Crest of a Knave is a studio album by British rock band Jethro Tull. It was… Read Full Bio ↴Crest of a Knave is a studio album by British rock band Jethro Tull. It was released in 1987.
The album relied more heavily on Martin Barre's electric guitar than the band had since the 1970s which made the album the more popular among Tull fans as many of them disapproved of the electronic/synthesizer direction followed by Jethro Tull in the early and mid-1980s. However, several tracks still featured drum machine instead of a live drummer. Keyboardist Peter-John Vettese was now absent and it was Ian Anderson who contributed the synth programming. The album sleeve only listed Ian Anderson, Martin Barre and Dave Pegg as official band members.
The album was a critical and commercial success. Jethro Tull went on to win the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental. It was highly controversial as many did not consider the album or even the band to be hard rock or heavy metal. Furthermore, they beat heavily favoured Metallica (…And Justice for All) and critics' choice Jane's Addiction (Nothing's Shocking). Under advisement from their manager, no one from the band turned up to the award ceremony, as they were told that they had no chance of winning. In response to the controversy, the band's record label Chrysalis took out an advert in a British music periodical with the line, "The flute is a (heavy) metal instrument!" In 2007, the win was named one of the 10 biggest upsets in Grammy history by Entertainment Weekly.
The style of Crest has been compared to that of Dire Straits, in part because Anderson no longer had the vocal range he once possessed (the result of then-recent throat surgery). Tull's frank treatment of sexuality was unabated, however. The album contains the popular live song "Budapest", which depicts a backstage scene with a shy local female stagehand.
The original vinyl edition didn't feature songs "Dogs In The Midwinter" and "The Waking Edge". Otherwise the song order was the same.
The album relied more heavily on Martin Barre's electric guitar than the band had since the 1970s which made the album the more popular among Tull fans as many of them disapproved of the electronic/synthesizer direction followed by Jethro Tull in the early and mid-1980s. However, several tracks still featured drum machine instead of a live drummer. Keyboardist Peter-John Vettese was now absent and it was Ian Anderson who contributed the synth programming. The album sleeve only listed Ian Anderson, Martin Barre and Dave Pegg as official band members.
The album was a critical and commercial success. Jethro Tull went on to win the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental. It was highly controversial as many did not consider the album or even the band to be hard rock or heavy metal. Furthermore, they beat heavily favoured Metallica (…And Justice for All) and critics' choice Jane's Addiction (Nothing's Shocking). Under advisement from their manager, no one from the band turned up to the award ceremony, as they were told that they had no chance of winning. In response to the controversy, the band's record label Chrysalis took out an advert in a British music periodical with the line, "The flute is a (heavy) metal instrument!" In 2007, the win was named one of the 10 biggest upsets in Grammy history by Entertainment Weekly.
The style of Crest has been compared to that of Dire Straits, in part because Anderson no longer had the vocal range he once possessed (the result of then-recent throat surgery). Tull's frank treatment of sexuality was unabated, however. The album contains the popular live song "Budapest", which depicts a backstage scene with a shy local female stagehand.
The original vinyl edition didn't feature songs "Dogs In The Midwinter" and "The Waking Edge". Otherwise the song order was the same.
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Crest Of A Knave
Jethro Tull Lyrics
Budapest I think she was a middle-distance runner... (The translation…
Dogs in the Midwinter You ever had a day like I had today, when things…
Jump Start In the dark of the city backwoods, something stirs then…
Mountain Men The poacher and his daughter throw soft shadows on the…
Part of the Machine Everybody's jumping on the circus train. Some jump high, so…
Raising Steam Over high plains, through the snow Roll those tracks out, do…
Said She Was a Dancer She said she was a dancer, if I believed it,…
Steel Monkey As the moon slips up, and the sun sets down, I'm…
The Waking Edge As I wake up in a room somewhere Dawn light not…