1970 Album of the Week, April 16-22: Benefit, by Jethro Tull

It seems like a lot of my picks for "1970 Albums of the Week" owe a lot, as Ian Anderson says of Benefit (released on 04/20), to things like "the pressures of an extensive U.S. tour and frustration with the music business." Not a lot of debut albums on my "of the week" list. Many were recorded in a kind of hangover period as the '60s drew to an end with lots of competition to get the next big album out, the next big tour in motion, and the next big niche or craze into the public ear.

Those pressures ended up crushing some bands and transforming others from lumps of coal to diamonds. Jethro Tull's next two albums -- Aqualung and Thick as a Brick -- fall into the indispensable category, and there are definite echose of Benefit on both.

Here's "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me":