| Thick as a Brick 2 | |
| Type: | Studio |
| Artist: | Ian Anderson |
| Cover: | Ian Anderson - Thick As A Brick 2.jpg |
| Released: | 2 April 2012 |
| Recorded: | March 2011, November 2011 |
| Genre: | Progressive rock |
| Length: | 53:45 |
| Label: | Chrysalis/EMI Records 50999 6 38726 2 0 F2-38726 |
| Producer: | Ian Anderson |
| Prev Title: | Ian Anderson Plays the Orchestral Jethro Tull |
| Prev Year: | 2005 |
| Next Title: | Homo Erraticus |
| Next Year: | 2014 |
Thick as a Brick 2, abbreviated TAAB 2 and subtitled Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?, is the fifth studio album by Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, released in 2012 as a sequel album to Thick as a Brick, Jethro Tull's 1972 parody concept album. It entered the Billboard chart at No. 55.
According to Anderson, TAAB 2 (which he pronounces) 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?"[1] 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.[2] 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 StCleve.
AllMusic gave three stars to the album, calling it: "cleaner and streamlined, not as indulgent or idealistic as [Anderson's] younger work, boasting a more sensible structure, yet it still bears all of his signatures from the flute to rambling folk-rock".[3]
The album debuted at No. 55 on the Billboard chart, at No. 13 in the German Albums Chart,[4] at No. 12 in the Finnish Album Chart,[5] at No. 19 in the Austrian Album Charts,[6] at No. 30 in the Norwegian Album Charts,[7] at No. 31 in the Swiss Album Charts,[8] at number No. 74 on the Canadian Albums Chart,[9] at No. 35 on the UK charts,[10] at No. 76 in the Dutch Album Chart[11] and at No. 99 on the Spanish charts.[12]
See main article: Thick as a Brick - Live in Iceland. Anderson performed the entire album live on tour in 2012.[13] In August 2014, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson released CD/DVD/Blu-ray Thick as a Brick - Live in Iceland. The concert was recorded in Reykjavík, Iceland on 22 June 2012 and featured complete Thick as a Brick and Thick as a Brick 2 performances by the Ian Anderson Touring Band.[14]
The original Thick as a Brick consists of only two long tracks comprising a single song, while the TAAB 2 lists 17 separate songs merged into 13 distinct tracks (some labelled as medleys), although also all flowing together much like a single song.
The 2-disc edition includes a DVD-9 with the following contents:
| Chart (2012) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| Billboard Top 200[15] | 55 | |
| Top Rock Albums | 18 | |
| UK Albums Chart[16] | 35 | |
| Hungarian Albums Chart[17] | 2 |