25th Anniversary Box Set

Here's a rhetorical question: Does a band really need to put out two boxed sets within five years of each other?

25th Anniversary Box Set
Provided By:The Daily Vault

25th Anniversary Box Set
Jethro Tull
Chrysalis Records, 1993
REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/30/2004
Here's a rhetorical question: Does a band really need to put outtwo boxed sets within five years of each other?
That's the question one would have to ask of Ian Anderson, theliving, breathing force behind Jethro Tull. It was one thing forAnderson to help compile 20 Years Of Jethro Tull, a set which did a good job ofchronicling the band's history up to their comeback (if one couldreally use that term, since the group never went away). But torelease a set like 25th Anniversary Box Set -- a set which cost me $80 back inthe day, and which is now out-of-print -- just five years later,and feature precious little new material, was a questionablemove.
When I first listened to it shortly after buying it, I believedI had gotten royally ripped off. Dusting it off for the first timein a decade as part of this retrospective on Tull, I was able toappreciate some of the nuances I hadn't seen the first time around-- and, indeed, the performances are pleasant enough. Yet one hasto wonder whether there was something better that Anderson couldhave provided the fans with -- say, the boxed set of bootlegrecordings promised in the booklet which has nevermaterialized.
First things first: there is absolutely no reason that Andersonneeded to include a disc of Jethro Tull's "classic" songs remixed,for a few reasons. First, he absolutely butchered "Songs From TheWood" -- Ian, I love ya, but you don't fix what ain't broken, bub.Second, no matter what, long-time fans were going to find somethingmissing from this collection. Third -- and most importantly --there are so many best-of collections out there (even back in 1993)that it was sheer redundancy to re-package them again.

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