Released in 2012, Thick as a Brick 2, abbreviated TAAB 2 and subtitled Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? is the fifth studio album by Ian Anderson, and is a follow-up of Thick as a Brick, Jethro Tull’s highly acclaimed 1972 album. Thick As A Brick 2 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?” – Ian Anderson. 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 St Cleve.
Some 40 years after the release of Jethro Tull's prog landmark Thick as a Brick, chief Tull Ian Anderson crafts a sequel. Sensibly titled Thick as a Brick 2, this 2012 set brings us up to speed with the life of Gerald Bostock, who was a mere lad of 10 at the time of TAAB but is now an adult shouldering a myriad of responsibilities. His disappointments and mild triumphs make him a different man than he was, yet underneath it all he's still that recognizable child, and the same can be said for Anderson's music: it's cleaner and streamlined, not as indulgent or idealistic as his younger work, boasting a more sensible structure, yet it still bears all of his signatures from the flute to rambling folk-rock. To criticize TAAB2 for not having a clear hook to pull you inside is unfair: Anderson is assuming a familiarity with his work, so he's giving himself time to write around the point, taking diversions wherever he finds them, sometimes in the form of eight-minute mini-suites, sometimes in the form of brief two-minute interludes. TAAB2 doesn't sound contemporary but it doesn't sound classic either – it sounds caught between the two eras, as if it was recorded in 1990. That may turn off some listeners, but they're the kind who wouldn't spend any time with an Anderson album anyway. Those diehards who are still curious after all these years will find Thick as a Brick 2 an effective, if not quite compelling, sequel to a beloved classic.
~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music
Track List:
01. From a Pebble Thrown [0:03:06.14]
02. Pebbles Instrumental [0:03:30.20]
03. Might-Have-Beens [0:00:50.32]
04. Upper Sixth Loan Shark [0:01:13.03]
05. Banker Bets, Banker Wins [0:04:27.38]
06. Swing It Far [0:03:28.02]
07. Adrift and Dumfounded [0:04:25.14]
08. Old School Song [0:03:06.53]
09. Wootton Bassett Town [0:03:43.43]
10. Power and Spirit [0:01:58.73]
11. Give Till It Hurts [0:01:12.04]
12. Cosy Corner [0:01:24.45]
13. Shunt and Shuffle [0:02:12.27]
14. A Change of Horses [0:08:04.31]
15. Confessional [0:03:08.39]
16. Kismet in Suburbia [0:04:17.20]
17. What-Ifs, Maybes and Might-Have-Beens [0:03:36.03]
Exact Audio Copy V1.5 from 20. February 2020
EAC extraction logfile from 8. November 2022, 17:12
Jethro Tull`s Ian Anderson / Thick as a Brick 2 [TOCP-71283]
Used drive : HL-DT-STBD-RE BH10LS38 Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:06.14 | 0 | 13963
2 | 3:06.14 | 3:30.20 | 13964 | 29733
3 | 6:36.34 | 0:50.32 | 29734 | 33515
4 | 7:26.66 | 1:13.03 | 33516 | 38993
5 | 8:39.69 | 4:27.38 | 38994 | 59056
6 | 13:07.32 | 3:28.02 | 59057 | 74658
7 | 16:35.34 | 4:25.14 | 74659 | 94547
8 | 21:00.48 | 3:06.53 | 94548 | 108550
9 | 24:07.26 | 3:43.43 | 108551 | 125318
10 | 27:50.69 | 1:58.73 | 125319 | 134241
11 | 29:49.67 | 1:12.04 | 134242 | 139645
12 | 31:01.71 | 1:24.45 | 139646 | 145990
13 | 32:26.41 | 2:12.27 | 145991 | 155917
14 | 34:38.68 | 8:04.31 | 155918 | 192248
15 | 42:43.24 | 3:08.39 | 192249 | 206387
16 | 45:51.63 | 4:17.20 | 206388 | 225682
17 | 50:09.08 | 3:36.03 | 225683 | 241885
Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename D:\Rips by Alder\Jethro Tull`s Ian Anderson - Thick as a Brick 2 [TOCP-71283].wav
Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 7.9 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 70EDE203
Copy CRC 70EDE203
Copy OK
No errors occurred
AccurateRip summary
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All tracks accurately ripped
End of status report
---- CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
[CTDB TOCID: toXMQcLdnTCQDqxYYe90BniipNw-] found
Submit result: toXMQcLdnTCQDqxYYe90BniipNw- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (714/726) Accurately ripped
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==== Log checksum E4BBF1286F58D44E82924302342106098930487A3DDE5E9B7E7FF9403A9B5F48 ====
[CUETools log; Date: 10.11.2022 22:31:47; Version: 2.1.6]
[CTDB TOCID: toXMQcLdnTCQDqxYYe90BniipNw-] found.
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (715/727) Accurately ripped
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[AccurateRip ID: 001ed3f9-018b7f48-0a0c9911] found.
Track [ CRC | V2 ] Status
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Offsetted by -12:
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Offsetted by -108:
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Offsetted by -30:
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17 [648ada80] (000/403) No match (V2 was not tested)
Track Peak [ CRC32 ] [W/O NULL] [ LOG ]
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