Crest of a Knave

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Crest of a Knave
Studio album by Jethro Tull

Publication
(s)

September 1987

Label (s) Chrysalis

Format (s)

LP , MC , CD

Genre (s)

Progressive rock , heavy metal or hard rock

Title (number)

7, 9, 10

running time

39:03, 48:48, 55:32

occupation
  • Ian Anderson - flute, vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion, keyboard
  • Doane Perry - drums for Farm on the Freeway and Mountain Men

production

Ian Anderson

Studio (s)

Farmyard Studios, Black Barn Studio

chronology
Under Wraps
(1984)
Crest of a Knave Rock Island
(1989)

Crest of a Knave is the sixteenth studio album by the British progressive rock group Jethro Tull , it was released on September 10, 1987 in Great Britain and on September 11, 1987 in the USA. It won the only Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental , which led to heated discussions due to bands such as AC / DC and Metallica , which are much more oriented towards Heavy Metal or Hard Rock , and led to the introduction of the two categories Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance performed to avoid such controversies.

album

The album is less flute-heavy than the Jethro Tull albums of the 1970s, but Martin Barre's guitar playing dominates. In addition, many songs were accompanied by a drum computer instead of a real drummer. Only Ian Anderson, Dave Pegg and Martin Barre are named as band members on the cover. Peter-John Vettese , the band's former keyboardist, has been replaced by Ian Anderson as keyboardist.

LP version

The fast rock song Steel Monkey describes men on high-rise construction sites who work under difficult conditions. The singer presents himself as a masculine, "tough" steel scaffolding builder. The electric guitar dominates as an accompanying instrument. Farm on a Freeway is a farmer's complaint about the loss of his farm for the construction of a freeway. The themes of “loss of identity” and “environmental protection”, also present in many of the band's other songs, are in the foreground. The piece starts with a keyboard / flute solo and gets louder and louder. In the instrumental part, the focus is on the flute and electric guitar. Also Jumpstart is about alienation. The singer wants to participate in the life of the rich; but he does not succeed, so that his life loses meaning. The song begins with acoustic guitar and flute and then turns into an electric guitar-dominated rock song. She Said She Was a Dancer describes the distance between two people from both sides of the “ Iron Curtain ”. The melancholy looking piece is performed rather slowly.

The extensive piece Budapest in the style of progressive rock with a lyrically complex instrumental part is inspired by a concert by the band in Budapest in 1986 . Anderson describes in the song the encounter with an athletic waitress - but the summery eroticism has no consequences. Mountain Men describes people living independently in Scotland and the feelings of the men who had to go to distant wars from there. In the instrumental section, the focus is on synthesizers and electric guitar. Raising Steam is about people from the Thatcher era who had to travel long distances by train because of economic hardship. The last stanza can be understood as a sexual allusion ("I'll be your locomotive blowing off its slack.") The fast rock song imitates the rhythm of a steam locomotive.

Bonus title

Dogs in the Midwinter is a pessimistic look at the crumbling western society of the 1980s and the Cold War . The worn, melodically intricate in foreplay The Waking Edge describes the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

Cover

The band's dark lettering is on top of the cover, with very small, dark blue letters “JETHRO” and large, yellow and white decorated letters “TULL”. Below is a silver-gold, bearded figure with a crown, reminiscent of a king and wearing a dark blue and half white shield with a coat of arms, showing a black cat hunching over and looking menacingly. The outlines of the cat are white on the dark blue half and the same shade of yellow on the white side as the ornate writing. A figure with a sheep's head is placed around it. Above it sits a bird on a flute. At the bottom of the cover is the album title in a similar small font as "JETHRO" above. The background color is - depending on the edition - more or less light beige, which is uneven. The cover alludes to the album title, which, depending on the reading , can be translated as “coat of arms of the squire ” or “peak of a rascal” (apparently Ian Anderson).

There is a similar emblem on the back. It shows the black cat in front of an ornate metal frame on which the band name is written. Behind the cat you can see parts of the acoustic guitar, flute and electric guitar. Below are the titles, the respective musicians and the credits. The background color is the same as on the front.

These credits also contain ironic statements, this time it says “Recorded just round the corner from the kitchen in the room behind the door which used to be painted white but isn't any more” - in German, for example: Recorded directly at the corner of the kitchen behind the door, which used to be painted white, but is no longer .

All the lyrics are printed on the cover of the record, the band name is printed in the same size as on the front of the cover in blue and white in the upper third.

The Grammy Awards and the aftermath

In February 1989, Jethro Tull was able to assert himself at the 31st Grammy Awards for the award of a joint Grammy for the genres of hard rock and heavy metal . The other candidates were AC / DC with the album Blow Up Your Video , Jane's Addiction with Nothing's Shocking , Iggy Pop with the song Cold Metal and the favorite Metallica , which incidentally Band Metal also the first in conferring the title One played with ... And Justice for All .

Jethro Tull followed the advice of the record company Chrysalis Records and did not take part in the award ceremony, as a win would have been unlikely anyway, so the result was all the more surprising. According to a later interview, Ian Anderson stated that he was glad he didn't go to the awards ceremony because he didn't know how to receive the award, and there were boos from the audience.

In response to the criticism, the record company published an ad in Billboard magazine with a picture of the band's trademark, a flute, on rebar with the line “The flute is a heavy metal instrument!” And congratulations on winning the Grammy. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences drew its conclusions from the incident and set up two separate categories for Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance for the next Grammy Awards . At the presentation of the Grammy for the best metal performance in 1992, the drummer of the band Metallica, Lars Ulrich , thanked Jethro Tull in the acceptance speech for the award for the album Metallica for not having released an album, which is wrong , because Catfish Rising by Jethro Tull had been published during the nomination period .

Track list

LP version

page A

  1. Steel Monkey  (3:35)
  2. Farm on the Freeway  (6:29)
  3. Jump Start  (4:52)
  4. Said She Was a Dancer  (3:40)

Side B

  1. Budapest  (10:00)
  2. Mountain Men  (6:21)
  3. Raising Steam  (4:06)

CD version

  1. Steel Monkey  (3:37)
  2. Farm on the Freeway  (6:31)
  3. Jump Start  (4:55)
  4. Said She Was a Dancer  (3:41)
  5. Dogs in the Midwinter  (4:29)
  6. Budapest  (10:05)
  7. Mountain Men  (6:21)
  8. The Waking Edge  (4:47)
  9. Raising Steam  (4:12)

Extra title

The revised CD from 2005 also contains this title:

  1. Part of the Machine  (6:54)

Single releases

In 1987 Steel Monkey , Jump Start , Farm on the Freeway and 1988 Said She Was a Dancer were released as singles, but the success remained rather moderate and only Farm on the Freeway and Steel Monkey reached the US top 10.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Brief information and lyrics of the album at collecting-tull.com (English), accessed on January 1, 2013
  2. a b interpretations at cupofwonder.com (English; archive version)
  3. a b Interpretations ( Memento from June 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) at cupofwonder.com (English)
  4. ^ Richard De Atley: Rappers ambivalent about inclusion in Grammys . In: Lawrence Journal-World , The World Company, February 19, 1989, p. 2D. Retrieved January 6, 2013. 
  5. Rockin 'on an Island ( Memento from May 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), in Kerrang!
  6. The flute is a heavy metal instrument! . Archived from the original on September 23, 2013. Retrieved January 6, 2013.
  7. Grammys 1992 . In: Grammy Flachbacks . MTV . Retrieved January 6, 2013.
  8. Information about the revised CD on musik-sammler.de , accessed on January 1, 2013