The best album of all time according to Ian Anderson

Jethro Tull was formed in Luton, Bedfordshire, England back in 1967 and became in the following decades one of the most influential Progressive Rock bands of all time. Under the leadership of the multi-instrumentalist and singer Ian Anderson they have released 23 studio albums and sold an estimated amount of more than 60 million records worldwide.

Many of their albums are considered some of the best in the history of music and were an inspiration for countless artists over the decades. Ian Anderson is the only member of the group who was part of all their records and he always had a broad musical taste. It can be seen in the album that he said is the best of all time.

The best album of all time according to Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson started his musical career in 1962, when he was still a teenager in England. He was in the middle of all the music revolution that was happening in the United Kingdom.

He first tried to be a guitarist but as he said many times, he was scared when he saw artists like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. That made him look for another instrument. He curiously found the flute when he had to return the guitar he couldn’t afford anymore to the store.

The instrument was extensivly used by Tull on all their albums and continues to be a main part of their sound. Anderson always had a broad musical taste that not only includes Progressive Rock groups. He also likes heavier bands like Motörhead and The Ramones.

But obviously, since one of the main foundations of the Prog Rock genre is Classical Music, he also loves the old composers. So it’s not a surprise that he revealed in an interview with Classic Rock in 2023 that the greatest album of all time in his opinion is The Deutsche Grammophon recording of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony”.

Anderson said:

“The Deutsche Grammophon recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, from around 1962. I became besotted with his symphonies, particularly the Ninth. It’s stayed with me all my life. Not very rock’n’roll, but in a different kind of away, yes it is rock’n’roll,” Ian Anderson said.

As the Jethro Tull leader said, the famous recording of Beethoven’s pieces were conducted by the Austrian conductor Herbert Von Karajan that died many decades later in 1989.

He is the best-selling classic music recording artist of all time, since he sold an estimated amount of more than 200 million records. However, his career was also controversial since he conducted the Berlin State Opera during the World War II.

It was after watching Stanley Kubrick’s “Clockwork Orange” that Anderson got into Classical Music

Curiously, when Jethro Tull already had released a few albums, Anderson was still not a big Classical music fan. He had been exposed to that kind of music in his teenage years. Also during the making of the album “Stand Up” there was a “Bach” piece on it. However, he didn’t used to listen to that kind of music.

It only was after watching the classic Stanley Kubrick movie “Clockwork Orange” (1971) that he got into that music genre. That consequently led him to find the Herbert Von Karajan album as he told Desert Sun in 2019.

“I’ve never studied classical music, but I do listen to it. I started with classical music seriously in the early ‘70s. It came through a Stanley Kubrick movie. (The film) employed the music of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ which was scored by Wendy Carlos.”

Anderson continued:

“It was shiny new, programmable synthesizer music, which she (used to) faithfully reproduce the 9th Symphony. It became a starting point for me. I quickly moved to (Herbert) Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. Is probably where I got into symphonic classical music in a way that was very inspiring. Over the years, I just continued to listen to a bigger variety of classical music. At the moment, my favorite is Handel,” Ian Anderson said.