''Under Wraps'' is the 15th studio album by the band Jethro Tull, released in 1984. The songs' subject matter is heavily influenced by bandleader

Ian Anderson Ian Scott Anderson (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician best known for being the chief vocalist, Flute, flautist, and acoustic guitarist of the British rock band Jethro Tull (band), Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist who also p ...

's love of espionage fiction.''Minstrels in the Gallery: History of Jethro Tull'' by David Rees It was controversial among fans of the band due to its electronic/synthesizer-based sound, particularly the use of electronic drums.

Dave Pegg Dave Pegg (born 2 November 1947) is an English multi-instrumentalist and record producer, primarily a bass guitarist. He is the longest-serving member of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention and has been bassist with a number of folk ...

has been quoted as saying that the tracks cut from the sessions for '' Broadsword and the Beast'' would have made a better album, while

Martin Barre Martin Lancelot Barre (; born 17 November 1946) is an English guitarist best known for his longtime role as lead guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull, with whom he recorded and toured from 1968 until the band's initial dissolution in 201 ...

has referred to it as one of his personal favourite Tull albums. The album reached No. 76 on the

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a rec ...

and No. 18 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...

. The single "Lap of Luxury" reached No. 30.

Production

Unlike earlier albums where Anderson was the sole songwriter, ''Under Wraps'' was the first Jethro Tull album since ''

This Was ''This Was'' is the debut studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released in October 1968. Recorded at a cost of £1200, it is the only Jethro Tull album with guitarist Mick Abrahams, who was a major influence for the sound and mu ...

'' where the majority of songs were co-written between all members of the band, primarily

Peter-John Vettese Peter-John Vettese (born 15 August 1956), also known as Peter Vettese, is a Scottish keyboardist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. Vettese was the keyboardist for progressive rock band Jethro Tull for most of the 1980s. Early life Pet ...

. This is also the only Jethro Tull album that features no live drummer; all the percussion tracks were programmed electronically. After the recording

Doane Perry Doane Ethredge Perry (born June 16, 1954) is an American musician, composer and author. From 1984 to 2011 he was drummer and percussionist with the band Jethro Tull and has also appeared on hundreds of recordings spanning multiple genres on re ...

joined the band on tour and became their permanent drummer thereafter.

Release

The original 1984 release had 11 tracks, with "Astronomy", "Tundra", "Automotive Engineering" and "General Crossing" only appearing on the cassette version. Of these extra tracks, "General Crossing" became the first Jethro Tull track never to be released on vinyl, as "Astronomy", "Tundra" and "Automotive Engineering" all appeared on the 12-inch single release of "Lap of Luxury". The CD editions of the album carry all 15 tracks. The 2005

enhanced CD Enhanced CD is a certification mark of the Recording Industry Association of America for various technologies that combine audio and computer data for use in both CD-Audio and CD-ROM players. Formats that fall under the ''enhanced CD'' cate ...

also contains a

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

video for "Lap of Luxury".

Live performances

For the 1984 tour to promote ''Under Wraps'', Jethro Tull offered artistic stage production as usual. In a manner quite similar to the ''

Thick as a Brick ''Thick as a Brick'' is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released on 3 March 1972. The album contains one continuous piece of music, split over two sides of an LP record, and is intended as a parody of the concept a ...

'' tour, the roadies appeared onstage sweeping the floor, counting the audience and studying the place. All band members and instruments were covered in "wraps", with Anderson then releasing them and the music starting. Anderson was suffering from vocal problems and was warned by his doctors not to tour. Anderson ignored this advice and went on tour, straining his throat in the process of performing the album's vocally demanding songs, resulting in surgery and an extended hiatus from the band.

Track listing

Original vinyl

CD

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

drum programming Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices and computer software, such as sequencers and workstations or hardware synthesizers, sampler and sequencers, to generate sounds of musical instruments. These mu ...

Fairlight CMI The Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument) is a digital synthesizer, music sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight. — with links to some Fairlight history and photos It was based on a commerc ...

–

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

–

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

– keyboards, electronic programming ;Additional personnel *

Trevor Key John Trevor Key (10 July 1947 – 6 December 1995) was a British photographer and designer, best known for his work for musical artists of the 1970s and 1980s. One of his best-known covers was for Mike Oldfield's 1973 debut album ''Tubular Bells ...

– cover photo, photography *

John Pasche John Pasche (born 24 April 1945) is a British graphic designer and art director. A Brighton College of Art graduate with an MA from the Royal College of Art, Pasche is best known for being the designer of the tongue and lips logo for The Rol ...

– artwork, cover design * Sheila Rock – photography

Charts

References

External links

* * ( enhanced) {{Authority control Jethro Tull (band) albums 1984 albums Chrysalis Records albums Albums produced by Ian Anderson