“I think we all knew instinctively that Aqualung was going to be an important album. It would either be the next step up or it would be the beginning of a decline; I was sure that things were not just going to stay the same.”
Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson’s prophecy was correct. Aqualung was the pivotal album in the career of the band. It was their breakthrough album in America, cracking the Top 10 in the summer of 1971 and spending the rest of that year in the chart. Even though Tull’s next two albums, Thick As A Brick and Passion Play, went to No.1 in the US (unlike in the UK, where Tull’s popularity was dipping), Aqualung remains the band’s biggest-selling album; the last time Anderson checked (and as a conscientious musician and businessman he does so fairly regularly) worldwide sales stood at 12 million.
