Jethro Tull "Living in the Past" CD/Blu-Ray Deluxe Edition out Summer 2025!

[key_wiz]

And being a metal fan myself, I watched the Grammys that year and watched the whole thing unfold before my eyes. I worked in three (3) record stores (Record Factory, Wherehouse Records and Tapes and Spirit Records and Video) from 1986 until I graduated from college in 1991, and I sold both Metallica and Jethro Tull albums and can honestly say that there were definitely much better metal/hard rock releases that the academy could and should have chosen in 1988/1989. I can tell you that many, MANY people including Metallica fans that were put off by the Metallica release because of the way it was recorded and sounded (Zero bass and drums that sounded like tin cans!). It wasn't until they released "One" as a video on MTV that the record finally started to get some traction and began to sell at retail. Jethro Tull was coming out of "the woods" or "fish farm" so to speak after a couple of early 80's releases that did NOTHING sales wise and found Mr Anderson in a rather diminished vocal capacity. "Crest of a Nave" and their 20th Anniversary box set certainly put the band back into the public eye for the first time in years so it really didn't surprise me (or Iron Maiden's bassist and self professed Tull fanatic, Steve Harris) that they won the inaugural Grammy for "Best Hard Rock/Metal" performance. A lot of the "outrage" is hindsight at best and revisionist at worst.

I was working for Tower in Las Vegas at the time. I certainly remember the metal heads there being upset about it.

The Grammys (and the Oscars, FWIW) often give out what are essentially 'lifetime achievement' awards, and a lot of people --- including Ian Anderson himself, IIRC -- assumed their winning the award was more for their entire body of work than for just that one album.

I also think that with a lot of these awards, they ultimately get voted for by old farts who don't listen to the music but instead vote for the only artist on the list they've ever heard of.

 

[Michael Marshall]

I was working for Tower in Las Vegas at the time. I certainly remember the metal heads there being upset about it.

The Grammys (and the Oscars, FWIW) often give out what are essentially 'lifetime achievement' awards, and a lot of people --- including Ian Anderson himself, IIRC -- assumed their winning the award was more for their entire body of work than for just that one album.

I also think that with a lot of these awards, they ultimately get voted for by old farts who don't listen to the music but instead vote for the only artist on the list they've ever heard of.

All of which you speak aka type, is accurate. There was indeed confusion as to what this new award meant (although it should have been rather self evident "best hard rock & metal") especially for someone as well-read and a stickler for details as Mr Ian Anderson. I will give the Metallica boys a break on this one as my memory serves, they kept going back to Metallica up to and during the TV presentation of this award and almost making it look like they were going to be the "1st winner" of this award...Woopsie does it!!! The TV production team did the almost the same thing to Linda Ronstadt a few years earlier (80 or 81, I believe) when she performed right before the Grammy award that she was up for and ultimately LOST.

 

[scooob]

I was working for Tower in Las Vegas at the time. I certainly remember the metal heads there being upset about it.

The Grammys (and the Oscars, FWIW) often give out what are essentially 'lifetime achievement' awards, and a lot of people --- including Ian Anderson himself, IIRC -- assumed their winning the award was more for their entire body of work than for just that one album.

I also think that with a lot of these awards, they ultimately get voted for by old farts who don't listen to the music but instead vote for the only artist on the list they've ever heard of.

I hesitate to jump into this discussion, off-topic as it is, but:

As has been pointed out already, the Grammy that Tull won was for a combined category, not just metal. By Grammy standards (which you could call conservative or even out of touch), Jethro Tull was a hard rock band, including the Crest Of A Knave album. The outrage of the metal heads over this was soon rectified by separating the two categories.

The larger point, for me anyway, is: do the Grammys have any credibility in the first place? I certainly haven't given them any weight for decades, if ever. The number of tone deaf choices they've made for nominations and winners over the years could fill a book. What they mostly seem to recognize is commercial success and mainstream popularity.

I used to think the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was a valid alternative for recognizing excellence, at least on a career-wide level, but it didn't take too long for that to lose credibility also, especially in the last decade or two. What's a good example, just off the top of my head? Oh yeah: Jethro Tull aren't in there; they've never even been nominated! (Not to open up another can of off-topic worms.)