Thick As A Brick

Thick as a Brick was Jethro Tull's first deep progressive rock offering, coming four years after the release of their first album. The epic album is notable for its many musical themes, time signature changes and tempo shifts--all of which were features of the progressive rock scene which was emerging at the time. In addition, the instrumentation includes harpsichord, xylophone, timpani, violin, lute, trumpet, saxophone, and a string section--all uncommon in blues-based rock.
Band leader Ian Anderson was surprised by the critical reaction to the previous album, Aqualung, as a "concept album", a label he has firmly rejected to this day. In an interview on In the Studio with Redbeard (which spotlighted Thick as a Brick), Anderson's response to the critics was: "If the critics want a concept album we'll give the mother of all concept albums and we'll make it so bombastic and so over the top." Ian Anderson has been quoted as stating that Thick as a Brick was written "because everyone was saying we were a progressive rock band, so we decided to live up to the reputation and write a progressive album, but done as a parody of the genre." With Thick as a Brick, the band created an album deliberately integrated around one concept: a poem by an intelligent English boy (named Gerald) about the trials of growing up. Beyond this, the album was a send-up of all pretentious "concept albums". (The simile "Thick as a brick", in English, is an expression signifying someone who is "stupid; slow to learn or understand".)
Anderson also stated in that interview that "the album was a spoof to the albums of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, much like what the movie Airplane! had been to Airport." The formula was successful, and the album reached number one on the charts in the United States. This, however, doesn't take into account that ELP's Tarkus was released less than nine months before, and Yes had yet to make concept albums when Thick As A Brick was released.