify it as hard rock/metal. I'm glad they got the Grammy recognition. But it should have gone to Metallica. Now... the real injustice.... they're not in the R&R Hall of fame. 🤬They should have been inducted 10x over!
Aside from Broadsword this was the best 80’’s Tull album and the live performance was amazing
Anderson's voice was declared dead a few years before this. Thousands of angry fans scream he should retire or get another singer and there you go enjoying his dead voice. Dude, the dude doth abide. including an awsome album in 2023 and probably one this year in his mid seventies. If he'd quit when even his fans were screamin at him, we wouldnt have the last 6 or 7 wonderful albums both solo and band
Whoever said his voice was dead was dead brained. He hasn't sounded better to me. I mean, he sounded great on the 60s and the 70s records too but this was fantastic imo
I love your thoughtful analysis and it doesn't hurt that your opinions align with mine Lol
You have to listen albums "Aqualung" and "Songs From The Wood", they are both amazing!
I've done a handful of tracks from both but haven't tackled the full albums yet. Maybe after "Warchild" we will tackle SFTW
The next album Catfish Rising was pretty decent too. Saw them on the all the tours from Broadsword onwards and the Catfish Rising Tour was pretty stand out. The tour program was pseudo menu, and on stage there was a raised table where he was being served food as part of the act. Took my younger sister to that one, she wondered what the heck was going on but enjoyed the whole performance. Lets face it Ian is an absolute entertainer. The deluxe reissues with the bonus tracks, and live discs plus tons of printed materials are an absolute must because there are no bad Tull songs. In fact some of the bonus songs like Part of the Machine here are absolute bangers! Loving your Tull journey, they are truly unique.
Haven't heard this all the way through in many a moon. Martin Barre was allowed to shine on this album & he wears his 80's Mark Knopfler/Billy Gibbons influences proudly on his sleeve here for sure!
Who would have thought that the guitarist of Deep Purple secretly wanted to be in Jethro Tull the last 25 year's...
yah, Richie is a big fan, read an interview from the 70s recently where he just gushed about Tull's musicality. Imagine that combination, great musical potential but too many cooks in the kitchen, ultimately.
I saw this tour in Cleveland at the Public Hall.Once again,a great show.I saw them 28 times since '71.
Please do the whole “A” album! It will set you on fire, I promise.
When I originally got Crest of the Knave it was the vinyl and didn't have The Waking Edge or Mountain Men - a great loss. Since getting the CD, Mountain Men is possibly my favourite song on the album.
If you like Jethro Tull, and you’re a drummer or drummer fan, you’ve gotta check out Conundrum (live) from his Bursting Out album, 1978! ✌️
Ian Anderson thought it bizarre it won the first ever Emmy for a heavy metal album..
I don't think it's bizarre at all! This definitely deserved to win.
@@L33Reacts . He doesn’t think the band is heavy metal. It’s folk progressive. They arrived with Kings Crimson, Yes and Genesis.
Others have Suggested…Songs from the Wood.
They would have to be a very different group to win an Emmy! It was a Grammy!!!
Part of the Machine wasn't cut. It couldn't have been the closer for this album because it didn't exist yet. It was written a year later for the 20 Years of Tull collection. I don't know why they later added Part of the Machine to a rerelease of Crest of a Knave instead of a rerelease of 1989's Rock Island, particularly given that multi-instrumentalist Martin Allcock made his first appearance on this song before being featured on Rock Island.
It literally sounds exactly like the album. That's weird. Not what I read, but I'll take your word for it
that's a great album i think.
O N
Y O U R
K N E E S
. . .
🤗
This was the first album they recorded following Ian blowing out his voice during the Under Wraps tour. Unfortunately, his voice has continued to deteriorate ever since, and he has had to continually adjust his songwriting to accomodate his ever-decreasing range. Notice that the instrumentation quiets or pauses when he sings on most of his later material. It's actually painful to hear him try to sing the old stuff in concert.
I'm sure Ian knows his vocal limits and writes to fit them. RokFlute from last year shows how he can adapt. But, of course the fans are going to want to hear the old stuff, and Ian will accommodate. No one can expect a man of 75 to sound like he did at 25. He did have a new singer for a while. Too bad that didnt last. But they're HIS songs.
I never got hooked on this album, some of its tracks sounding to me like a Dire Straits' copy ("She Said She Was a Dancer", "Budapest" and "The Waking Edge") or 80s ZZ Top ("Steel Monkey" and "Raising Steam"), not to mention the fact that Ian Anderson's voice wasn't what it was three years earlier!
I still prefer the electro rock of Walk into Light (Anderson's solo album from 1983) and 1984's Under Wraps (on which Ian's voice was still intact).
Crest of a Knave isn't for me (and neither are their subsequent albums). Anyway, there's all their previous albums to make up for it.😉
This album is very interesting in that it has a really wide range of rankings and scores by critics and fans, for a variety of reasons, and it also is viewed differently over time. Very much a love it or hate it album. You can tell Ian was not super confident in how the album would be received by how much he took on rather than bring in a keyboardist or have Doane and Gerry drumming more across the whole album. So, for some, strike one with the drum programming and fairly perfunctory keyboards. And then the turn toward a bit of a western flavor to some of the guitar and vocals, just a different direction. Despite doing more himself, he allowed Martin more input overall, so the guitar feel and slight Dire Straits flavor is maybe a bit on Martin, combined with the fact Dire Straits were relatively hot at the time so it's not too surprising. And on the Grammy thing, no this album is not a metal album on par with the metal releases of the day. But they had always been a pretty heavy band - whether musically, lyrically or thematically - so it was not beyond the realm of reason that you would include this album in a 'hard rock/heavy metal' category. Metallica were young pups when this happened, it's not like the Grammys has ever liked hard rock or metal, few voters gave a crap about how innovative Metallica was at that time, I'd seen them 4 times by 1990 so I was a huge fan and actually shocked and disturbed they lost since they were performing, but I quickly came around to thinking Tull was more than deserving to win the award. And then they did the right thing the next year, split the grammy into two categories, Metallica has won many awards, it all worked out in the end. (Metallica was explosive when they started out, then Cliff died and they went in the toilet IMO, sort of tragic. But then, when your nickname is Alcoholica you're probably headed for choppy waters.)
So, thanks as always for the reaction, Lee. It does suck that albums up into the mid 80s tended to be 43-54 min and had been for years, part of why cassette tapes were 90 min, so you could put one album perfectly on each side, etc. 'Part of the Machine' as many have noted came out on the 20 Years of Jethro Tull compilation set the next year, and then was added to the remastered CD when they cared less about album length. One of my fave songs on the album is 'Mountain Men', it is a really nuanced commentary on the role of Scottish regiments in the British military over time. A total Ian topic. And it segues so well into a very personal song 'Waking Edge'. Then 'Raising Steam' to me is a great album ender if you only have 45 min. to work. So, all the things that are great about Tull. Stompy and rocking at times, Martin ripping off solos, then sophisticated, nuanced themes and lyrics from Ian, nice moody playing, introspective themes ... this album does a lot.
Mountain Men is my favorite from this album
Thanks!
Thank you so much David! 🙏
Listen to the “Benefit” Album
Some Dire Straits vibes in this song.🙂
This one and 'She said she was a dancer' very DS
Sadly, I feel like this was the last truly great Tull album. Rock Island, Catfish Rising, and the rest that followed all felt forced and uninspired to me. It's like they poured it all into this one and had nothing left. I absolutely love Jethro Tull, so it hurts me to say anything negative. That said, they put on many great concerts supporting all of those albums, and those were just as fantastic as you'd think. I think they were supporting the Nightcap collection when they had a full bar set-up on stage. I liked that one a lot.
You should listen to Roots to Branches. That’s an exellent album! And I like Dot Com, too.
I didn't love the Rock Island album, aside from the title track, Another Christmas Song and bits here and there. I thought Catfish Rising was at least an interesting attempt at something different, with some successful parts here and there. Roots to Branches was a strong effort overall, in my opinion.
Budapest .. Ian can write this wonderful song about really nothing ... the guys in the band admire a young lady whose helping backstage, and then theyre somewhat dissappointed that they didnt run into her again.
I don't know that they cut "Part of the Machine" from the English and European release. Somebody else might know better. I never heard it until it came out on some bootleg discs and I wilted. It's so scathing, of all of us.
We all know why they cut it. The 1% doesn't like mirrors.
I've always considered CoaK to be one of the weaker albums, preferring even stuff like Dot Com or Under Wraps over most of it. To me a lot of it feels too self indulgent, like a dirty old man justifying his proclivities even though nobody asked. I will admit the arrangements through out were some of the tightest ever and Anderson's growing mastery of the flute reapply shines - but even there it feels self-indulgent. It could be that my initial impressions were formed when I was in a bad mood and that has tainted my feelings ever since.
And music industry politics won them the Grammy :P. I figure someone said "oh, we've never given this long-lived and extremely influential prog band anything, let's do it this year". Nobody saw it coming, they weren't even there because they knew they weren't going to win, so why bother.
Sorry Metallica!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yup. I love that album but no, this deserved to win 100000000%
I like Metallica too, but musicianship, composition, lyrics... no contest. Also, if it wasn't for Jethro Tull and other pioneers, Metallica would not have been! This is not a knock on Metallica, but I think they disrespected Jethro Tull@@L33Reacts