Thick as a Brick 2

Concept overview

According to Anderson, TAAB 2 (pronounced /tæb tuː/ by Anderson) focuses on Gerald Bostock, the fictional boy genius author of the original album, forty years later. "I wonder what the eight-year-old Gerald Bostock would be doing today. Would the fabled newspaper still exist?" The follow-up album presents five divergent, hypothetical life stories for Gerald Bostock, including a greedy investment banker, a homosexual homeless man, a soldier in the Afghan War, a sanctimonious evangelist preacher, and a most ordinary man who (married and childless) runs a corner store; by the end of the album, however, all five possibilities seem to converge in a similar concluding moment of gloomy or pitiful solitude. In March 2012, to follow the style of the mock-newspaper cover (The St Cleve Chronicle and Linwell Advertiser) of the original Thick as a Brick album, an online newspaper was set up, simply titled StCleve.

Reception

AllMusic gave three stars to the album, calling it: "cleaner and streamlined, not as indulgent or idealistic as [Anderson] younger work, boasting a more sensible structure, yet it still bears all of his signatures from the flute to rambling folk-rock".

The album debuted at No. 55 on the Billboard chart, at No. 13 in the German Albums Chart, at No. 12 in the Finnish Album Chart, at No. 19 in the Austrian Album Charts, at No. 30 in the Norwegian Album Charts, at No. 31 in the Swiss Album Charts, at number No. 74 on the Canadian Albums Chart, at No. 35 on the UK charts, at No. 76 in the Dutch Album Chart and at No. 99 on the Spanish charts.

Live performances

Anderson performed the entire album live on tour in 2012. In August 2014, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson released CD/DVD/Blu-ray Thick as a Brick - Live in Iceland. The concert was recorded in Reykjavík, Iceland on 22 June 2012 and featured complete Thick as a Brick and Thick as a Brick 2 performances by the Ian Anderson Touring Band.

Track listing

The original Thick as a Brick consists of only two long tracks comprising a single song, while the TAAB 2 lists 17 separate songs merged into 13 distinct tracks (some labelled as medleys), although also all flowing together much like a single song.

All tracks written by Ian Anderson.

DVD

The 2-disc edition includes a DVD with the following contents:

Personnel